Session 2A
15.30 – 14.30 Parallel Session 2A
"Innovative involvement not embarrassing imitation: using technology to connect with students without treading on virtual toes"
Emily Allbon – City University
Emily Allbon has been Law Librarian at the City Law School (City University, London) since 2000, combining this with her role as Head of Information Literacy, leading a team of Learning and Research Support Coordinators, since 2005. Professionally she is a chartered librarian who completed her CPE/GDL in 2005. In 2005 she was named Best Legal Information Professional in an Academic Environment at the BIALL/LexisNexis Awards for Excellence.
Emily is creator of www.lawbore.net through which she has had some great experiences of giving papers both in the UK (LILAC 2009, Internet Librarian International 2008/Biall Conference 2005/ The Internet for Law, Social Science Online Event 2005 and UKCLE/BIALL 2005 amongst others) and the US (AALL 2005 and 2006). Lawbore was recommended in The Times in January 2009 as one of the top 7 websites for student lawyers 'Clever law students let the web do the work!' (Nicola Laver, legal journalist). Emily and her colleagues at City University London have also been shortlisted for an award at the 2009 Times Higher Education Leadership & Management Awards.
Outline:
Academic law librarians are in the somewhat tricky position of wanting to utilise many of the new technologies open to us for better interaction and engagement with our students, but are equally unsure as to how far to push this. Do students really want us invading their social networks? Are we overcomplicating what students need from us? Should we be focussing on content rather than jumping into the Web 2.0 frenzy? Emily questions how far we should immerse ourselves in funky new technologies without having a clear picture of the benefits.
This session looks at the technologies used at the City Law School to get students more actively involved and interested in the law library and their legal research course. We’ll take a look at the use of Lawbore, City Law School’s portal and the technologies used in its creation, particularly those used to create the how-to wiki for legal skills: Learnmore http://learnmore.lawbore.net/ This encompasses the use of MediaWiki, Articulate Presenter and Adobe Captivate. Learnmore has been created in consultation with students, with some of the content also provided by them. Attendees will see how the content has been ‘brought alive’ and made more accessible through the use of the technologies available. Running through the session will be a glimpse of other features Lawbore is trialling to increase user interaction (crosswords anyone?).
Emily will also take us through her Reading the Law programme which all first year undergraduates must complete, which has experimented with the use of PRS (Personal Response Systems, otherwise known as voting handsets/remotes/clickers) this academic year. Emily will share her experiences of using the PRS system; examining whether ‘Asking the Audience’ technology can really get students fired up, and offer useful features for librarians.
