Those who haven't participated in American higher eduction (HE) during the past ten years may not be familiar with Blackboard and it competitors. Blackboard is the principal medium in which distance education (known as correspondence school in the way-back day) is carried on nowadays. The so-called virtual leaning environment (VLE) is replacing what is now known as face-to-face education (F2F). (Gotta love the education acronyms.)
Law schools like Regent use Blackboard to supplement F2F but many other aspects of HE are rapidly being entirely displaced into the world of VLEs. For example, I post my course syllabus, downloadable PowerPoint slides, extra assigned reading material, an occasional interesting YouTube link, and digitally recorded summary lectures to the Blackboard page for my classes. At the very least, this transfers the cost of reproduction and printing from the school to the students, and at the best it enhances what we do in the F2F classroom, which remains the primary locus of teaching.
Simultaneously, there is another wave of concern among legal educators about the formation of character in law students (called "professional identity" among the educational cognoscenti). Internalization of information and even the acquisition of professional skills aren't enough, according to the Carnegie Report on Legal Education. Law schools should also be in the business of teaching students how to exercise professional judgment. This is a more straightforward task at a Christian law school like Regent. After all, we can look to character traits like the fruit of the Spirit rather than a vague concept like "professional identity."
But more to the point: What is the relationship between Blackboard and character? In other words, how does learning in a VLE affect one's character (or identity, if you prefer)? Here I came across a post entitled "Zombies, Technology, and Capitalism" which you can read for yourself here. If you read it, be sure to look to the comments as well where the author interacts with a critic. In short, the blog author argues that
And lest anyone think this is the sort of talk that can come only from an ivory-tower academic, you might want to read about how a practicing workout lawyer (a large part of what I did in a former life) has to say about the dangers of being a zombie lawyer here where she worries that
Law schools like Regent use Blackboard to supplement F2F but many other aspects of HE are rapidly being entirely displaced into the world of VLEs. For example, I post my course syllabus, downloadable PowerPoint slides, extra assigned reading material, an occasional interesting YouTube link, and digitally recorded summary lectures to the Blackboard page for my classes. At the very least, this transfers the cost of reproduction and printing from the school to the students, and at the best it enhances what we do in the F2F classroom, which remains the primary locus of teaching.
Simultaneously, there is another wave of concern among legal educators about the formation of character in law students (called "professional identity" among the educational cognoscenti). Internalization of information and even the acquisition of professional skills aren't enough, according to the Carnegie Report on Legal Education. Law schools should also be in the business of teaching students how to exercise professional judgment. This is a more straightforward task at a Christian law school like Regent. After all, we can look to character traits like the fruit of the Spirit rather than a vague concept like "professional identity."
But more to the point: What is the relationship between Blackboard and character? In other words, how does learning in a VLE affect one's character (or identity, if you prefer)? Here I came across a post entitled "Zombies, Technology, and Capitalism" which you can read for yourself here. If you read it, be sure to look to the comments as well where the author interacts with a critic. In short, the blog author argues that
He hopes [in a book he's writing] to foreground how VLEs are being used as a tool for social control by post industrial capitalism, creating one dimensional men, and women.In other words, VLE entails useful tools for the system, zombies not thinkers.
And lest anyone think this is the sort of talk that can come only from an ivory-tower academic, you might want to read about how a practicing workout lawyer (a large part of what I did in a former life) has to say about the dangers of being a zombie lawyer here where she worries that
By turning the practice “digital,” are restructuring professionals, like the teachers in Nick Pearce’s study, trying to control their clients instead of trying to understand them? And have our digital “toys” created apathy, for us and everyone else?Apathy? Hardly the ideal profession identity law schools should aspire to form in their students. Indeed, no law school sets out to inculcate apathy but the potential convergence of VLEs and legal education may create just that state of affairs.
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