Check out the CALI Conference at Chicago-Kent

You may know about CALI, The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction, through CALI Lessons or CALI Awards.  But CALI – which started at Chicago-Kent – does much more.  For example, every year CALI hosts a conference about law school technology.  This year, the conference will be held at Chicago-Kent.  Anyone at Chicago-Kent – including students – may attend for free.  The conference starts on Thursday, June 14, and runs through Saturday, June 16.

There are a lot of conference sessions which students will find interesting:

Preparing Future Lawyers to Find Their Inner Veronica Mars: Teaching students how to use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media for investigative purposes in legal practice

This session will discuss how social media has come to play a role in criminal and civil investigations and what skills lawyers  need to conduct social media investigations.

Vocational Legal Education in Asia – Innovation, Interaction and Information Technology

This session will discuss how technologies such as online simulated law firms have been used for teaching law at the University of Hong Kong and other universities in Asia.

What we (and better yet, our students) learned from using all the toys in the toybox

At the University of Maryland, one instructor used every tech tool at her disposal to teach legal research, from online videos to classroom clickers.  In this session, the instructor will share what she learned from the experience.

One Less Textbook To Drag Around: Creating an Online Learning Experience for 1L Legal Skills Students

At Pace University School of Law, instructors dumped the traditional research textbook and instead created their own online resource.  In this session, the instructors discuss how well students responded to the new resource.

Legal Education, Technology, Law Practice: Intersecting Goals and CALI Projects
This session is a great opportunity to learn more about CALI’s varied projects, including A2J Author (created by Prof. Staudt at Chicago-Kent).

In addition to these sessions, on Saturday June 16, Chicago-Kent will host a special symposium that has been integrated into the conference:  Symposium on Justice, Lawyering and Legal Education in the Digital Age.  Topics include:

• Gaming the System: Approaching 100% Access to Legal Services through Online Games
• Access to Justice Clinics
• Teaching Law Practice Management in Law Schools: A New Paradigm
• Reflections on the Future of Legal Education and on the Importance of Digital Expertise

Chicago-Kent librarians will also present at the conference:

The Year of Living (with) Google – transition – last year, Chicago-Kent launched its Google Apps for Education.  In this session, library and IT staff will discuss how we came to choose Google, and what we’ve learned in the past year.

Flipping Flop?: exploring whether guest lectures can use the flipped classroom format – the research librarians used the “flipped classroom” method to teach advanced legal research concepts.  In this session, the librarians will share what worked — and what didn’t.

ABA TechShow & Tell – In March, two librarians attended the ABA Techshow.  In this session, they and a librarian from another law school will discuss the latest legal technology trends and what they mean for legal education.

We hope to see some students at the conference — it’s a great opportunity to learn about legal technology.  And you can’t beat free.