The development of good presentation skills is critical for a career in advocacy and increasingly necessary for entry into the wide variety of other career paths that law students may take.
The construction of a multi-use digital space for students in the form of a Digital Studio which includes a one button recording facility and editing facilities is one step that the school has taken to actively address the development of these skills.

The high-spec recording studio gives students the facility to record, review, edit and critically analyse their own presence on camera while giving presentations as well as have a video they can use to receive feedback from peers and lecturers.

There are also a range of other uses envisaged for the studio, including the recording of audio podcasts, recording of client council negotiations and staff pieces to camera as well as potential pedagogical uses such as single presentations or group presentations that can be used for assessment.

Professor Robin Hickey, Head of the Law School, said “The One Button Studio is a fantastic addition to our wonderful law school building. It reflects the genius and innovation of our staff, and their commitment to the highest-quality skills-based education; and it is opening up a huge range of feedback and collaboration possibilities for our students”.

The One Button Studio is built as build a freestanding structure so there are no permanent changes to the room. The structure has been partially soundproofed to remove a lot of ambient noise. Exterior to the recording space is a bench with two iMacs that will facilitate light editing of presentations if necessary using Quicktime and iMovie for video and Audacity for audio.

How it works

To utilise the recording facilities students will enter, close the exterior door and pull the backdrop curtain. Placing a pendrive into the control panel on the wall which triggers the lights to automatically come on along with a TV monitor that is built into the wall. Students can then step back and use the camera controls to frame their shot. To start recording they simply press record.

The session is recorded to the pendrive and on completion they press stop and wait for the data to finish writing to the drive. They can then remove the drive and exit the studio and use one of the iMacs to review and trim their recorded presentation.

Pendrives can be purchased from the School of Law reception for £5.00

Students can book 30 minute sessions through Shared Student Resources

Media

For further information please contact Richard Summerville on 028 9097 3599