The lesson gives students and practitioners an opportunity to learn and to put their legal skills into practice in a simulated trial played at courtroom speed. Interactive video combines video and computer technology. The Law School lessons run on a wide range of hardware, anything from IVA 3000 onwards. The system used in the Law School operates through a computer and laserdisc player. A video overlay card sits inside the computer and digitises the analogue video signal from the laserdisc.
Users can interact with the system through the computer keyboard.
Staffordshire University Law School interactive video lessons provide a laser disc, the software to run the lesson, loading instructions and a user's guide. On the colour video monitor the courtroom scene unfolds, featuring the judge, advocate and witness. The user can halt the screen action at any point, usually to object. The judge summarily dismisses some objections, but the program always explains why this has happened. Where an objection might be correct, the user has to state the basis of the objection by reference to a particular evidential rule selected from a multi-choice menu.