'Online can be the privileged mode': Navigating Digital Innovation in the Curriculum

Abstract 
Why is it that so many promising digital educational innovations, conceived, theorised, carefully implemented and with promising results, fail to be taken up more generally in legal education? In this seminar Professor Paul Maharg will explore the generally held notion that digital educational pilots are somehow labs that experimentally prove an intervention can succeed, which then requires to be disseminated more widely.

Professor Maharg will argue that almost all aspects of that process are suspect and the reasons why that is so involves a consideration of Bruno Latour’s analysis of Pasteur’s scientific method. For us in legal education, this involves a reconceptualization of dissemination as transformation, where educational practices developed in experimental settings require essential bridging practices if they are to become more radical, privileging modes of curriculum design and learning. He shall discuss with examples and approaches from digital legal education projects across a range of jurisdictions.

About the Speaker
Professor Paul Maharg is a distinguished Professor with expertise in legal education, legal critique and law and literature. He is a part-time Professor at Manchester Law School, works as a consultant to Osgoode Professional Development in Osgoode Hall Law School, and has previously held Professorial roles at Osgoode, ANU, Nottingham Law School, Northumbria Law School and the University of Strathclyde. He has an extensive publication and editorial record, spanning legal education and professional learning design, with his specialisms including interdisciplinary educational design and the use of technology within all levels of legal education.