Introductions: Who are we?

[dquentel]

Hello,
Please post a reply and introduce yourself to the group. I'll start....I'm Deb Quentel and I've been with CALI since 1997. My title is Dlrector of Curriculum Development & General Counsel. What do I actually do? Work with faculty and lessons. I've overseen nine authoring fellowships and several authoring "pods" (more informal groups of faculty writing lessons in an area). I'm looking forward to starting work on simulations, and working with all of you. We've got a great group assembled for our pilot project.

And, something fun about me: my favorite color is blue, my favorite constellation is the Big Dipper.

Deb

[SarahV]

Hello. I am Sarah Valentine and I am the Legal Research Coordinator and Associate Law Librarian at CUNY School of Law. I work closely with the first year lawyering professors to develop and then link their simulations to legal research, which is a full year course at CUNY. I am looking forward to exploring SIMPLE as a potential tool for legal skills training. Fun facts? Um, I’ve put all of that away until after tenure - although I still like the green/blue color of Caribbean seas and snorkeling in same when ever the chance arises.

[Joe]

Hi! I'm Joe Grohman. I am a law professor at Nova Law Center. For 26 years I have worked mostly in the property and real estate related fields. Along with others inccluding Jim Smith who is working with us on Simple, I am a product of one of Deb's CALI fellowships.

[Robin304]

Hi! I'm Robin Craig, one of the environmental law professors and co-directors of the Environmental Law Program at the Florida State University College of Law, Tallahassee. Deb drafted me many years and two law schools ago to write lessons in environmental law; currently, I'm adding a series of lessons on Water Law, which should probably be cross-listed with Property. Anyway, in addition to environmental law, water law, and ocean and coastal law, I teach Civil Procedure and Property (BOTH next Fall, as a matter of fact) and Toxic Torts.

Very much looking forward to being in Boulder for this!

Robin

[Karen]

Hi Sarah, Joe, Robin and, of course, Deb. Glad that you made it this far! I think there are a couple of others who will be joining us soon and hopefully they will post a short introduction too.

I am Karen Barton from the University of Strathclyde Law School in Glasgow. I am the Co-director of the Legal Practice Courses which is a fancy title for saying that I manage, develop, oversee and co-ordinate our post-graduate courses on vocational legal education here at the University of Strathclyde. I also look after our 160 or so tutors (all legal practitioners who teach for a few hours a week in their area of expertise) and generally keep things ticking along with the students too! It's a busy job, and one of the reasons why we've gotten so much into simulations here at Strathclyde. We've found simulations are an amazing way to get the students practising exactly the kinds of transactions they will be carrying out for real once they leave us, and with all those tutors and around 270 students, through SIMPLE we can scale up the kinds of simulations we run, introduce variation and manage all of that relatively easily within a controlled environment.

I know some of you already use some form of paper-based simulations in your courses and others may have ideas that they want to develop into a simulation to run on the SIMPLE platform. Michael Hughes (our lead developer at Strathclyde) and I are looking forward to meeting all of you in June and to spend some time with you in workshops and one-to-one sessions so that we can help you get to that point. The idea is that by the end of the workshops in Boulder, everyone will go away with at least one blueprint for their simulation developed and ready to launch in SIMPLE. But that means we have a little bit of preparatory work to do before we get there...

So, I am going to add a new topic thread to the main SIMPLE@CALI forum and I'd like you all to add a post there describing the simulation you want to develop for the SIMPLE platform. We'll just start with a basic description of your simulation in your own words for the moment. Make it as brief or as detailed as you like. Some of you may have quite well developed ideas while others will be the stage of wondering whether the idea they have will actually be feasible! That is all good stuff, and don't worry if you haven't thought it all out yet, as hopefully the next few weeks will take you through that process.

Once everyone has posted their idea we'll start the process of refining your simulation into a more structured format and introducing some of the terminology and vocabulary that we use in the SIMPLE environment to describe the various important aspects of the simulation itself so that when we get to Boulder we should all be at a stage where we can start using the software and building our blueprints.

I look forward to seeing all of your ideas and working with you over these next few weeks!

Karen

[jim]

Hi Everyone. I'm really looking forward to our SIMPLE workshop next month. I teach first year property and upper-level commercial law and real estate courses at the University of Georgia. As Joe mentioned, years ago he and I had a great time as CALI Property Fellows, learning the "ins and outs" of CALI Author and working together to create a bank of CALI lessons -- thanks ago, Deb: What we accomplished would not have been possible without your leadership, assistance, and most importantly, patience.
Jim

[jmilles]

Hi all. I'm Jim Milles, professor at University at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. Until last December I was Director of the Law Library, but I stepped down from that position to pursue teaching and scholarship. I teach in the areas of cyberspace law, information privacy, and electronic discovery. I don't know quite what I'm going to do with this simulation platform yet, but I expect to come up with some interesting ideas.

[marjorie]

Hi. I am Marjorie McDiarmid. I teach evidence, trial ad and clinic at West Virginia University. CALI and I go back a long way. I've been an author, member of the editorial board and member of the Board of Directors. This project is particularly interesting to me because Deb and I have been working on some material for a number of years in CALI Author and have decided that another interface was needed. Simple looks like it may be ideal. My hobbies are photography and geocaching. I hope to do some of each while in Boulder. Look forward to seeing you there. Marjorie