Albany Law Podcasts Are Popular

According the www.classcaster.org , our site for class recordings – www.albanylaw.edu/classrecordings or audio_recordings.classcaster.org is is listed as #3 today for active classcaster Law school sites.  This refers to the number of times the site has been viewed.  Among the most popular items are:

• Business Organizations – 44 hits
• NY Practice Review Pt 2 – 38 hits
• Intro to Tax Review – 25 hits
• NY Practice Review Pt 1 – 20 hits

Our Event Podcast site – podcasts.classcaster.org is listed as #8.

CALI Conference – Day 2

Keynote – Joel Garreau

Session 1 – Technology Use & Practices: What the students want – ASU

They polled 2Ls and 3Ls to ask them what kinds of technology devices they own and use and what kinds of online tools of services (i.e. MySpace, Facebook, etc) they use

• 100% cellphone, 85% mp3 players, 98% laptops, 54% Facebook
• 64% neveruse MySpace
• 62% iTunes, 52% YouTube
• Flickr, NING, Twitter , RSS feeds- most nver heard of it
• Blogs & Wikis - 30% read, 70% never write
• cellphone text messages – 75%. IM – 50%
• ASC has a Facebook page, uses gmail for email, will have their Masters program online
• 50% Online course, 335 partial online course
• 49% would take course online, 35% prfer synchronous, prefer video, audio & slides
• 79% would use podcasts
• technology course courtroom tech 62% lawfirm tech 91%

Session 2 – iTunesU – NY School of Law

discussed how to set up your site so users can subscribe and use better

• rename podcasts as tracks, and vodcasts as video
• re-categorize all content – social sciences, law
• intro page just have the name of law school not iTunes and have link to law school in a prominent place
• Public part of the site
  • section 1- faculty lectures and conferences
  • should have at least 100 tracks before launching
  • use general categories
  • Section 2 – about the school
  • career services and admissions info
  • interviews with students & admin director, dean
  • virtual tour
  • always describe the podcast feed
  • use distinctive graphics for featured events
  • use repetitive branding (school logo)

  Private content

  • use unique course identifier
  • NYSL contracted with apple to have a single log on for students and faculty
  • designate admins
  • 2 urls – one for students (who can download) and one for faculty (who can publish)
  • create user groups for faculty & students – itunesu_courseid_student &…_faculty
  • can upload pdfs as well as audio and video
  • can play on ipod or on any computer with itunes software

Session 3 – LexisNexis Casemap

•  
  • free software for law school faculty and students (for 3 years)
  • makes the life of a ligator easier
  • used by clinics and to organize legal writing assignments
  • to download, go to: http://casesoft.com
  • composed of a spreadsheet that includes linked worksheets for:
    • all objects (persons, places, things) – do 1st
    • issue outline (heart of casemap)
    • facts (can filter)
    • documents (can be linked)
    • authorities – favorite of students
    • extracts from authorities – links directly to Lexis research
  • at casesoft.com – there is a short webinar for every task in Casemap
  • has been used for 7-8 years in the ligation world
  • This presenter is available for a presentation at any law school

Session 4 – The Wired – Pittsburgh

Video from the HBO series that was filmed in Baltimore

ActiveCampus Portal – an alternative to iTunes U

I attended a webex presentation today on Podcasting 101 with the ActiveCampus Portal.

The ActiveCampus Portal by Datatel provides a single point of access for everyone on campusTherefore, faculty, staff and students benefit from a common environment within which they can cooperate and collaborate more freely and effectively.

It integrates with Datatel’s Colleague software (which we ALREADY use on campus).  It offers one secure log in with which users can access bulletin boards (blogs or wikis) that can be embedded with podcasts (audio and/or video) and other important content.

This presentation focused on what are podcasts, why podcast and how to begin podcasting.  But the interesting part was how to share these podcasts in a secure way and in an accessible location.

Right now, our audio podcasts are available on a classcaster hosted site.  Our wikis on wikispaces.com.  Our blogs are hosted on wordpress.com.  We look to uploading video files to CALI spaces.  We’ve been accepted to iTunes U as a possibility for uploading audio and video content.  All are free hosting solutions.

Here, faculty and students log into WebAdvisor (part of Datatel’s Colleague) to access academic services such as grades and course registration. It would seem that using the ActiveCampus Portal would be the next step….

It would certainly relieve IT of the nightmarish authentication process (of eDirectory into LDAP) required by iTunes U and the installation of the iTunes software on all computers on campus.

The Future of Legal Education

In the wisdom of a Chinese proverb: “Tell me, I will forget. Show me, I will remember. Involve me, I will understand.”

I have heard this quote before, but I was reminded of it, reading about Washington and Lee Law School’s new curriculum.  They are entirely re-inventing the third year to make it a year of “professional development through simulated and actual practice experiences.”

Other law schools are working on changes to their first year curriculum.  (3/21/08 Conference details)

How does technology in legal education fit into the Chinese proverb (“… Involve me, I will understand.” )?

• Students self-assess their skills (for interviewing techniques, negotatiating, trial practice, etc.)
  • MediaNotes software and CALI space will facilitate that
  • Podcasting and/or Digital webcam video will also make it easier
• Students participate in discussions and give their view on critical topics
  • Discussion forums in TWEN
  • Class blogs and/or wikis
• Students actively participate in class
  • CPS (clickers) make this possible
  • Faculty/Student web response pages are available
  • Customized polling in TWEN
  • Install poll through CALI
• Students practice difficult concepts using simulations and/or interactives
  • CALI lessons are great
  • other software similations
• Students use the technology they will use when they practice law
  • be familiar with case management software
  • be able to use PowerPoint during a trial
  • be able to display evidence using a Document Camera during a trial

Adaptive Learning Envronments

We are fortunate to have some great contributors to the Best Practices blog so I am going to quote one, Steve Friedland, here:

“One area where the horse already has left the barn involves learning environments.  In the 20th Century, the environment was entirely linear:  teachers taught, students learned, students studied in the library and then returned to class to learn some more.  In the 21st Century, that linearity has disappeared and a multidimensional set of environments has taken its place.  Learning is not so much a function of place anymore.  Students learn on the go — have laptop or Ipod, will travel.  Law school should adapt to the portability of learning in the 21st Century, encouraging TWEN, CALI, laptops and Ipod learning — because while these adaptive environments may be uncomfortable for us 20th Century dinosaurs, 21st Century students learn in this fashion.”

I can’t wait to hear how his experiment with interactive outlining turned out.

Here are several examples of adaptive 21st learning environments used at Albany Law:

• In two of his courses, a professor is having students use their laptops during class to individually post responses relevant to what is being discussed.  He then projects on a large screen to the whole class selected student responses.
• In another class, a professor digitally recorded the class and posted it after class so that students did not have to take notes during class and could follow along with the textbook and listen to the professor explain a difficult concept.  On a TWEN poll when asked:  ”Does it help to have the class recorded?” 21 out of 40 responded: Yes – I don’t worry about taking notes & can listen to it later and only 4 responded: No – I won’t help me because I wouldn’t listen to it.

  
• In an externship course, a professor is using TWEN’s discussion forum to have student reflect on their experiences each week and comment on each other’s as well as having the student use the TWEN assignment drop box to submit weekly journal entries.
• The clinic faculty plans to record their students’ practice interviews and use MediaNotes software to annotate the videos with comments/critques and then post them to CALI for students to download to their own laptops.

Timely Survey Results

As I prepare for my presentation on Podcasting at Albany Law School for our Spring ETG meeting, John Mayer posted the results of CALI’s 2007 Legal Podcasting Project Student Survey.

The results of last year’s survey were intersting, but the new trends are even more so:

• More students used portable MP3 players to listen to podcasts than before (24% vs. 17%), but the PC was the primary listening device.
• More students listened to podcasts from other professors (15% vs. 8%), so awareness of podcasting professors is growing.
• Podcasts as attendance-supressors seemed to decline with this survey. 2% said they attended less classes vs. 7% last year. 11% said they skipped classes vs. 12% last year.

Most of the student comments are very positive and repeatedly stated that they wished more professors podcasted their classes.  The comment below embodies their feelings:

“I wish more classes/professors offered this opportunity. It’s such a great idea and a wonderful tool so that you can go back and make sure you are clear on a particular topic, plus, since you can put it on your MPS or iPod, you can listen to it anywhere (while at the gym, in the car, on a walk), so you don’t necessarily have to be attached to your computer or an internet connection (once downloaded) to listen to it. I think it definitely increases access to information for students, since it is accessible anywhere at anytime for use anywhere, anytime, and I think it also is helpful for students who learn better audially, rather than visually, so that come review time you can do more than (or other than) simply read books and review notes, but relisten to the material. It’s a wonderful tool technology has given us as students!”

Listen to this article

Podcasting Continues

The AV Department is helping with our podcasting.  They have purchased 4 more digital recorders and are coordinating the logistics of the recordings.

So far we have podcasted 11 events on campus and they are hosted here: podcasts.classcaster.org (along with accompanying photos.)

We are also recording classes for students who are ill and make-up classes for professors who have had to cancel classes.  They can be accessed from here: audio_recordings.classcaster.org .

Listen to this article

To Podcast or Not To Podcast…?

Just read a comment by Jim Milles to a post about podcasting in the Law School Innovations Blog .  He writes: “The most engaging law school classes tend to be those with a high degree of interaction among the instructor and the students…Podcasting … seems to be a step back, to the “sage on the stage” model of teaching. I think podcasting has great value, but I’m not sure that classroom instruction is its best use.”

On the other hand, John Mayer from CALIopolis contends: “Some faculty choose to merely record the class so that students

• Can re-listen to the lecture
• Can review specific parts of the lecture when going over their notes
• Don’t get left behind when necessarily missing a class”

Some faculty record “weekly summaries where they re-emphasize important points, clarify points that seemed to generate confusion in the classroom or use the opportunity to expand on explanations when the class time ran out. “

Finally, he states: “Podcasting makes you are a better teacher. It forces you to gather your thoughts and present them in an orderly fashion. More than a few faculty have told me that they listen to their own podcasts as a way to improve their lecturing. .. Several faculty have also told me that they listen to other faculty’s podcasts as a way to get tips and ideas for better presenting material in the classroom. “

I agree with John.  If podcasting by law school professors helps the students learn better then it is a worthy technology tool. 

Listen to this article

 image from http://technosavvy.org/?p=335