Category: Uncategorized

Can / should lawyers be the sole gatekeepers of the profession?  I’d say no.  Professional legal education is too important to leave to lawyers: most don’t have the in-depth educational skill & knowledge nor do most of them have the time to give to the enterprise. 

Larry Lessig launched Creative Commons in Malta directly after the BILETA conference.  When he quoted Sousa’s words about the ubiquity of ‘talking machines’ that played music, and Sousa’s lament that this would stop people singing songs as they did of old, I was reminded of Walter Scott’s encounter with James Hogg’s mother, Margaret Laidlaw. 

Goodbye to the BILETA Chair I’ve been sitting in for the past three years or so.  Thanks to my ineradicable habit of deadlining and a lethal combination of Easter holiday roadworks & rush hour traffic outside Luqa airport I was late for the AGM; but since one of the first items was the election of…

BILETA conference again — Lessig was presenting.  Very slick presentation that was another take on the Dick Hardt approach.  Or was Lessig the first, as Karen has reminded me?  Anyway, really engaging stuff.  Oh yes, and the content was great too.  While listening, I went to his blog and saw another edition of Code out…

For conference participants attending the legal educational sessions, my draft paper is listed under ‘Publications’ to the left.

Went to a RSNO concert last month, a North American programme which included John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls – commissioned by the NY Phil to commemorate those killed in the events of 9/11.  I’m going to have to listen to it a number of times to really make up my mind, but I…

Spent most of today answering questions and comments on my paper at the online JISC conference.  I can honestly say that this is a lot more work than f2f conference going — long periods of keyboard bashing supplemented with coffee to answer the hard questions, etc.  At conferences there’s meeting and chatting as well as…

Interesting passage from Helen Beetham in the wiki set up by Patrick MacAndrew & James Dalziel, in theme 1 of the conference.  Patrick and James had been discussing differences between e-learning design and the idea of Patterns:

The conference has been interesting — some profound insights; I’m learning a lot more than I thought I would.  The problem is how to cope with the sheer weight of the messages, while maintaining creative thoughts about them.  The reason I can’t do that of course is that I haven’t, as in a f2f conference,…

I’m taking part in an online conference organised by JISC — Innovating E-Learning 2006: Transforming Learning Experiences.  Haven’t actually posted yet, but thought that I’d post reflections etc here as well as on the forum.  My paper on authenticity is up for discussion on Thursday & Friday.  I don’t really know why I’m so interested…

A personal piece, since it was my birthday yesterday.  Thanks to Seb Schmoller for his kind words a while back re my short piece on online tutoring in Directions.  Writing it, I wondered how we can use interdisciplinarity to open up the whole experience of being a tutor.  New-ish experiences always give us fresh insights…

A while ago I watched a TV documentary (Horizon) about an archaeological dig in Turkey, just behind the Birecik dam on the Euphrates.  The dam was almost complete and the pitifully small archaeological team were given a matter of weeks to excavate an entire Greek & Roman city, which grew up on the Silk Road,…