Pilot Study Initiatives

Each year Instructional Technology actively participates in internal and university wide pilot study programs to evaluate the usefulness of emerging technologies within the School of Law. Recent evaluations and reviews include:

Recent:

• Webcam and Video Annotation in Mediation (Ongoing)
• Podcasting with iTunes University (Ongoing)
• Virtual Property in Online Video Games (Spring 2007)
• Clicker Technology (Fall 2006)
• Web Conferencing with Adobe Connect (Fall 2006)

Webcam and Video Annotation in Mediation (Ongoing)

After working with Clinic Director Paul Holland to improve the method of monitoring and commenting on student/client interviews, webcams are now a standard method of recording digital video in the clinic for later discussion. In Melinda Branscbomb's "Lawyers and Problem Solvers" class, webcams have also been adopted to record mock mediations within the class, which are then submitted for assessment.

Once these interviews and mediations are recorded the next challenge is finding an efficient way of annotating the recordings without wasting a lot of time. In past years these groups have been using Windows Movie Maker to extract portions of the recordings. The videos were then uploaded to a shared network folder where the instructor could download the smaller files for later discussion. However, in the Fall of 2008, CALI released a new product for free to law school members called MediaNotes, which allows you to annotate video without having to spend the time of editing it. This can save a lot of time, however the file the instructor is accessing is still the large full length recording.

While there are a few steps to recording and annotating a video, the benefit of such software depends on its application.  Therefore, we are continuing to monitor their use, in order to come up with a best practices procedure for implementation and support.

Podcasting with iTunes University (Ongoing)

iTunes U is an RSS enabled delivery system for audio and video files currently being used by universities around the US. The Law School Instructional Technology department has joined the greater campus Faculty Technology Committee (FTC) in reviewing this product as a solution for delivering podcasted content to students.

Currently all online media for the School of Law is hosted on our streaming server, Medialaw. Streaming content and podcasted content differ in the ways in which materials are accessed. Streaming content requires that a user have an internet connection while watching a video or audio clip. Podcasted content is first downloaded to a computer then the student can watch, or listen to, the material on their PC or handheld media player (iPod, etc.). Podcasted content can also be syndicated, where students can subscribe to an ongoing series of content which will be downloaded automatically when new content becomes available.

Instructional Technology has received requests from faculty and students alike for podcasting. The ability to have mobile content is enticing to many students, for instance commuting students could access content while on the bus. Other students could download the content while on campus network and view it later. It also allows students to keep the content ready throughout the semester, without needing to go back online to access the material. Podcasting is also popular with many instructors around the country, allowing them to find innovative ways to deliver lectures, assignments or outside information for their course.

Our first case study was podcasting to Spring 2008 Legal Writing Workshop series. We are processing surveys now and waiting to see what decisions the greater campus makes for support, as well as testing potential RSS options with the school's new web site content management system.

Virtual Property and Second Life (Spring 2007)

Visiting Professor Elizabeth Townsend-Gard approached us to assist with the use of Second Life as a teaching tool for her Spring 2007 property class. Her goal was to use this online multi-user gaming world as a tool to examine whether virtual property could be classified in the same way as real property.

To accomplish this Professor Townsend-Gard used the “class hamster” model, whereby students would share the class avatar (or game character) and work in groups week by week to explore specific topics in Second Life. Then, each group would create a presentation about their findings, through the use of screen capture, and post it to the Web.

This project proved to be very intriguing for students. Unfortunately, as a visitor Professor Elizabeth Townsend-Gard is no longer at SU to continue with this experiment, but her creativity in using this online virtual environment was an excellent proof of concept. Further work with Second Life will only be explored if another, equally ambitious and dedicated faculty member decides to pursue it again, as the success of Second Life as an educational tool is primarily driven by the vision of the instructor.

Clicker Technology (Fall 2006)

Following up on suggestions from the library, we hosted two presentations by different vendors of “clicker” technology. Clickers are individual remote controls handed out to each student in a class that are wirelessly connected to the instructors computer. They allow students to give real time anonymous feedback to faculty during class. The technology also allows for the recording of pop quizzes and claims to increase student participation.

However, while the clickers seem to have great potential in classes that are primarily lecture-based, most reviewers seem to agree that their usefulness in our school is limited and are therefore not a profitable investment. They also present a check-in, check-out hassle with the hardware. Therefore, faculty interested in the type of feedback clickers offer are encouraged to investigate the alternative uses of the polling functions within TWEN and the CALI’s Instapoll feature.

Web Conferencing with Adobe Connect (Fall 2006)

In Fall of 2006, we participated with a campus wide pilot study of Macromedia Breeze, which later became Adobe Connects. It was our hope that this Web conferencing service could address some of the more advanced needs we’ve seen in recent years for distance learning inside the law school. The results of this study was shared with the Information Technology Committee for reference when recommending software purchases for the entire campus.

The service did turn out to be exceptional in addressing remote student access needs. This included remote sharing of computer based presentations, live interaction with both video and audio from both students and instructors, as well as a handy archiving function.

Unfortunately, while we encountered no problems ourselves, the greater campus OIT department encountered a number of problems trying to get this service to work reliably on the SU network. Therefore, they do not recommend this service at this time. However, they are currently testing other applications that offer similar functionality to Adobe Connect. We will stay in close contact with OIT regarding this process as we strongly believe that Web conferencing software, if reliable and robust, would be a great benefit to the Law School.