I’ve always loved California. Something about the beaches and sunshine. I’m not unique. I went with my wife last year for Christmas and it was thoroughly enjoyable – so we decided to go back.

When you compare Grand Forks, North Dakota (where I grew up, and my family still lives) to Garden Grove, San Diego, CA (where my wife’s sister, and my friends live). It really is a no-brainer.

As posted previously, I’m a guest blogger for the Law School Ed Tech blog.  Yesterday, I posted an entry about a pilot we ran that blended a first-year legal classroom.  It’s a little long, but a fun read.  Here’s an excerpt.

In-class time becomes an issue. Though it is nearly impossible to hit all fifty students each day in class, if the faculty member had more time, more students would have an opportunity to be tested, quizzed, and in turn, tested on their understanding of the topic. With so much content to cover over the course of the semester, faculty find it difficult to “find more time” in class to create more opportunities for dialog, assessment – or even better – create activities for the students to put their knowledge into play.

Check it out »

Every week, I’m going to be posting a summary of what my workouts and such were. I used something like Training Peaks in the past, but I thought there something nice about personal accountability to anyone who stumbles on my blog. Enjoy.

I posted part 2 of my blog today at the Law School Ed Tech Blog. Here’s an excerpt:

We needed to change the model. We equated high technology usage and realism with good learning outcomes. We never stopped to ask ourselves and assess ourselves if the technology facilitated a good learning environment to the students, or was just something extra to add to the pomp. What learning purpose does all this technology have? We had the right idea on some things… the reporters were a good mechanism for feedback to the students as they “learn” in the simulation, but good learning environments don’t happen by chance.

I’m the guest blogger for the Law School Educational Technology blog for the month of December. I’ll be writing 4-5 posts that are catered towards some things I’m doing here at the S.J. Quinney College of Law. Today, I released the first of two posts on the Counter-terrorism Simulation we run every Spring. It’s a project I’m proud of and I’d like to share the story of how we got to where we are with it.