MOODLE PLATFORM AND CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION
With the rapid advances in technology, several online learning tools come onto the stage. In UNIBS Legal Clinic the teaching and learning process is facilitated and supported through the use of the Moodle platform.
As well known, Moodle is a free Course Management System: it is a complete package for managing, designing and running courses; in Moodle there are different default activities and resources, settled by the system, that allow to communicate, evaluate, collaborate, store – and this fact, of course, facilitates online content creation. Despite that, Moodle gives to users a great freedom to tailor the system according to their specific educational needs: the users are allowed to choose only some default activities and resources and combine them in a way that suits for the particular educational propose.
The first presentation attached provides a general overview on how UNIBS Legal Clinic has tailored the Moodle system according to its specific educational needs (‘Moodle Platform in Clinical Legal Education’, dott.ssa L. Bugatti).
Moreover, during the STARS Project a Moodle platform has been created to showcase the work of the consortium, to share documents and materials among the partners, to present the STARS project and conduct the STARS activities during the Summer/Winter Schools. As stated in the project, at its first stage, the Moodle Clinics platform has been opened only to STARS project participants (Summer school participants/trainers and STARS partners).
A part of the Moodle Platform has been dedicated to the First Summer School (Brescia).
Summer Schools participants took an active role during the Summer Schools, being directly involved in the learning process, in the construction of their knowledge, competences and skills. In particular, Moodle Platform has been created as a collaborative environment that both students and teachers built together before and during the summer schools activities.
The default activities and resources of Moodle have been selected and combined in a way that suits for our educational purpose of the summer school; in particular, students have been able to:
- Find information about the STARS Project, LCs, First STARS Summer School: students had access to relevant websites (STARS project Website; Brescia Legal Clinic Website..); files (e.g. general information about the Summer School, description of legal cases, templates, detailed syllabus and brochure, general information and so on); folders (created for helping organize files and collecting a series of files on one topic); webpages (for example presentation of cases; groups, contacts)
- Collaborate and communicate: each student had access to a special section dedicated to the legal case that she/he handled (to be filled with the description of the case, legal documents, research materials, work done during the separate session and so on). The section was shared among students working on the same legal case and related supervisors/trainers. Moreover, online forums (a general one as well as forums reserved and dedicated to each group) have been created: they provided a mean of communication outside of classroom meetings.
Please find attached a general overview on the use of Moodle Platform during the STARS Project, with a particular focus on Brescia Summer School (‘Summer Schools and Moodle Platform – the UNIBS experience’, dott.ssa L. Bugatti).