Digital information support for concept design

This paper outlines the issues in effective utilisation of digital resources in conceptual design. Access to appropriate information acts as stimuli and can lead to better substantiated concepts. This paper addresses the issues of presenting such information in a digital form for effective use, exploring digital libraries and groupware as relevant literature areas, and argues that improved integration of these two technologies is necessary to better support the concept generation task. The development of the LauLima learning environment and digital library is consequently outlined. Despite its attempts to integrate the designers' working space and digital resources, continuing issues in library utilisation and migration of information to design concepts are highlighted through a class study. In light of this, new models of interaction to increase information use are explored

ENHANCING ARCHITECTURE EDUCATION WITH THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY

This paper presents effective ideas for using technology in design studio courses. These courses are based on some small well defined projects during the semester, in each of these projects students will pass through design process contain some clear steps. The attempt of this paper is to integrate technological methods in each stage of the design process. The paper first will outlines (agree on) five main stages in design process starting from research stage until the final jury presentation and then comes the faculties’ summative assessment. In each step technological modern methods are introduced. E-learning-podcasting, social media, smart boards, virtual client meeting, 3D cinema shows, coogle brainstorming, design games and finally using smart rubric for grading student’s projects will be involved in design steps to enhance students learning. Nowadays faculties have become increasingly committed to making teaching and assessments more effective in promoting student learning. This paper will presents HOW technology CAN enhance student learning in Design Studio courses especially in this era, where the technology not only yielded new tools and techniques, but have shaped a generation of students who seamlessly engage in the online and real world environments in many facets of their lives. Two types of data are considered for analysis: student’s level of satisfaction and expectation through surveys, Faculty Personal experience involvement. The paper will suggest a model for the design studio incorporating all the technological interventions in different stages of the design process

Supporting Collaboration in Introductory Programming Classes Taught in Hybrid Mode: A Participatory Design Study

Hybrid learning modalities, where learners can attend a course in-person or remotely, have gained particular significance in post-pandemic educational settings. In introductory programming courses, novices' learning behaviour in the collaborative context of classrooms differs in hybrid mode from that of a traditional setting. Reflections from conducting an introductory programming course in hybrid mode led us to recognise the need for re-designing programming tools to support students' collaborative learning practices. We conducted a participatory design study with nine students, directly engaging them in design to understand their interaction needs in hybrid pedagogical setups to enable effective collaboration during learning. Our findings first highlighted the difficulties that learners face in hybrid modes. The results then revealed learners' preferences for design functionalities to enable collective notions, communication, autonomy, and regulation. Based on our findings, we discuss design principles and implications to inform the future design of collaborative programming environments for hybrid modes

eLearning and eMaking: 3D Printing Blurring the Digital and the Physical

This article considers the potential of 3D printing as an eLearning tool for design education and the role of eMaking in bringing together the virtual and the physical in the design studio. eLearning has matured from the basics of lecture capture into sophisticated, interactive learning activities for students. At the same time, laptops and internet enabled phones have made computer-based learning mobile, invading classroom learning, changing communication between students, enabling on the spot research, and making the recording of ideas and activities easier. The barriers between online and offline are becoming blurred in a combined digital and physical learning environment. Three-dimensional printing is part of this unification and can be an empowering learning tool for students, changing their relationship with the virtual and the physical, allowing them to take ideas and thinking from screen to reality and back again in an iterative, connected process, however, from an eLearning point of view it is, more importantly, a transformative technology with the potential to change the relationship of the learner to their learning and the scope and nature of their work. Examples from Griffith Product Design student learning illustrate the potential of eMaking to enhance combined learning in a digital ag

Transforming pedagogy using mobile Web 2.0

Blogs, wikis, podcasting, and a host of free, easy to use Web 2.0 social software provide opportunities for creating social constructivist learning environments focusing on student-centred learning and end-user content creation and sharing. Building on this foundation, mobile Web 2.0 has emerged as a viable teaching and learning tool, facilitating engaging learning environments that bridge multiple contexts. Today’s dual 3G and wifi-enabled smartphones provide a ubiquitous connection to mobile Web 2.0 social software and the ability to view, create, edit, upload, and share user generated Web 2.0 content. This article outlines how a Product Design course has moved from a traditional face-to-face, studio-based learning environment to one using mobile Web 2.0 technologies to enhance and engage students in a social constructivist learning paradigm. Keywords: m-learning; Web 2.0; pedagogy 2.0; social constructivism; product desig

An in-the-wild study of learning to brainstorm: Comparing cards, tabletops and wall displays in the classroom

© 2016 The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Computer Society. Single display interactive groupware interfaces have the potential to effectively support small group work in classrooms. Our work aimed to gain understanding needed to realize that potential. First, we wanted to study how learners use these large interactive displays, compared with a more traditional method within classrooms. Second, we wanted to fill gaps in the current understanding of the effectiveness of interactive tables versus walls. Third, we wanted to do this out of the laboratory setting, in authentic classrooms, with their associated constraints. We conducted an in-the-wild study, with 51 design students, working in 14 groups, learning the brainstorming technique. Each group practiced brainstorming in three classrooms: one with vertical displays (walls); another with multi-touch tabletops; and the third with pens and index cards. The published literature suggested that tabletops would be better than the other conditions for key factors of cooperative participation, mutual awareness, maintaining interest and affective measures. Contrary to this, we found that the horizontal and vertical displays both had similar levels of benefit over the conventional method. It was only for affective measures that tabletops were better than walls. All conditions were similar for our several measures of outcome quality. We discuss the implications of our findings for designing future classrooms

Framework for the implementation of an enhanced virtual design studio in the architecture education curriculum of the United Arab Emirates : the virtual creative and collaborative studio

Being a rapidly developing country the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has realised the need for highly qualified and properly skilled manpower to cope with the country‟s ambitious development plans. This has resulted in high investments in education and training in the UAE. The government facilitated high technological tools for education. These tools suffered from underutilisation and a failure to be properly integrated in the curricula. The literature review indicates that today‟s knowledge-driven economy demands a workforce equipped with complex skills such as creativity and collaboration. Universities must not only teach the necessary technical skills and knowledge, but also the culture of creativity and teamwork. The learning theories emphasise the importance of learning by doing and collaboration processes to achieve effective learning. Learning theories also emphasise the importance of teaching creative skills to the students. These approaches are congruent with use of technologies, such as visual design studio (VDS), for the purpose of architecture education in design courses, but such use is lacking in the UAE. The present research focuses on implementing and evaluating technologies such as the VDS in architecture education in an attempt to formulate a framework for implementing technologies combined by creative and collaborative skills in the UAE. Since implementing a new technology into education practice is complex task, this work will formulate a framework that will help in shifting from the traditional learning to learning with technology. This work will take into consideration factors such as pedagogical issues, collaboration creative work and architecture practice and industrial needs in the UAE. The aim of the current research is to formulate a framework for implementing VDS at the conceptual end of the architecture design education in the UAE. This research will apply an action research method framework. The action research will be generated into three phases. Each phase will consist of three stages, the descriptive stage which will analyse the need and criteria of the method, the constructive stage which will include the process involved in constructing the framework and the evaluative stage which will include the testing and evaluation. The resulting framework should satisfy the UAE‟s needof advanced technological tools for enhancing design education taking in consideration the socio-cultural dimension of the UAE. As technology is changing rapidly; future research should concentrate on adding further technological tools such as mobile learning. Also as this work provided a framework for integrating technology in architecture design education, yet it is not limited to this discipline only. Other disciplines could benefit from this emerging model and further research could be conducted