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The second year of the Diploma, 2000-1, I had a lot of curriculum problems. One of the major ones was that I was getting contradictory signals from students saying one thing, saying another about the course. Some said in the feedback that this course was too easy, or that one too hard. Who to believe?

‘…if you look at [games] you will not see something that is common to all, but similiarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that […] we see a complicated network of similarities, sometimes similiarities of detail’ Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, sect. 66, CL, 280. This is true of modules in a curriculum, and…

Friday began with a presentation by Steven Karanja from the Norwegian Research Centre for Computers and Law on ‘Privacy and protection of social marginalised groups’ which, for some of the conferencen, raised interesting issues with regard to 7/11 and similar events.  He concluded that we need to rethink the direction that protection institutions are taking,…

The conference proper took place in the magnificent and recently-restored Law Faculty’s nineteenth century building.  It began with an intriguing analogy by Herbert Burker (St Gallen) between data protection and the Flying Dutchman.  Thomas Bruce, Cornell Legal Information Institute, gave us a witty international overview of the work of LIIs (‘LIIs and their parents: What…

The conference opened with an introductory seminar hosted by John Mayer of CALI — Authoring Tools for Legal Instruction.  I missed the first 30 minutes or so, having boarded a train that stopped only at Oslo Central.  But I spent a pleasant time getting lost in the centre of Oslo, forming impressions as you do…

Well we’ve arrived in Oslo for the Substantive Technology in Law Conference which will be blogged here, if I can drag myself away from the schmoozing…

This is a permalink for discussion of the article ‘On the edge: ICT and the transformation of professional legal education’, published in the Web Journal of Current Legal Issues, and also reproduced here with permission.  This post is also cited in the final paragraph of the article.  If you would like to discuss any of…

Paul has been cajoling and encouraging some of us to start contributing to this Blog and, I have to say, I was feeling felt somewhat apprehensive.  As AA Milne’s Pooh Bear said, ‘When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain and you think of Things, you sometimes feel that a Thing which seemed very…

It was a student, come to see me because she couldn’t believe she’d failed four exams.  Never failed one in her life, then the humiliation of four in a row in the Diploma.  After the shock, the blame: it was the Diploma, it was the fire alarm going off in one of the exams, it…

Thanks to Seb Schmoller for sending us this photo of the Zeugma restaurant in Sheffield.  Any other Zeugmas gratefully received — is it true there’s a nice hotel by that name in Istanbul?

I wrote recently about improv as an essential but neglected element in online tutoring; and quoted Jean Lave’s research on supermarket buyers’ purchase patterns and the complex mental choices and procedures (including improvisation) that make up this activity.  I should have known that somewhere out there on the web there would be a site that…

We use discussion forums on the PI Project in the Diploma in Legal Practice (see, eg, ‘ICT and professional legal education’ under ‘Publications’).  I’ve referred to this blog posting before, but it’s interesting as an example of what can happen between student / tutor online, and how online is different from f2f.