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Purveyors of Knowledge: How Bar Associations will become key players in the new era of legal education

1/26/2014

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By Alexandra Caufin
The verdict is in: Crisis has settled upon the legal sector. In 2012, only about 50% of new law graduates were practicing law within nine months of graduation. 27.7% were actually un- or underemployed, pursuing other degrees or leaving the industry altogether. At the same time, longstanding law practices continue the struggle to survive, slashing the jobs of even seasoned legal professionals. 

The culprits? Well for one, more and more new law graduates are appearing annually and they’re unfamiliar with the opportunities available to them beyond junior roles at law firms (who, by the way, aren't hiring). A growing client-base needing legal services for less means that clerks and paralegals are taking the roles that new lawyers once held. Alternatives that have popped up—virtual firms, automated risk management services, and online legal and dispute resolution—offer niche services at a fraction of the cost of law firms. We know this much: the game is changing and everyone will have to adapt. But in the eye of the storm, even legal experts say it’s difficult to know what the future of law practice will actually look like. 
Lawyer Legal CLE Education
Burlington Studios, 1912

Bridging the Gap: Building CLE for new lawyers and legal professionals

And yet, amidst this time of crisis, bar associations have a strange new opportunity to step up and incite change. This means reorganizing to become central hubs for Continuing Legal Education (CLE), creators of modern knowledge communities, and indispensable resources for legal professionals and law firms alike. Associations like the National Association of Bar Executives, Iowa State Bar and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute have already begun to build virtually-minded programs that reach out to new graduates and longtime practicing lawyers, get a dialogue going and a pulse on the most pressing subjects now needed in Continuing Legal Education.
In the intricate conversation about why new graduates and first and second year lawyers can’t find paid positions, Ida Abbott, award-winning consulting lawyer and author puts it plainly: They’re inexperienced. At least that’s how they’re being perceived by clients and firms alike. The industry, she says, is losing so many brilliant minds because they need professional experience but are unaware of different legal careers paths. In creating rich, interactive, and accessible-from-anywhere learning environments, institutions who can bridge the gap have the potential to become as relevant as law schools themselves. And that’s where Web 2.0 comes in. 

Law Goes Digital: Modernizing CLE in content and delivery 

Why modernize? Like virtually every other industry, legal has seen an eruption of new commercial sectors. Online risk analysts who work virtually to provide legal advice; E-discovery specialists and litigation support that are research-oriented; virtual firms and web-based services that allow legal advisors to login from all over the world, enabling longer-hour access, rapid contact and communication, and often, reduced costs for the end client. With these online-based enterprises, an entirely new skillset is emerging in the legal sphere. How do we get our seasoned legal professionals up to speed? 
Many bars are already looking to the on-the-go production of content now possible via mobile capture and platforms that go past simple live streaming from a physical facility. The technologies offer a way for lawyers and legal educators alike to engage in frictionless teaching and learning that can happen from their office desk or their iPhone or their kitchen table or even, from the courtroom. Bars can use sophisticated CLE programs to educate in job transitioning and help fashion a greater fluency with new technologies in the sector, ensuring that as the field modernizes, lawyers can modernize their own skills with it.  

Building the Network: Linking learning with e-mentorship

Exhibit A: Law Without Walls. It’s a new initiative by the University of Miami law school. It brings together firms, legal corporations and law schools worldwide, setting students up with mentors and advisors. Among a mob of new challenges, creating virtual opportunities for new graduates to connect with one another and with more experienced lawyers, presents a major opportunity for bar associations to step up and be the matchmaker. 
As the pre-existing middleman in the law community, bar associations can leverage the wealth of online technologies at their fingertips to construct a sustainable network: create cross-state, cross-province and cross-nation dialogue, facilitate information exchange, create online programs on competitive techniques for job seekers in the field. Help foster exposure to seasoned lawyers via online courses, webcasts, workshops and seminars. Establish e-mentorship programs and pair new legals with the role models that can help them develop the distinct professionalism that isn't taught in school.

With these changes, bar associations have the opportunity to center themselves in what will be a new era of practicing law. Lawyers across North America are calling for change and if bars can be the ones to respond, they’ll become more than administrators, they’ll become a part of the education process at large. 





Cited:

The Real Employment Numbers for the Law Class of 2012
Connecting Core Competencies: New Graduates and the Bar (Lecturer Ida Abbott)

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The doctor is Now In, and she will skype with you: 4 Reasons Why Online Continuing Medical Education (CME) is a Prescription for Success

1/26/2014

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By Alexandra Caufin
PictureShutterstock.com
Dr. Jayne Lee is not quite a teleporter but she’s about as close as it gets. A major proponent of telemedicine, Lee is a Paris-dwelling physician who treats her patients in North Carolina and Kentucky straight from France using robotic technology. And she’s not alone. In December 2013, the tv-famous psychiatrist Dr. Phil McGraw made headlines by announcing his role as advisor to Doctor on Demand, a new enterprise designed to provide care via mobile medicine.

In a world where society’s inevitable adoption of technology has made it possible to completely reinvent how we communicate, socialize and learn, healthcare is no exception. McGraw and Lee may seem like cutting edge futurists, but they are just two unique stories of the many healthcare professionals turning to technology to improve quality of care. 45% of clinicians now use smartphones and tablets to collect data at their patients’ bedsides. In fact, nearly all healthcare IT professionals report that their organizations supply mobile devices to clinicians to support day-to-day work activities, and 2 out of 3 have an official mobile technology plan in place.

We’re not just seeing technology being used in patient care, medical education is going digital as well. In 2012, for example, 40% of practicing physicians in North America were using online Continuing Medical Education (CME) to satisfy their annual requirements, up dramatically from 18% in 2005. By evolving the way that we deliver medical education, we are seeing real potential to in turn evolve the way we heal, treat and give care. Here are the four reasons why technology will continue to transform medical education and thus, the face of healthcare this year.


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MOBILE CHARGED MEDICINE
Some studies indicate that as much as 80% of physicians have implemented mobile technology approaches in providing patient care, improving ease in communication, data-taking and the sharing of information. With mobile devices already in their hands, healthcare professionals will have greater access to a ripening ecosystem of digital medical education, unify their working life with their continued pursuit of knowledge.


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CME FOR A MODERN WORLD
With increasingly longer wait times across North America, physicians are overbooked and scrambling to manage busy practices, and thus attending onsite CME is becoming less and less feasible. Many are turning to the anytime, anywhere, self-paced convenience that online CME offers to on-the-go professionals. As technology continues to develop with applications like interactive webinars, livestream lectures and learner-centred platforms, online CME becomes the central environment for collaboration and knowledge sharing.

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THE ECONOMIC EDGE
If we're talking dollars and cents, the ability to participate in CME remotely has resulted in sizeable cost savings, both for learners and course developers, sometimes as much as 50%, when compared with in-class equivalents. With budget cuts and the downsizing that healthcare organizations are facing, saving money on education programs is a welcomed benefit. Ten years ago, course creation tools were labour intensive, and producing just one hour of online content could have easily cost $10,000. Better creation technology has made it far easier, faster and more inexpensive to develop online courses for medical professionals.


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ENHANCED ACHIEVEMENT, ENHANCED CARE
The million-dollar question: are online CMEs as effective as their traditional in-class counterparts? Available research suggests yes, especially in terms of enhancing the learning experience in the medical sector. Put it this way: we now have a robot that can virtually enable a doctor to do her rounds from across the world. We have the technologies, and it does seem as though the ability to create online education that is as engaging, as involved, and as impactful as in-classroom learning, is very real. In some cases, achievement levels stand to be superseded because of a greater access, a superior method of information exchange, and more tools to facilitate collaboration with peers. 






Cited:

2nd Annual HIMSS Mobile Technology Survey, December 3, 2012
ACCME 2012 Annual Report

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Edutech Gallops into The year of the horse: 5 Online innovations We'll see in 2014

1/26/2014

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By Alexandra Caufin
Picturebloomua/Shutterstock.com
It was a good year; 2013 saw the release of the first-ever Google laptop, the rise of globally accessible education via the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), the eager implementation of the flipped classroom model and growth of platforms like Khan Academy, and a new feverish development around cloud computing. The second era of online education—one with multimedia, interactivity and social media rich at its core—has, aptly, reached a galloping pace as it proceeds into 2014, the Year of the Horse.

It’s no coincidence. The technologies coming out of the woodwork are answering a public demand to make education more accessible globally, more affordable, more practical for working adults, and more relevant in our digital and mobile-centric world. We’ve reached unbelievable momentum in the evolution of online learning tools, and here’s what we’re betting you’ll see more of in 2014:


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VIDEO BECOMES THE MEDIUM
Heavy-hitting platforms like Skype, YouTube and Vimeo paved the way for the now massively popular TED talks, releases like 2013’s Vine, and a slough of other video-based mobile apps. Effectively every major social platform now boasts a video chat feature from Facebook to Gmail to your iPhone’s FaceTime. With video, we at last have the opportunity to change how we deliver knowledge, granting a perpetually widening access to learning content. As our methods for recording, live streaming and sharing continue to sophisticate with better hardware and software, video in everyday life will become as commonplace as the in-class lecture, boardroom presentation, conference or seminar.

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COLLABORATION 3.0
The buzzword of 2013, collaboration will only surge forward this year, fuelled by technologies that have been designed to facilitate peer-friendly group work. Advances in cloud computing—Dropbox, Google Docs, Wikis and blogs to name a few—offer the tools needed to collaborate on projects, whether that it be in the same office, in different states or provinces, or even, across the world. With these capabilities at their fingertips, new graduates will be able to work and learn in the way that they socialize, continuing to blur the lines between learning, networking  and socializing.


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A ROGUE CERTIFICATE SYSTEM will rise from the influx of continuing education learners and the public’s ongoing criticism of the conventional university degree. We are beginning to see online programs that compete with university and college certification in the way of theory, practical skillsets and sophisticated evaluation systems (read: grades). Khan Academy for instance, awards ‘badges’ with the successful completion of its courses. Alternative learning certificates, diplomas and the acknowledged participation in online workshops and seminars will become the norm on resumes and CVs, complexifying the concept of a single person’s “education.” Associations and organizations, in turn, will be able to deliver more highly-recognized certification to their members.


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LEARNER CENTRIC EDUCATION
Long ago we discovered that the learning process is as unique for every individual as their own fingerprint. And yet our education systems are still touting the one-way, one-time-only, one-size-fits-all lecture. Online initiatives are responding by providing unique, adaptive programs and technologies for a spiralling spectrum of students. With the advances in user-based customization on the Web (think LinkedIn suggesting job openings that fit within your skillset and suggesting articles that coincide with your social demographic), the future of education technology will offer platforms that empower the learner by pinpointing distinct strengths, weaknesses and interests.

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DIGITALLY SUSTAINABLE INSTITUTIONS
will be the only institutions to survive in our brave new digital world. With an eager upcoming generation of digital natives who interact with mass media via a myriad of devices, those who fail to adapt will fail to capture their interest. Does your association have engaging online content accessible on computers, iPads and mobile devices? Do you use social media to share new learning opportunities with members? Do you offer any kind of digital environment that connects multimedia-rich learning with social collaboration? 2014 will make way for institutions who are ready and willing to join the digital revolution. Competition will up the stakes, entice innovators to push boundaries, and advance the face of learning online.


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