DC: Shame on you Northwestern University. It’s yet another example of how the U continues to move away from our far more noble roots.https://t.co/uQoxFAdTpW
— Daniel S. Christian (@dchristian5) September 6, 2024
Speaking of higher education…
Higher Ed in 4 charts — from jeffselingo-14576223.hs-sites.com by Jeff Selingo
ILTACON 2024: Selling legal tech’s monorail — from abajournal.com by Nicole Black
The bottom line: The promise of GenAI for our profession is great, but all signs point to the realization of its potential being six months out or more. So the question remains: Will generative AI change the legal landscape, ushering in an era of frictionless, seamless legal work? Or have we reached the pinnacle of its development, left only with empty promises? I think it’s the former since there is so much potential, and many companies are investing significantly in AI development, but only time will tell.
From LegalZoom to AI-Powered Platforms: The Rise of Smart Legal Services — from tmcnet.com by Artem Vialykh
In today’s digital age, almost every industry is undergoing a transformation driven by technological innovation, and the legal field is no exception. Traditional legal services, often characterized by high fees, time-consuming processes, and complex paperwork, are increasingly being challenged by more accessible, efficient, and cost-effective alternatives.
LegalZoom, one of the pioneers in offering online legal services, revolutionized the way individuals and small businesses accessed legal assistance. However, with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and smart technologies, we are witnessing the rise of even more sophisticated platforms that are poised to reshape the legal landscape further.
The Rise of AI-Powered Legal Platforms
AI-powered legal platforms represent the next frontier in legal services. These platforms leverage the power of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing to provide legal services that are not only more efficient but also more accurate and tailored to the needs of the user.AI-powered platforms offer many advantages, with one of them being their ability to rapidly process and analyze large amounts of data quickly. This capability allows them to provide users with precise legal advice and document generation in a fraction of the time it would take a human attorney. For example, AI-driven platforms can review and analyze contracts, identify potential legal risks, and even suggest revisions, all in real-time. This level of automation significantly reduces the time and cost associated with traditional legal services.
AI, Market Dynamics, and the Future of Legal Services with Harbor’s Zena Applebaum — from geeklawblog.com by Greg Lambert
Zena talks about the integration of generative AI (Gen AI) into legal research tools, particularly at Thomson Reuters, where she previously worked. She emphasizes the challenges in managing expectations around AI’s capabilities while ensuring that the products deliver on their promises. The legal industry has high expectations for AI to simplify the time-consuming and complex nature of legal research. However, Applebaum highlights the need for balance, as legal research remains inherently challenging, and overpromising on AI’s potential could lead to dissatisfaction among users.
Zena shares her outlook on the future of the legal industry, particularly the growing sophistication of in-house legal departments and the increasing competition for legal talent. She predicts that as AI continues to enhance efficiency and drive changes in the industry, the demand for skilled legal professionals will rise. Law firms will need to adapt to these shifts by embracing new technologies and rethinking their strategies to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving market.
Future of the Delivery of Legal Services — from americanbar.org
The legal profession is in the midst of unprecedented change. Learn what might be next for the industry and your bar.
What. Just. Happened? (Post-ILTACon Emails Week of 08-19-2024) — from geeklawblog.com by Greg Lambert
Here’s this week’s edition of What. Just. Happened? Remember, you can track these daily with the AI Lawyer Talking Tech podcast (Spotify or Apple) which covers legal tech news and summarizes stories.
From DSC:
And although this next one is not necessarily legaltech-related, I wanted to include it here anyway — as I’m always looking to reduce the costs of obtaining a degree.
Improve the Diversity of the Profession By Addressing the Costs of Becoming a Lawyer — from lssse.indiana.edu by Joan Howarth
Not surprisingly, then, research shows that economic assets are a significant factor in bar passage. And LSSSE research shows us the connections between the excessive expense of becoming a lawyer and the persistent racial and ethnic disparities in bar passage rate.
The racial and ethnic bar passage disparities are extreme. For example, the national ABA statistics for first time passers in 2023-24 show White candidates passing at 83%, compared to Black candidates (57%) with Asians and Hispanics in the middle (75% and 69%, respectively).
These disturbing figures are very related to the expense of becoming a lawyer.
Finally, though, after decades of stability — or stagnation — in attorney licensing, change is here. And some of the changes, such as the new pathway to licensure in Oregon based on supervised practice instead of a traditional bar exam, or the Nevada Plan in which most of the requirements can be satisfied during law school, should significantly decrease the costs of licensure and add flexibility for candidates with responsibilities beyond studying for a bar exam. These reforms are long overdue.
Thomson Reuters acquires Safe Sign Technologies — from legaltechnology.com by Caroline Hill
Thomson Reuters today (21 August) announced it has acquired Safe Sign Technologies (SST), a UK-based startup that is developing legal-specific large language models (LLMs) and as of just eight months ago was operating in stealth mode.
From DSC:
On a macro scale…this is on my heart these days.
I ran across some troubling but informative items re: religion in America from item #5 at Rex Woodbury’s 10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing:
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I’ve known about this decline for years now, but Rex’ posting and graphs were disheartening nonetheless. And Samuel Abrams’ article contains many reflections that I’ve had as well.
The Christian journey is about transformation — our hearts and minds are changed so that we become more like Jesus Christ (the pioneer and perfecter of [our] faith, per Hebrews 12:2). This transformation involves how we see and experience the world as well as how we are supposed to treat others. We receive new “glasses” if you will — new lenses on the world. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40:
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
So Christians are taught to love our neighbors. I/we mess up on this constantly, but many of us are trying to get better at it.
But what happens when we don’t love — or even care for/about — our neighbor? Do you know that if you are living in the United States right now, you are already feeling and experiencing the impact of this in an enormous way?
Here are a few ways that you can see this playing out — even from a secular/business standpoint:
So you and I are already being impacted when we push God out of our lives and out of our institutions. When we Americans look around these days..how’s that going for us? In my own life, the further I get away from God, the worse things get.
Also, we could talk about mental health*, shootings in our schools and on our streets, and several other things.
Do we care? I do. I think about this kind of thing more and more these days. LORD, forgive us. We need your help.
Some of the Best Online Learning Games for Kids — from nytimes.com by Courtney Schley
If you’re looking for apps and games that not only keep young kids occupied but also encourage them to explore, learn, and express themselves, we have some great suggestions.
The apps we cover in this guide are good learning apps not because they’re designed to make kids smarter, to drill facts, or to replace in-school learning, but because they each offer something fun, unique, and interesting for kids and adults.
As with our guides to STEM and learning toys, we didn’t test scores of apps to try to find the “best” ones. Rather, most of our favorite apps have been chosen by teachers for their students in classrooms, used by Wirecutter parents and their kids, or recommended by the experts and educators we spoke with.
SATs Have Never Been About Equity — from insidehighered.com by Pepper Stetler
The history of the SAT raises questions about how we value and measure intelligence, Pepper Stetler writes.
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
Even though the overwhelming majority (about 80 percent) of the country’s colleges and universities will remain test optional for the Class of 2029, our national conversation about the role of standardized admissions tests in higher education focuses almost exclusively on elite colleges, whose enrollments represent only 1 percent of students. Such a myopic perspective will do little to increase access to higher education. Real change would require us to reckon with the history of standardized tests and how they have persistently disadvantaged large numbers of students, particularly students of color and students with disabilities.
One hundred years later, academic success is defined as the capacity to do well on a standardized test. It does not just predict a person’s academic ability. It defines academic ability. And those who have the most time and resources to devote to the test are the ones who will succeed.
Top EdTech Trends Shaping Education in 2024-2025 — from edmentum.com
Understood.com | Everyone deserves to be understood
Understood is the leading nonprofit empowering the 70 million people with learning and thinking differences in the United States.
The Role of the Law Library in Serving Incarcerated Individuals — from sr.ithaka.org by Tammy Ortiz & Ess Pokornowski
Announcing a New IMLS-Funded Project
In a new project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), we will examine the national landscape of access to legal information for people who are incarcerated and the current state of the field of law librarianship in facilitating access to the law for the justice-impacted population. This project will build on exploratory research to document the different types of libraries involved in providing services to incarcerated patrons and the challenges and opportunities they face.
We will explore the following research questions:
Researchers develop VR training to tackle racial disparity — from inavateonthenet.net
Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a VR training system for physicians, aimed at tackling racial and class health disparities.
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“Ultimately, this virtual reality training system could become a viable tool for practicing communication with diverse patients across different types of health care professions. “There’s no reason why nurses couldn’t also use this across different health care contexts — not just for Black maternal health, but chronic pain, diabetes or some of these other health issues in which we know that there are disparities based on markers of difference such as race or class”.
Two additional VR training modules are under development, aimed at promoting self-reflection by helping medical students to identify their own biases and learn how to mitigate them. The third module will focus on students practicing intercultural communication skills through interactions with a virtual patient, an approach that is seen by the researchers as more cost-effective than recruiting people for role playing with medical students.
From DSC:
I’ve often thought that VR could be used to help us walk in someone else’s shoes….to experience things as THEY experience things.
DC: So as the world watches how America’s judicial system works (or doesn’t work), we tell them, “Trump is above the law, at least in many circumstances.”
https://t.co/ehjBFKcA2I— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) July 2, 2024
From DSC:
I realize I lose a lot of readers on this Learning Ecosystems blog because I choose to talk about my faith and integrate scripture into these postings. So I have stayed silent on matters of politics — as I’ve been hesitant to lose even more people. But I can no longer stay silent re: Donald Trump.
I, too, fear for our democracy if Donald Trump becomes our next President. He is dangerous to our democracy.
Also, I can see now how Hitler came to power.
And look out other countries that Trump doesn’t like. He is dangerous to you as well.
He doesn’t care about the people of the United States (nor any other nation). He cares only about himself and gaining power. Look out if he becomes our next president.
Unlimited Presidential power. According to Trump vs the US, the “President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.” Justice Sotomayor says this makes the President a “king.” This power + surveillance + AGI/autonomous weapons mean the President is now the most powerful king in the history of the world.
Democracy is only 200 years old.
NYC High School Reimagines Career & Technical Education for the 21st Century — from the74million.org by Andrew Bauld
Thomas A. Edison High School is providing students with the skills to succeed in both college and career in an unusually creative way.
From DSC:
Very interesting to see the mention of an R&D department here! Very cool.
Baker said ninth graders in the R&D department designed the essential skills rubric for their grade so that regardless of what content classes students take, they all get the same immersion into critical career skills. Student voice is now so integrated into Edison’s core that teachers work with student designers to plan their units. And he said teachers are becoming comfortable with the language of career-centered learning and essential skills while students appreciate the engagement and develop a new level of confidence.
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The R&D department has grown to include teachers from every department working with students to figure out how to integrate essential skills into core academic classes. In this way, they’re applying one of the XQ Institute’s crucial Design Principles for innovative high schools: Youth Voice and Choice.
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Student Enterprise: Invite Learners to Launch a Media Agency or Publication — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark
Key Points
Important trend: client projects. Work-based learning has been growing with career academies and renewed interest in CTE. Six years ago, a subset of WBL called client-connected projects became a focal point of the Real World Learning initiative in Kansas City where they are defined as authentic problems that students solve in collaboration with professionals from industry, not-for-profit, and community-based organizations….and allow students to: engage directly with employers, address real-world problems, and develop essential skills.
Portrait of a Community to Empower Learning Transformation — from gettingsmart.com by Rebecca Midles and Mason Pashia
Key Points
The Portrait of a Graduate—a collaborative effort to define what learners should know and be able to do upon graduation—has likely generated enthusiasm in your community. However, the challenge of future-ready graduates persists: How can we turn this vision into a reality within our diverse and dynamic schools, especially amid the current national political tensions and contentious curriculum debates?
The answer lies in active, inclusive community engagement. It’s about crafting a Community Portrait that reflects the rich diversity of our neighborhoods. This approach, grounded in the same principles used to design effective learning systems, seeks to cultivate deep, reciprocal relationships within the community. When young people are actively involved, the potential for meaningful change increases exponentially.
Q&A: Why Schools Must Redesign Learning to Include All Students — from edtechmagazine.com by Taashi Rowe
Systems are broken, not children, says K–12 disability advocate Lindsay E. Jones.
Although Lindsay E. Jones came from a family of educators, she didn’t expect that going to law school would steer her back into the family business. Over the years she became a staunch advocate for children with disabilities. And as mom to a son with learning disabilities and ADHD who is in high school and doing great, her advocacy is personal.
Jones previously served as president and CEO of the National Center for Learning Disabilities and was senior director for policy and advocacy at the Council for Exceptional Children. Today, she is the CEO at CAST, an organization focused on creating inclusive learning environments in K–12. EdTech: Focus on K–12 spoke with Jones about how digital transformation, artificial intelligence and visionary leaders can support inclusive learning environments.
Our brains are all as different as our fingerprints, and throughout its 40-year history, CAST has been focused on one core value: People are not broken, systems are poorly designed. And those systems are creating a barrier that holds back human innovation and learning.
6 Ways State Policymakers Can Build More Future-Focused Education Systems — from gettingsmart.com by Jennifer Kabaker
Key Points
The Aurora Institute has spent years working with states looking to advance competency-based systems, and has identified a set of key state policy levers that policymakers can put into action to build more personalized and competency-based systems. These shifts should be guided by a vision–co-constructed with local leaders, community members, students, and families–for what students need to know and be able to do upon graduating.
Career Pathways In A Rapidly Changing World: US Career Pathways Story — from gettingsmart.com by Paul Herdman
Key Points
While much has been written on this topic (see resources below), this post, in the context of our OECD study of five Anglophone countries, will attempt to provide a backdrop on what was happening at the federal level in the U.S. over the last several decades to help catalyze this shift in career pathways and offer a snapshot of how this work is evolving in two very different states—Delaware and Texas.
U.S. public, private and charter schools in 5 charts — from pewresearch.org by Katherine Schaeffer
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