Online Replication of First Year Legal Research classes: the pods have arrived!

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Online Replication of First Year Legal Research
classesthe pods have arrived!
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Un-Darwinian Aliens
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The Classes

• Traditional in-class instruction
• Embedded teaching within a compulsory first year
  course
• Basics of legal research

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Issues for Students

• Physically attending the class
• International students
• Availability of learning materials
• Revision for online quiz

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Design Issues

• Reconceptualising the course
• Students learning styles
• Cost/benefit of establishing the course

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The Technology

• Wimba
• Lectopia
• Audacity
• GarageBand
• Screenflow

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Was it worth it?

• 35000 hits from 360 students
• Extensive use by international students
• Usefulness and utilization of podcasts
• 20 strongly agreed, 50 agreed that the podcasts
  were useful

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What did the students think?

• Availability
• How step by step it went back through what we
  learnt in class, and you could control the pace
  of your learning.
• I liked simply having the modules available so
  that when I was unclear on an issue or wanted to
  revisit it, I could easily, and then practice
  it.
• They are helpful because they give almost all
  the information that the face-face lessons do. So
  if you miss a lesson you can get all the
  information online.
• 60 thought Legal Method Online would be helpful
  in their future research

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What did the students think?

• Learning styles catered for
• The presentation was a bit sparse in terms of
  text. I'm not hugely into the techy stuff, and I
  learn best by reading, so it's more useful to me
  to have more visual information. Having said
  that, I really appreciate that you are trying to
  accommodate for those who don't learn as
  effectively in the 'conventional' manner.
  Thanks!
• 24 preferred face-to-face, 15 online, 60 both

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What did the students think?

• Exercises to replicate quiz questions and
  revision for online quiz
• It would be extremely beneficial to have more
  practice questions at the end of the modules.
  These exercises were very helpful but there was a
  very small amount.
• 85 of respondents wanted more exercises
• 32 strongly agreed and 51 agreed that the
  Blackboard course was helpful for revision

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What did the students think?

• I found both the face-to-face classes and online
  modules to be very informative. Basically being
  taught the most effective way to find cases and
  legislation, and which sites to go to were a big
  help to me, and I think this knowledge will prove
  useful for any of my future assignments
• I am now confident with my skills when
  researching everything as to the law

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Staff Benefits

• Unexpected uses of the podcasts
• Saving of staff time

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Where Next?

• iTunesU
• SBLi scenario based training
• Opening up to other students

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Questions?

• Images have been taken from the 1956 and 1978
  films of Invasion of the Body Snatchers