• Parallel session 1

    I attended Alex Roy (LSB), and Prof Rob Wilson (Warwick U, LETR consultant) on Identifying and Developing the Future Workforce.  Alex kicked off: large number of firms, mostly small (2-4 partners — over 20% of the workforce re solicitors, much larger proportion of law firms in E+W), few large firms.  Turnover looks like the internet…

  • LETR Symposium, day 2, keynote 2

    Second keynote, Wes Pue, from the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus.  Legal historian primarily, but with a huge knowledge and interest in legal education.  He described himself as raised in a British dominion, proud of his Canadian heritage, an outsider/insider, which defined his later research and views.  Studied at Oxford, and noted the variety…

  • Red LETR day… LETR Symposium, day 1, pm

    First session in the afternoon was a session on the three scenarios LETR has drawn up.  Very interesting feedback on the three regulatory models from my small group which included great international lawyers & educators such as Alan Treleaven, Paul Woods Afternoon keynote was Susskind on how we can train 21st century lawyers.  We don’t:…

  • Red LETR day… LETR Symposium, day 1

    Liveblogging the LETR Symposium at the Lowry Hotel, Manchester.  We (the research group, but especially Julian) have been working on this two-day event for the past six months or so with the SRA and others, so great that it’s finally rolling.  More information on the programme here.  The event was introduced by our Steering Panel…

  • Same strokes for different folks: making best use of existing digital systems

    Next up, Sarah Chesney (Independent) and Melissa Shaw, U of Cumbria on the story of introducing personal learning and performance and professional development review (PPDR) at the U of Cumbria (UC).  Session wandered a bit, and so did yr notetaker, and there was another staged dialogue (just doesn’t work for me); but this was about…

  • iTunes U: learning and Research Channel for Students, Showcase to the World

    Martin Bean showcased this in his keynote, so no pressure for the presenter, Terese Bird of Leicester U…  iTunes U as a channel for OER is disputed, but she was looking at the educational value of it, particularly by OU, Oxford, and her university, Leicester.  She was reporting on the findings of a SCORE project…

  • Parallel session 1

    I attended a session on on ‘Embedding internationalisation, employability and inclusive education through graduate attributes: a case study of ‘A Global Outlook (David Killick, Laura Dean, Manchester Met U).  Came in late to an odd dialogue between the speakers, but the points thereafter made about how it was being embedded were interesting; and I liked…

  • HEA conference 2012, Manchester

    Liveblogging the HEA conference, day 1.  Martin Bean, VC of the OU, giving the keynote.  Gave a review of the problems of information overload, via Vannevar Bush and Denis Diderot.   Tech in HE is not about hard and software, it’s about people and process which, according to him, is a point that’s always been…

  • LawTechCamp, London

    Liveblogging the above unconference, just finished my first Pecha Kucha at LawTechCamp — 20 slides, automatic 6sec per slide, new discipline for me, used to taking 5,000 words to draw breath, pretty brutal.  But you got to try it — the cool pecha-dudes did it without looking at their slides, and timed themselves perfectly.  Clearly I’ve…

  • Assessment of professional legal education

    Currently presenting at a conference organized by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. I was invited by Agusti Cerillo Martinez, the Director of the Law & Political Science Dept to speak on simulation and legal education; and I’ve focused on issues of the assessment of professional education.  I’m interested in this not least because of the…

  • Australian National University, Legal Workshop

    I returned recently from spending seven days at the College of Law in the Australian National University in Canberra, part of my duties as Adjunct Professor there.  ‘Duties’ is exactly the wrong word.  It’s a real pleasure to be working, planning and implementing innovative legal education with such a dedicated bunch of staff, both in…

  • HKU & sims

    A week of meetings put together by the super-organized Wilson Chow — seminars, individual meetings with staff about technology and law teaching.  Sims like those in SIMPLE don’t just drop into conventional teaching habits.  They change those habits, and student habits too.  In that sense they’re disruptive of the habitat of learning and teaching, the…