Category: Tools
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Apps in Legal Education
Warning: This post is not all that high-tech, but I did have the opportunity to give an interesting lecture the other day, and I thought I would share my experiences! Our (Indiana University Maurer School of Law) Advanced Legal Research course is relatively new, so the structure of the curriculum is somewhat fluid. While most…
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Do.ne, or what to do when your favorite service disappears
The Chicago-Kent Library Technology Group runs many kinds of projects. Keeping track of what’s going on in individual projects can be challenging. We needed a cloud-based service for project management, something that could: Track projects and tasks Let us assign tasks to individual workers Comment on tasks when we had questions or more information. We…
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Infographics in Legal Education
Have you noticed that data use and distribution has hit the mainstream lately? Data visualization is becoming a popular field of study. Empirical research is gaining greater ground in fields not usually associated with high levels of data analysis, such as law. 2013 has even been declared the International Year of Statistics. Perhaps more so…
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The Optimist and the Skeptic
To generalize wildly, many people who work with educational technology like technology for its own sake. Not all teachers love it quite as much, especially in traditional fields like law. So how do you move from the enthusiasm of the early adopter reaction – “yay! Toys!” – to encourage widespread adoption of useful technologies in…
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MOOCs MOOCs MOOCs
Talk about an acronym that’s fun to say! MOOCs are a popular term in educations these days. A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course. I first learned about MOOCs through the eduMOOC last year so I could learn more about online learning. Since then, MOOCs have been featured in national news sources and discussed at…
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Flipped classrooms – are they working?
Teachers, instructors, and professors are experimenting with flipped classrooms. They seem to be working – at least according to this high school teacher’s story – her flipped classroom was very successful. The reporter telling the teacher’s story emphasized that experimenting with advanced technologies was essential: There is a need for educators of the next…
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2 weeks with a Mac
Wow! Look how much time has gone by since my first post this month! It’s been busy here – lots of projects to plan for, one of our librarians just had a new baby (yay!). And, after working here for 10 years, I finally have a Mac at work. So I’ve been busy running it through its…
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iPads, iPads, iPads
With over 84 million sold in 2 1/2 years, it’s hard to underestimate the impact iPads and other tablets have had on almost everything, including legal education and law practice. According to a recent ABA survey, 33% of lawyers now use tablets for their practice, and over 90% of those are iPads. Rich McCue’s recent…
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Mindmapping Software – Essential for Law School
A few years back my employer (California Western School of Law) contracted with Mindjet to give every student, faculty and staff member access to MindManager mind-mapping software. I encouraged this collaboration as I felt the graphical qualities of mind-maps were particularly well suited to breaking down complex legal concepts into more digestible components, something our students would find…
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Tapping into In-Class Online Conversations (Backchannel)
Here at Boston College Law we’ve been getting a lot of chatter about backchannels and how they can be integrated into classes. While many of the examples that people are using focus on Twitter, the common concerns about privacy, anonymity, and moderation are always present as roadblocks. So, we’ve been exploring a few different tools…
