WestLaw ends free printing for students but LexisAdvance will not so…?

June 17, 2013

Students cannot print for FREE

All law schools have been notified that as of June 30, 2013, WestLaw will no longer offer FREE printing to students.

Therefore, in a course’s TWEN site, if a professor links to Westlaw or WestLawNext, students who want to print a case will have to pay the law school’s per page fee for printing.

lexis adv

through LexisAdvance  law students can still print for FREE

However, LexisAdvance will still offer FREE printing to law students.

To enable law students to print for free, there are THREE things that a professor can do in his/her course’s TWEN site:

1. Add a link to the LexisAdvance web site in the Left Navigation of the course page

  • In your TWEN course site, click on Modify Course on the bottom left navigation
  • Under TWEN | Course Elements, click on Create/Modify Web Link
  •  Under Step 1, check Display the web links in the left navigation
  • Under Step 2, add the name and URL (LexisAdvance   http://www.lexis.com/lawschool  )
  • Click Submit Web Link Changes on the bottom.
  • You will now see LexisAdvance displayed in the left navigation. (If you click on Manage Links, you can change the link order, etc.)

2. Add a LexisAdvance link to cases cited in your syllabus or other course document

  • Create a Syllabus or a Course Document with citations.
  • Email the Syllabus or Course Document to your school Lexis rep.
  • Your rep will link the citations to LexisAdvance (using a tool that Lexis has created.)
  • Your rep will then e-mail the document back to you.
  • In your TWEN course site, click on Syllabus or Course Materials in the left navigation.
  • Click on Add an Item from the Add drop-down menu
  • Add a Document Title and browse to find the linked document that your Lexis rep e-mailed to you.
  • UNCHECK “Mark citations in the attached file to link to Westlaw” AND
  • UNCHECK “Automatically mark citations in the message text to link to Westlaw.”
  • Then click Submit on the bottom.
  • Now the cases in the document are linked to LexisAdvance and the students can print them for FREE.

3. Add links to the cases from LexisAdvance to your TWEN course site.

    • In LexisAdvance, find the case that you want students to access and open it.
    • Click on “Copy Citation”
    • Right click on the citation and select “Copy Shortcut”
    • In your TWEN course site, click on Course Materials in the left navigation.
    • Click on Add a Link from the Add drop-down menu.
    • Add a Link Title and paste the link url to the case (from LexisAdvance) in the Link URL space.
    • Click Save.
    • Students will be able to print this case for FREE.
    • Repeat the above steps for other cases.

For any further questions regarding printing, law school professors should contact their Westlaw and/or Lexis reps.

Leave a Comment » | Legal Education, Lexis, Technology, WestLaw | Permalink
Posted by Darlene

Virtual Live Blogging from the CALI Conference – Day 2

June 14, 2013

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Again I am watching the sessions via YouTube.

In this session, Smith discussed lessons learned from this year’s 1L Legal Research’s flipped classroom.

    • They used the tools below to create a varied and interactive set of classes:
      • Camtasia videos and quizzing,
      • review exercises using Blackboard’s “test” tool,
      • video narratives of former student experiences,
      • interactive clicker response slides in the classroom, (class set of TurningTechnologies)
      • CALI lessons (both homegrown and “official”),
      • and an early focus on print resources to introduce students to tools like indexes and tables of contents.
    • In class exercises were collaborative
    • They did not abandon the “Socratic” Method
  • One Less Textbook To Drag Around: Creating an Online Learning Experience for 1L Legal Skills Students - Lucie Olejnikova & Cynthia Pittson, Pace University School of Law
    • team taught legal research as part of legal skills course
    • already had created videos to teach some tech topics (available on youtube)
    • tried many legal research books but none fit the needs of their first year students
    • they decided to make their own and put it online
    • couldn’t do it in-house, had to outsource – used LibGuide bySpringShare – inexpensive & easy to use (about $100 per year)
    • platform must be easy to use, accessible at all times and from any device
    • must appeal to all learning styles, incorporating text, graphics, audio, video & self-testing options.
    • They used a wide variety of tools, information, and websites already available – Westlaw, CALI
    • Each module must have a consistent look and be easy to navigate
    • private online course pack – only for their students
    • used Google analytics to track its use
    • next – link videos, add more content for moot court and writing competitions
    • add Bloomberg Law in the fall

 In this presentation, Ginsberg, Barney & Farrell  discussed what they saw at the April 2013 ABA TechShow such as:

    • the Cloud
    • going Paperless
    • Trial Tech
    • social media to market their practice
    • Mac lawyers
    • in the courtroom – AppleTV
    •  social media and geolocation technologies (sometimes in unexpected places) to uncover evidence
    • mobile technologies to “practice on the go
    •  iPad apps – Dropbox, Docstogo, Evernote, Goodreader, iThoughts
    • opening statements
    • predictive coding

1 Comment | Conferences, Legal Education, Technology | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Darlene

Virtual Live Blogging from the CALI Conference – Day 1

June 13, 2013

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I call it “virtual” because I am NOT actually at the conference.  I am watching the sessions live on YouTube.

    1. Mobile users are rushed and distracted.
    2. Mobile = Less
      • Don’t confuse context with intent
    3. Complexity is a dirty word
      • Simple is not simplistic
      • Complex is not complicated
      • Clarity trumps density
    4. Extra taps and clicks are evil.
      • Progressive disclosure
      • Quality is more important than quantity
    5. Gotta have a mobile website
      • There is no mobile web
      • The web experience must be good
      • One web? Yes, do it with one web site
      • Don’t avoid hard decision decisions
      • Start with the mobile look and edit, edit, edit
      • This is only the beginning… (many devices, platforms…)
      • Content (and API) run the show
    6. Mobile is about apps.
      • It is about website.
      • Apps is not a strategy.  It is just an app.
      • Presentation deprecates.
      • Build from the content out.
      • We are ALL cloud developers.
    7. CMS & API are for database nerds.
      • Metadata is the new art direction.
      • Repurpose content NOT design

In this session Quentel discussed how creating an authentic learning environment for students in an online course is more than simply posting videos of the professor online. She also shared some of the learning theory and best practices behind effective online learning courses, and explored some of the tools that schools can use other than a full-blown learning management system.

    • Interaction – students must be required to participate such as threaded discussions
    • Use existing CMS
    • Video is the same as “Sage on the stage” – encourage students to use the pause button…so that it mimics class
    • Students need to be engaged
    • (Talking Head) Video is perfect for “guest speakers”
    • Include CALI Lessons
    • Offer an LLM, offer it online
    • NYS Bar has strict requirements – no asynchronous credit for JD courses
In this session, Bohl & Tausend shared tips that they have found to be successful in moving faculty forward in the effective use of technology in order to enhance student learning outcomes.
    • 50% of their faculty are comfortable with technology
    • role of the Instructional Expert
      • builds relationships
      • advocacy
      • support educational mission
      • accommodate, redirect and compromise
      • never say “no”
    • Challenge: getting faculty to think about innovation without invoking resistance
    • Motivational communication
      • simple, specific, visual
      • move forward with familiar terms
    • Get faculty to share what they do
    • Craft your nomenclature carefully ex: “Coffee talk” vs. “training session”

This presentation offered several models for a flipped classroom in a law school setting.  Then, presenters shared their experiences in running a flipped classroom for a Bar Exam prep course.

  • Flipped classroom began in K-12 with classroom time being used for hands-on activities rather than teaching concepts.  Concepts were presented in chunks via short videos that students watched at home.  They can watch at their own schedule as long as they are watched before class.
  • Several ways to flip:
    • blended classroom – short lecturettes to introduce basic material and guide student reading
    • some lectures occassionally and some assigned videos at home with classroom activities
    •  full lectures online with all class time devoted to hands-on work
  • use Clickers or Response software
    • gauge student understanding
    • use without giving correct answer, have discussion and then re-poll
    • perfect for skills classes
  • grade class activities so students take it seriously
  • case study – Bar Prep
    • course teaches bar exam skills
    • focuses on 6 concepts that appear on bar exam
    • only multiple choice questions
    • required for students whose gpa was 3.0 and below
    • 2 credits – 2x a week, each class was 1.5 hours
    • BarBri already offers video lectures
    • students were able to watch them on their own time
    • all of class time was spent on dissecting multiple choice questions
    • clickers were used also
    • in the future, Sangchompuphen plans to index the lectures so students don’t have to watch a 2 hour video

*** Unfortunately, all the presenters used PowerPoint slides which were very difficult (or impossible) to read. As a result, my notes are a little sketchy.

Look what else I missed:
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Click HERE to watch.

Leave a Comment » | Conferences, Legal Education, Technology | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Darlene

CALI Conference for Law School Computing

June 11, 2013

I have been fortunate to attend several CALI conferences (2008, 2009, 2011).  I have always learned a lot from the presentations and from networking with fellow IT law folks.

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This weekend,  the 23rd Annual CALI Conference for Law School Computing will be held at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law.

This year’s conference will feature several sessions devoted to the flipped classroom such as:

There also will be other sessions that deal with changing how law is taught:

If you are not able to attend, all the sessions are recorded and will be available (along with videos of past conferences) on the CALI Youtube channel.

cali stream

The sessions will webcast live, as well.  (Complete list here)

Leave a Comment » | CALI, Conferences, Legal Education, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Darlene

Interested in Clickers?

June 10, 2013

Articles, Briefs and Reports

  • GoSoapBox Classroom Response System Engages Students EDUCAUSE Review Online. November/December 2012.  This case study explores the use of a classroom response system in Spanish language classes that seemed too small to benefit from the approach.
  • Clickers in the Classroom: Transforming Students into Active Learners, ECAR Research Bulletin, 2011. This research bulletin discusses a program at the University of South Carolina to implement SRSs in the classroom and to study the impacts that the technology has on student outcomes. In our research, we also looked at the challenges that SRSs pose, both to students and to faculty members, and investigated best practices for using this technology.
  • Clicker Implementation Models, EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 2011. Clickers require a significant economic investment; deciding who pays is a key issue that gives rise to two implementation models: institution-pays and students-pay.
  • Clicker Resource Guide: An Instructors Guide to the Effective Use of Personal Response Systems (Clickers) in Teaching, 2010. This guide was written to help instructors understand the answers to these questions, and to help them use personal response systems (“clickers”) in their classes in the most comfortable and pedagogically effective manner.
  • 7 Things You Should Know About Open-Ended Response System, January 2011. An open-ended student response system is an electronic service or application that lets students enter text responses during a lecture or class discussion. Open-ended systems give faculty the option of collecting such free-form contributions from students, in addition to asking the true/false or multiple-choice questions that conventional clicker systems allow.
  • Move Over Socratic Method, ‘Clicker’ Offers Law Profs New Option to Monitor Student Progress, November 2010. As some law profs and law school administrators bemoan or ban the electronic devices that make it easy for today’s students to sit in the back row and text and e-mail during class, a growing number of educational innovators are adding new wireless technology to their arsenal of teaching tools and monitoring devices.
  • Teaching with Clickers in Law, March 2012. A presentation by Derek Buff at the Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law in Knoxville, Tennessee on teaching with clickers.
  • Clickers, March 2010. Douglas Whaley blogs about his use of clickers at Ohio State Law School.

Clickers, Mobile and Web App Polls

Adapted from: http://www.educause.edu/library/clickers/

Leave a Comment » | Assessment, Engagement, Legal Education, Student Response Systems, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Darlene

TWEN Multimedia Options Help Professors Flip the Classroom

May 28, 2013

On May 23, 2013, law school professors were given new functionality within TWEN and no longer need to upload large files to Law School Exchange (LSE) for the purpose of importing back into their TWEN course.

This will make it so much easier to integrate multimedia into their teaching.

  • Simply “Add an item” from your Document Page (like any other document) and browse to your desired audio or video file.

1

  • All MP4, WMV, MP3, WMP, MPG, AVI, MOV, 3GP, M4A, WAV, and AAC are supported.

2

  • File Size Limits for each Multimedia file is 1.25 GB!!! (Previously 15 MB) “All Uploads count again your school’s multimedia document storage pool” just means that you should not use TWEN to store multimedia files. (Limit for each standard document that is not Multimedia (eg Word, PDF) remains the same at 50 MB and files larger than 15 MB count against online file directory limits.)
  • TWEN will detect whether or not professors are uploading multimedia. If a supported multimedia file type is detected they will see a different set of permissions and options. For mulitmedia, a Permission’s box MUST be checked. If professors do not check it, they will see error:

3

  • Professors control whether to allow students to download the Multimedia:

4

  • Depending on what professors select, when students click on “Options” they will see one of these menus. AGAIN, this is controlled by the ADMIN when they upload multimedia. This is not an option available for regular documents, only multimedia:

5   OR

6

 This exciting new TWEN feature will allow professors to add and assign videos for students to view or audio for students to listen to at home, leaving more time in class for other activities…in other words, flipping the class!

2 Comments | Assessment, Engagement, Legal Education, Podcasting/Digital Audio Recording, Technology, TWEN, Video | Permalink
Posted by Darlene

Teaching the “Smartphone Generation”

May 23, 2013

Re-posted from Best Practices for Legal Education blog:

You have experienced a scenario like this:  your students come to class with laptops, Ipads and phones.  They text and email during class. They giggle at something on their screens while you’re lecturing. They’re typing too fast to be taking notes on your lecture.  You walk around the room and see Facebook or other social media sights on their screens.  If you’ve experienced any of this, or just generally wonder about your students’ ability to focus and concentrate when they are used to this kind of constant stimulation, you’re not alone.

Our students grew up on computers, are used to googling the answers to questions, and are not in the habit of reading.  Rather, they read in bits and starts, often clicking on hyperlinks before they read one document front to back.  They often do at least two things at once. Research shows that this constant multitasking affects the brain and its ability to learn. Learning happens when we pay attention and process information.  Multitasking prompts the wrong part of the brain to fire up (the part once used by cavemen to sense danger and flee) as opposed to the front of the brain used for deep focus and concentration.  Some ideas as to how we can change this:

  1. Teach students how to learn.  They think they know, but they likely have never heard the term metacognition (“awareness and knowledge of one’s own cognition”).  They should be instructed in the steps of learning and that law school involves the highest levels of learning—levels they may not have approached prior to law school.
  2. Instruct students on the perils of multitasking.  While they likely think they can do many things at once, that’s not true unless the two things are like reading and chewing gum.  They should know that science has proven that we’re actually task “switching”, jumping from task to task, and that we leak a little mental efficiency with each “switch”.
  3. Teach students about successful learning methods. Many are used to highlighting and rereading to “learn” material.  Cognitive educational theory shows that those are the two least successful study techniques.  Study techniques involving self-questioning, self-explanation, intermittent study of topics, and testing are more successful.
  4.  Teachers should design their courses by first considering the learning objectives and goals and working backwards to ensure they are met.
  5.  Teachers should use more visual aids and visual exercises so as not to overtax any one learning “channel”.  Straight lecture can overburden the verbal channel.  Visual aids and exercises engage more of the students’ learning channels and promote higher levels of learning, particularly where those exercises engage students’ higher order thinking skills.
  6.  Teachers should use more assessments so students can determine early and often whether they are learning the material.  These assessments should mimic the type of assessments on which students’ grades will be based.

Posted by: Shailini Jandial George, Professor at Suffolk University Law School.

And yes, technology tools can help the professor teach the “smartphone” generation.

 

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Posted by Darlene

Can “Flip Teaching” Happen in Law School?

April 22, 2013

Flip teaching is a format of education which reverses the roles of homework and classroom teaching.

The traditional pattern of education has been to have classroom lectures, in which the teacher explains a topic, followed by homework, in which the student does exercises.

In flip teaching, the student first studies the topic by him or herself, typically using video lessons. In the classroom, the student then tries to apply the knowledge by solving problems and doing practical work. The role of the teacher is then to tutor the student when they become stuck, rather than to impart the initial lesson.

Flip teaching supports the following:

  • Formative assessment rather than summative assessment
  • Innovative & engaging classroom activities
  • Experiential & authentic learning
  • Use of technology by teachers to increase student engagement and motivation.
  • Focus on student-centric learning with the teacher only providing directions as to how to complete the experiential activities.
  • Students interacting with each other and the content much more than the teacher.

garver

Though not labelled initially as “flip teaching,” this is really what Prof. Garver does at Central Michigan University and what was discussed in a previous post in this blog. Garver, who uses lecture capture software to record his lectures and then assigns them to students to listen to outside of class,“… gave up lecturing in the classroom (because) he was tired of having to choose between introducing ideas and letting students try putting them into practice. There was never enough time for both.”

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itunesuc

iTunesU is used by many law schools to host videos and podcasts of lectures . (UChicago, Yale Law, NYLS, Suffolk U law, CUNY School of Law, Harvard Law to name a few.)  These videos/podcasts are available to students to watch/listen to outside the classroom.

If you search on YouTube, you will find that Aaron Dewald, Associate Director of the Center for Innovation in Legal Education at the University of Utah College of Law, has posted 11 videos on Cyberlaw, 23 videos on Evidence and 37 videos on Contracts (see example above.). These are also accessible to students as a supplement to their law school curriculum.

legaled

legaled1

The goal of Michele Pistone’s LegalEd website is to offer video lectures that can be assigned by law professors so that they can use class time for interactive activities and formative assessments.

In this blog post, Craig Forcese, Vice Dean & Associate Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa, recaps the “Flipping the Classroom” experiment that he conducted in his Administrative Law class this past semester. I highly recommend reading all his previous posts:

Prof. Forcese concludes the following:

So will I do it again?  Yes.  Will I expand to other courses?  Yes.  Indeed, some of my lessons from this large format class will now be deployed in my seminars — a venue which has always been active learning based. 

Do I recommend it?  In a heartbeat.  Will it be everyone’s cup of tea?  No. Should it exist in every course?  No.  Part of what might make it effective is novelty.  But more than that, there should always be a few courses law students can actually shuffle through.  Active learning is more work for students (although many of them will find that it true because they are revising well-worn time management skills developed in a passive setting).

Is it a panacea to all that ails legal education?  Of course not.  It is a brick in a larger edifice of reform.  Do I think that brick should be mortared into the fabric of my law school?  Absolutely.  Personally, I believe that the law school that gets this one right — the mix of active and passive — will be a place to contend with.

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At Albany Law School, many professors have been narrating their PowerPoint presentations using Adobe Presenter and then posting them as pdfs (with audio) in the course’s TWEN site.  These recorded presentations are assigned as homework. In class, the professors now have more time for discussion and assessments. This is another example of “Flipped Teaching.”

chung makeup

As you see from this post, there are lots of innovative ways to flip your class.  But as Eric Mazur states: “It’s not about the technology, it’s about the pedagogy.”

Could “flip teaching” be successful in law school? The answer is “You’ll never know until you try.”

1 Comment | Engagement, Legal Education, Online/Distance Learning, PowerPoint, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Darlene

CALI LessonLink & Final Exams

April 18, 2013

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CALI lessons are often automatically added to your TWEN course site.

These can be used by law students as they prepare for final exams.

However, if you want to track student lesson usage, LessonLink is the feature of CALI that allows you to do this.

Here are the instructions for creating and using a LessonLink:

  1. Login to http://cali.org with your CALI faculty account (you will need your school authorization code if you haven’t set up your account yet).
  2. Click on ‘CALI LessonLink’ in the right menu.
  3. Click the ‘Create a LessonLink’ link (also found here)
  4. Fill in your course name, semester, and then choose the CALI topic under which you will find the lesson(s) you wish to assign. Check the ones you want to assign.

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  1. Click create LessonLinks.
  2. Use copy and paste to send the entire LessonLink URL(s) to students. You can send it to them by email or place it in your TWEN site.
  3. Check who has run this lesson and scoring details by clicking the same ‘CALI LessonLink’ link, then Current LessonLinks. (Past semesters’ LessonLink details are found under the LessonLink Archives tab.)

LessonLinks are organized into groups called courses. After creating a course with one or more links, you can add more LessonLinks to the course by following the directions in your Current LessonLinks administration page.

Students must run the lesson by clicking the unique URL you gave to them. They cannot simply browse to the CALI website and find the lesson in the CALI Library of Lessons. Please make this clear to your students to avoid confusion.

Students will also need the student authorization code if they have not yet creatd a CALI account.

Here are the instructions in a video:

Leave a Comment » | Assessment, CALI, Games, Legal Education, Online/Distance Learning, Technology, TWEN | Permalink
Posted by Darlene

Live Blogging from the CELT Workshop

April 17, 2013

pistone

On April 17, 2013, Michele Pistone, Professor of Law and Director, Clinic for Asylum, Refugee and Emigrant Services (CARES) at Villanova University School of Law, spoke to the Albany Law School faculty on the topic of “How Emerging Innovations Will Disrupt Legal Education.”

Her engaging presentation began with a clip from 1994 of Bryant Gumble and Katie Couric from the Today Show debating the pronunciation of a mysterious keyboard symbol, the”@” symbol.  From there and Bob Dylan (“The Times They Are A Changin”), she reminisced about buying books and records at neighborhood stores, seeing movies in the theaters, and when TV shows only played once a week, and if you missed them, you had to hope they’d be rerun during the summer.

Yes, this has all changed.  Books and newspapers are now digital.  TV shows and movies can be watched at anytime and on computers and phones. These changes are result of innovations which have created a new world.

However, this is the only world that our students know!! They were born digital.

As a result, our students are visual, connected, relate to one another through technology, have an abundance of information that is available at any time from any place.  They are used to convenience, speed, multi-tasking, immediate feedback and working together on projects, collaborating, sharing, and creating.

So the important question that Prof. Pistone raised was:  In light of these changes, have law schools changed enough?

And her answer was: “Law schools have not changed much in the last 100 years.”

K-16 education has been changing.  We have the addition of  MOOCS (massive open online courses); Khan Academy which offers videos and quizzes that can being used alone or to flip the classroom.  TED ED which makes videos for use in high school – students watch videos online for homework and then can come into class ready to do active problem based learning (thus “flipping the classroom”).

Prof. Pistone recommended reading the book Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clay Christensen.  In it, he introduces the key concepts of sustaining technologies (those that improve the performance of established products) and disruptive technologies. Although “disruptive technologies” result in worse product performance in the short term, they are typically cheaper, simpler, smaller, and, frequently, more convenient to use (Skype being an example.) So we need to adapt to them.

A study conducted by the Department of Education found that blended learning (a combination of online and face-to-face instruction) obtained better results for students and than either face-to-face or completely online learning.  This is something to keep in mind.

So what is next for law schools?

Prof. Pistone recommends focusing on:

  • What we teach – in light of our changing, globalizing, interdisciplinary world
  • How we teach — to cover a wide range of competencies and reach different learning styles
  • How we assess what students are learning – supplementing the final summative exam with formative assessment
  • How we signal to others a student’s competencies

legaled

Lastly, Prof. Pistone introduced her new project called LegalED.  LegalED is a web-based platform that will host teaching materials for legal education.  The materials will include:

  • short videos made for internet viewing
  • problems and exercises
  • assessment tools

This online platform of teaching materials (esp. the short videos) can be used to supplement law school and to “flip” the classroom.

legaled1

Prof. Pistone’s presentation concluded with a lively discussion by faculty on law school competencies that cannot be taught online (such as empathy), mapping competencies to the teaching process, mastery/adaptive learning, bar exam…

If interested, here is the video recording of Michele Pistone’s Tedx presentation, which focuses on the future of higher education:

Leave a Comment » | Assessment, Engagement, Legal Education, Online/Distance Learning, Technology | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Darlene

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