Webcasts & legal education: the alternative to the box under the bed…

Webcasts & legal education: the alternative to the box under the bed… Patricia McKellar Paul Maharg

Webcast teaching & learning: resource-based instruction on the web Early examples and general approach Tour of the webcast learning environment Break (no Dada poetry…) for discussion The webcast learning environment project: student comment Questions & discussion presentation structure

Virtual learning environments (VLEs) -- environments that use digital and electronic technology in order to facilitate learning and teaching. Eg BlackBoard, WebCT, Elements include: Registration, authentication & administration processes Separate areas for courses, modules, etc communication tools – chat rooms, discussion forums, email, announcements information display tools – scripted web pages, hyperlinks special applications, eg QuestionMark, etc virtual learning environments…

We have found: Feedback loops essential Communicative potential of the environment should lie at the heart of the MLE/VLE Convergence principle: electronic technologies need to converge seamlessly to provide an integrated learning environment. All technologies (electronic, paper, physical environment) should integrate to support learning across the curriculum Creativity in use of MLE/VLE involves re-design of traditional face-to-face & DL teaching methods …actually should involve us in re-design of teaching & learning…

texts: illustrative, explanatory, didactic, discursive, exemplary, reflective, etc. hyperlinked or static images: via video – role play, pieces to camera, scenarios static photographs, diagrams, graphics, tables, etc interactive images, moving or still …and creative use of integrated text & image

not lectures because not constrained by time, place or audience webcasts can be used as organisational centres for information & knowledge must be designed to integrate with other technologies and resources, eg webcast lectures + discussion forum, web links & chat room. traditional forms of learning & teaching design of webcast environments

our early concept of a webcast environment PowerPoint slides web links & resources video bookmarks

our early concept of a webcast environment PowerPoint slides web links & resources video bookmarks learning controls, guidance & instructions

Over 25 separate webcast projects, from 2001-2004, in legal education, both under- & postgraduate. Projects range from one-off webcasts to an entire series of webcasts spanning a module. Used mostly in blended learning, but also in wholly distance-learning modules There were no models, no training courses – we learned from observation of what worked and why… webcast developments to date

Think about what works and what doesn’t in the following webcasts as regards: Presenter behaviour Navigational tools Information IT & the Legal Office: The Grid, Part One Professor Richard Susskind IT & the Legal Office: The Client Service Chain Professor Richard Susskind Negotiation Professor Scott Slorach early examples of webcast lectures

very much presenter-driven no integration on-screen with other learning elements in the course limited navigation little incentive for independent learning limited resource-based learning one-off, independent events for both staff & students. Not part of a coherent syllabus or curriculum design. problems with early webcasts

Criminal Court Practice Presenter: Ronnie Watson QC Civil Court Practice Presenter: Patricia McKellar later webcasts and development into a VLE

Would this be a useful resource for law school teaching & learning? What do the students lose and gain by using these resources in this context? What do you think the students’ responses might be to this environment? questions….

Aims To investigate the variation in student learning quality of student learning on the two procedural courses Methodology Selection of 11 students to track throughout the year Students filled in and submitted weekly logs when they used the resources Focus group discussion late in semester 1 Individual interviews in early/mid semester 2 and post-examination Questionnaire for project group End-of-year evaluation data derived from whole-year cohort Webcast Learning Project

navigation: timeline I liked the way it changed on this one so that it was all on the same screen. I thought that was very useful. What I did like on the Criminal one was that it was labelled where you were going to come to the next section but at the same time you could easily do that with thisand know which section you were on.

finding resources Interviewer: Did you use the flowchart that’s on the resources page at all? Student: Could you just remind me of what that is? Interviewer: If you go into the documentation, you will see the flowchart there [does this on laptop]. Student: Oh yes I did. I printed that off. Interviewer: And did you find that useful? Student: Yes Interviewer: Right OK, that’s interesting. Student: I took that to tutorials actually and quite a lot of people noted and ‘where did you get that’ they said. Interviewer: So they didn’t know where you’d got it? Student: No! [Laughter]

finding and using resources I just didn’t know it was there. I am not the least IT literate person but it was kind of squirreled away I saw that somebody had posted three answers and that was all. I didn’t want to post some answers and have it wrong for a start and have it all be corrected or put up something really quite stupid and just think that I am right and have everybody laugh at me because I had put the wrong answer up. I did look at the questions to get some sort of idea what might come up.

I find it a hassle coming in here to study. Apart from train times which are pretty unreliable from where I stay it’s just I study a lot better at home. I can get up early and study all day and go to my work and come back and study so I used it at home. In my tutorials there were a few dissenting voices about the whole webcast thing – ‘oh just have the lecture and then it would be over’ - but that is the whole point, it would be over! Proper lectures would have been better but the webcast lectures were convenient. flexibility of use

Lectures are social events for students – webcasts remove this element from a course – how did they cope? Students still talked about the course, through other channels: everybody would just talk about them. If you didn’t understand anything you just phone people the night before and say what is this bit all about? You get cross ideas - some people have different things Students still met at tutorials… absence of students…

As a result, the image seemed to matter more: […] it’s always there and it’s not just a text or a book that you have got because it is someone else sitting there talking to you. It’s kind of comforting in a way as well, because they know what they are talking about, you can’t misread it. I think that intonation as well was really important to me. Just reading something, you can read it, but the intonation I found really helpful. That was why I did go back over not just my own notes [for the exam] but actually watch it again because there is emphasis in important places and that is so important. Also you don’t want to end up completely isolated with no… I know webcasts are not very interactive anyway but they are much more interactive than reading a script. Interviewer: Would it have made any difference to you if you hadn’t actually seen the person and you had only heard what they were saying […]? Student: Strange, but I probably hardly looked at it [the webcast image] because I was writing notes anyway… But I don’t know… it just seems quite nice having a person there. absence of lecturer

Paperworld student Preferred f2f lectures Didn’t use learning tools in the CD or online environment Used books, not e-resources Took verbatim notes from the webcasts Only listened to the webcasts once E-world student Comfortable using the webcast environment Used online information Used a word-processor to type notes Viewed and reviewed the webcasts Used the learning tools, eg speak-fast button two approaches to learning

But these are actually pathologies of learning styles – compare textual compositional styles and musical composition We found that most students adopted a position somewhere along the spectrum of these two poles, and the position was variable depending on purpose of use. two approaches to learning

I think I am happier doing it pen and paper. I guess, I have written shorthand, rather that typed shorthand, so I think I would rather write and I can write quicker. But not everyone will be the same as that. When I did the first few I was writing absolutely everything out and I hadn’t really - because quite a lot of people were looking at the screen and were writing down what was on the screen and working their notes around that. I wasn’t doing that. I was writing everything out [ie webcast and screen text] and that took ages. So it was like well I’ll just write down what’s on the screen and then write my own notes. In the Criminal [webcasts] note taking - I would have preferred to have been able to take notes on the computer but I didn’t know how launch Microsoft Word. forms of learning: writing/typing notes

I have seen people in the lab with two computers, and they are listening and typing at the same time. That would be quite good because although my typing isn’t fast but if you could have a wee bit of note-taking then your notes would immediately be better. forms of learning: using two computers

First time was a little strange and it took me a while to get used to pausing and taking notes in conjunction with watching. Felt a lot more comfortable by the end of [the second series of webcasts] It’s like a different way of learning, like if you hear it and then you write it down and then you read it back. Then you learn something in three different ways forms of learning: writing and listening

If I’m reading notes you can skim over it and you can skip pages, but if you are listening and you don’t hear something you have to go back and hear it. There is a different flow as well. Interviewer: […] do you think the webcast environment helped or hindered your exam study? Student: I think they helped Interviewer: Why? Student: Because you have just got more explanation when you are going over things that you can never get down in lecture notes or in handouts, to understand it. I think you learn better when you are sitting listening as well, instead of sitting reading, because you have a tendency just to skim through things when you are reading. You’ve done it all before and you should know it, but if you haven’t listened to something you can speed it up a bit. But you are still having to listen to it all, you can’t just skip big bits out. So I think it definitely helped. knowledge objects: forms of revision

I think, I would probably, I think, I would go back and watch them again. I would probably sit with my notes and just… You wouldn’t be learning new things again, so you would be just listening and reading over your notes and make sure you took in all the points. I would actually find that easier revision. I don’t know if that is just my personality. But to listen to somebody going over it again, and it also means that if there is a particular section that I feel I have learned quite well, then I don’t need to go over it again. So, I would pick out the sections that I think, ‘oh goodness, I don’t remember the Interim Interdict, Options Hearing or whatever’ and I’ll go back to that particular section and just watch the webcast again with my notes, probably. I would actually use it for revision, just watch the webcast again. I find I take things in much better verbally than sitting reading particularly if it is a subject that can be a bit dry. To actually hear a lecture again would be better than, just than – if we just had lectures and you didn’t have the webcasts that we could go back to then all I would have to revise with would be my notes and that’s a lot drier and sometimes you kinda look at your notes and think ‘goodness I don’t know actually remember what she was talking about’ and you find that the lecture, when you go over the point a few times, it makes it much easier to take in . use of webcast as mnemonic

I would come in and maybe I would have something else to do during the day but then I would be able to fit in 45 minutes watching a lecture and taking outline notes maybe that time. And then what was useful about them was I could go back and just listen to it with my notes and not have to take any notes. I don’t know, there is something mechanical which is very useful about taking notes and copying down to memorise stuff but there is something in terms of just sitting and listening to somebody describing what happens […] – I thought that was particularly useful to me anyway. use of webcast as mnemonic

Interviewer: Do you think the webcast environments helped or hindered your study for the exams? Student: Definitely helped. It was very, very positive. I know some people have complained that they found it hard to work and all the rest of it. But I just thought in comparison – I have sat four years of exams before I came here, I am an expert as far as exams are concerned, and this has really, was two of the easiest exams I have sat, in terms of revision for them. I felt that I came in well prepared – maybe my results will show that this was not the case! I definitely felt that I was really learning the material. I understood it better. quality of learning

contact details Patricia McKellar Patricia.Mckellar@strath.ac.uk Professor Paul Maharg paul.maharg@strath.ac.uk http://www.ggsl.strath.ac.uk/ltdu/research/default.htm

Webcasts & legal education: the alternative to the box under the bed…