iPads in Legal Learning (iLEGALL): mobile devices in professional legal learning

Abstract

iLEGALL is a mobile learning project that sets out to gather information about the potential use of mobile technologies in legal education. The main hypothesis underpinning our project is that the barriers to an understanding and adoption of mobile technology in legal education, as in higher education generally, are not technical only but also social. We further hypothesise that there are two causes: HE staff are uncertain how to design and implement such technologies; and there is currently too much institutional investment in replication of conventional modes of teaching through the unimaginative use of technologies such as institutional VLEs. Our article analyses these hypotheses, exploring their effects in our project and on learning with mobile devices in three projects within three quite different locales and curricula at Northumbria University, Glamorgan University and the Law Society of Ireland. We conclude with a discussion of the cultural, technical and educational issues arising from the project to date.