Presenters: Emma Jones and Francine Ryan
This presentation will explore the opportunities and challenges involved in incorporating virtual reality (“VR”) into the law school environment. It will do this using empirical data from The Open University’s recent pilot of a VR app, designed to enhance its law students’ presentation skills by placing them into “real world” environments (including a school assembly hall and prison classroom). The presentation will then consider some of the specific pedagogic issues involved in its use, focusing on forms of Cartesian dualism within law which separate out the mind and body, reason and emotions. It will argue that legal education’s traditional focus on the disembodied and prizing of a narrow form of reason and rationality have left both students and educators ill-equipped to fully embrace VR as a technology. However, it will suggest that VR has significant potential in challenging these traditional paradigms and preparing students for the digital age.
