Virtual communities on the web: transactional learning and teaching

Abstract

This paper describes the context, project development and use of a web-based virtual community to enhance professional legal education at the Glasgow Graduate School of Law. Together with a number of other ICT initiatives, the community was presented in the RechtenOnline series of masterclasses. The approaches to learning presented at the workshop were developed over a number of years by the author and others, and continue to be developed and expanded. What is described below is therefore a constant work in progress; but the paradox of all educational implementations is that every engagement with students is, from their point of view, a once-only encounter - Heraclitus' step into the river, as it were - and thus our work can be described as cycles of both finished product and constant evolution. Below, we shall outline the context of our ICT implementations, give an overall view of our approach to teaching and learning using ICT, and then describe particular aspects of the projects we use to teach our students.