The question for all of us is what happens next? Some say lawyers will go back to their offices and things will operate as they did pre-pandemic. But what about the massive changes to global business and the impact of digitization on the profession? How will this new cyber-efficiency influence future legal jobs? Consider three different kinds of lawyers in the year 2025:
When you ask adults to recall their most memorable and enjoyable learning experiences it nearly always comes back to relationships – a fun teacher, an inspiring lecturer, a lively community. Such human interactions neatly illustrate the difference between maturity and compliance.
A “mature relationship” sounds a lot more attractive than a “compliant” one. Yet many institutions are offering compliance to disabled learners rather than mature relationships.
The lenses we use are:
Main driver – Where is energy being expended and what is measured as success?
Responsibility – Who are the actors. Do they have sufficient authority?
Model of disability – Is the perception “users with issues” or “systems and content with barriers”?
Focus of effort – Is accessibility a “task and finish” project or a long-term quality improvement?
Skills and expertise – What is the focus of training? Who gets it? Is it considered important?
Digital accessibility in policies – Digital accessibility is a vital equality issue. Is it visible in policies?
Culture – Is the focus on minimising risk? Or maximising user experience? Does accessibility straitjacket online learning? Or encourage innovation and experimentation?
User’s digital experience – How consistent is the user experience? How well designed?
In this article we explore the “Drivers” lens. What is driving your change? The need to be compliant and tick off the boxes? Or a desire to be digitally inclusive, ensuring every student can be as confident, independent and productive as possible?
At the upper levels of maturity, the confidence and competence of a wide body of staff will mean the organisation moves beyond micromanagement of accessibility. Accessibility may be mandatory but a wide range of templates will be available. Even better, many staff will have enough understanding to create their own accessible content and courses without needing a template. At this level, the following lines of evidence will be available:
A senior sponsor will be responsible for digital accessibility across the organisation.
Any cross-organisation steering group will be hosted by senior staff, meeting regularly and evidencing positive outcomes.
Digital accessibility will be a standing item in self-assessment reviews or quality assurance processes, and appropriate training will be in place to make this meaningful (see the later lens in the final blog coming soon in the series, on skills and expertise!).
Students will be actively involved in accessibility developments.
Part IV: Coming soon.
Learn about the Accessibility Maturity Model for Higher and Further Education that AbilityNet and McNaught Consultancy have developed based on Alistair McNaught’s existing model. See here and here.
The college runs four sites, called Centers for Accelerated Training, that combine classrooms and hands-on lab space. They offer four- to 18-week training programs that lead to industry certifications in areas such as logistics, construction and welding. “We try to only put programs in place that address the talent needs of employers in critical industries,” said Carol Traynor, Valencia’s senior director of public relations.
The instructional studios started with a mobile standing desk, which serves as the command center for instruction. The desk has a room controller, document camera, and an interactive display with an adapter for laptop content sharing. Behind the desk is a whiteboard with a whiteboard camera. In front of the desk, we designed an AV cart that includes a shotgun mic pair, LED light panels, two large displays, one off-lens teleprompter, and PTZ camera.
The studios put the instructor in control of the meeting using a Zoom Rooms controller— allowing them to easily switch between and share multiple types of content simultaneously: main camera, document camera, laptop content, digital annotations, and whiteboard writing.
Liberating campus-bound faculty.
Of the many remarkable things about online learning—its principal benefit—is to give students the freedom to learn almost anywhere. And that goes for faculty members, too, who might now have access to new opportunities to teach remotely for institutions around the globe—and let colleges hire online faculty with attractive strengths who happen to live far away.
That has already started to happen during the pandemic, with so many faculty and staff working and teaching from home. Since it has made no difference to their students where they were living, some, quite privileged, took off for country homes or slipped away to vacation spots, continuing to teach online as if they were at a nearby campus.
Lowell — Have you ever wanted to make it rain with just a wave of your fingers? Carve a river into an empty field and then make it flood? Topple a mountain with your bare hands and see what happens to the surrounding landscape?
At the augmented reality (AR) sandbox in Jennifer Bolhuis’ fourth-grade classroom, students wield all this power and more. The sandbox is an Eagle Scout project and gift from one of Bolhuis’ former students, Lowell High School sophomore David Johnston.
Dual coding is the process of combining verbal materials with visual materials. There are many ways to visually represent material, such as with infographics, timelines, cartoon strips, diagrams, and graphic organizers.
When you have the same information in two formats – words and visuals – it gives you two ways of remembering the information later on. Combining these visuals with words is an effective way to study.
Now, look at only the visuals and explain what they mean in your own words. Then, take the words from your class materials and draw your own visuals to go along with them!
From DSC: As the authors comment, this is NOT about learning styles (as research doesn’t back up the hypothesis of learning styles):
When we discuss verbal and visual materials, it does sound like we could be referring to learning styles. However, it is important to remember that a great deal of research has shown that assessing your learning style and then matching your study to that “style” is not useful, and does not improve learning (2). (For more, read this piece.)
What if we could create these kinds of calendars and/or apps for faculty and staff as well as for students? — idea from Daniel Christian. The vehicles could be developed as analog/physical formats or in digital formats and apps. In the digital realm, one could receive a daily notification.
For faculty/staff:
Teaching and learning tips; pedagogies (flipped learning, active learning, etc.); ideas that have worked well for others
Creative experiments to try (such as digital storytelling or with an emerging technology such as AR, MR, or VR)
Tips & tricks re: tools within the learning ecosystem of one’s organization
How to make digital content that’s accessible
Items re: bias, diversity, equity & inclusion
Dates to be aware of (for processes on one’s LMS/CMS as an example)
Notes of encouragement and/or humor
Links to key resources
Other
[The Corporate Training / L&D world could do this as well.]
For students
Studying tips
How to take courses online
How people learn
Resources, books, people to follow on Twitter, blogs and RSS feeds, etc.
Pictures of judges, legislative bodies, law offices, corporate HQs, other
Based on the rate of partnership growth in Q1, 2021 may deliver over 400 new academic partnerships if growth continues at the same rate.
Other key points:
The US led the development and growth of the OPM model, now we are seeing an acceleration in adoption of OPM partnerships in international markets across Australia, Asia and Europe
Bootcamp Partnerships are powering Universities with immersive, short-format programs in technology and new domains in business. Expert curriculum, deep industry relationships and hiring pathways are driving very fast growth in campus-based and online programs.
We expect the Global OPX Market to grow at 19% CAGR, reaching $13.3B by 2025.
What is WCAG?
WCAG is a set of specific standards designed to make the web more accessible to people with disabilities. It is on its third version, updated over the years to account for changes in web-based digital technology, assistive technology, design and development trends, and the growth of the mobile web. It is published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) in collaboration with individuals and organizations within the global accessibility community according to the W3C Process.
DC: While I think this is really sharp for large events that are held every so often (like large concerts or 4th of July events in the U.S.), I don’t want to walk out my front door to see that the skies have become billboards.https://t.co/zv80dO6F5Tpic.twitter.com/wVFb7nK2F3
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) May 5, 2021
Many have spoken of the need for various “bridges” in educational research. Bridges linking theory to practice, lab to classroom, and perhaps the most problematic of all, transdisciplinary bridges allowing multiple fields of experts (education, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience) to collaborate and communicate more effectively. With teachers. As in, the people who are actually tasked with actioning all of this advice!
…
We can do better. By inviting researchers to sit down with actual teachers to discuss real issues in real schools and co-create real solutions that we can adapt to a variety of circumstances.
Thanks for dropping by my Learning Ecosystems blog!
My name is Daniel Christian and this blog seeks to cover the teaching and learning environments within the K-12 (including homeschooling, learning pods/micro-schools), collegiate, and corporate training spaces -- whether those environments be face-to-face, blended, or online.
Just as the organizations that we work for have their own learning ecosystems, each of us has our own learning ecosystem. We need to be very intentional about enhancing those learning ecosystems -- as we all need to be lifelong learners in order to remain marketable and employed. It's no longer about running sprints (i.e., getting a 4-year degree or going to a vocational school and then calling it quits), but rather, we are all running marathons now (i.e., we are into lifelong learning these days).
