Web 2.0 and Online Studio Education

Online Studio Education
The rise of Web 2.0 Technologies paves the way to a collaborative and interactive learning environment making the exchange of content and collaboration over the web (Loannao, 2018). The internet, since then, started becoming the reservoir of knowledge, giving free access to information and educational resources (Loannao, 2018). Because of these developments, online courses and online education began and were incorporated in different educational fields as the means of expanding knowledge and enhancing the learning procedure (Loannao, 2018). Studio-based learning is the practical education where the learning is done through doing, relying on the jury system for evaluating and assessing the student’s projects (Siddiqi, 2002). The entire course is designed in the traditional pedagogy.
Online Studio Education is more than just a different teacher and student interaction format as it involves consistency within the educational resources as all the students receive the consistent course material and access to the professor, unlike the first-row advantage in the traditional classroom setting (Bender, 2006). Not only this, online studio education provides students with the flexibility of assessing the educational resource at their own time and convenience (Bender, 2006), increasing their capabilities for learning and making them more focused as they can absorb more when their minds are fresh. Also, they can access and view the materials repeatedly to understand the key concepts (Bender, 2006), making them more explicit in their approach. This also removes one of the disadvantages of the traditional studio education, where both the teachers and the students need to be physically present at the same time and at the same place for fulfilling curriculum goals (Bender, 2006).
Education has incorporated technological innovation for its success, making the online education the solution for today’s modern era, eradicating the issue of distance in pursuing education (Bender, 2006). Higher education systems, especially the architectural and design courses, are moving towards integrating technology, transforming the traditional format of studying, but the studio courses have remained constant with the traditional style of education (Bender, 2006). Since distance has been one of the impeding factors towards education (Bender, 2006). This pedagogical and traditional structure of the studio should be changed in order to incorporate the new social, economic, and technological changes (Pasin, 2017). Educational practices have changed due to the integration with technology, proving successful and efficient with the learning procedure and teaching style.
Traditional Design Studio is the kind of teaching environment that has a studio space that caters 10-12 students under one professor/instructor in which they design and do their work, bringing together all aspects of architectural education by using design studio (Kurt, 2009). In traditional studio learning, it is not possible to deal with each student and receive feedback from every student. The studio schools keep expanding and catering to more and more students, making the communication and feedback a problem. However, in online studio education, there are teaching assistants with lesser credit hours, also dealing with one-on-one emails and conference calls (Bender, 2006). In Online Studio, a higher number of students can also be handled as the education is online-based, reduces the hassle of handling the classrooms and feedbacks (Bender, 2006). This makes the educational process easy and convenient for instructors as well and helps them deal with each student to work more effectively.
Traditional design studio involves different activities, starting from goal and expectation setting before the start of a project also termed as ‘the design of the project assignment’ since it involves the planning of the goals and assessment criteria of the project, giving a sense of direction to the students (Kurt, 2009). Then the discussion and problem solving are done during the time of the project until the end when the final review is presented (Kurt, 2009). While the online design education, computer lab time is given, and students design their work using online resources like Computer-Aided Design (CAD) saving their work on Adobe’s Portable Document File for the instructors to review, with the time and date saved electronically (Bender, 2006). The assembling of the submitted work is done by the teaching assistant for the instructors alphabetically (Bender, 2006). There is a difference in how the students make their designs and how they submit their work in the traditional and online design studio as there is a difference in resources used, introducing new methodologies and imparting new skills within the students for this digital age (Bender, 2006). This way, the students can learn the current and new multimedia and other technological skills, equipping them with the modern techniques of this digital age.
Traditionally, Design studios have a critic that moves around the entire space, meets the students, and have discussions with them (Kurt, 2009), making it a very crucial part of the studio learning. The jury system in Design Studios makes it very biased, sometimes as it is subjective (Siddiqi, 2002). The traditional architectural studio is based on the old model of apprenticeship, where the learning is solely based on the practicality of it (Kurt, 2009). In Online Design Studio, the instructor makes a 20-30 minute mp3 audio file for critiquing their submissions, which is transcribed as well (Bender, 2006), performing the function of ‘Jury’ in the design studio education. As it is one audio file, the students can hear the critique on their classmates’ projects as well (Bender, 2006), enhances their knowledge base. Additionally, it can be utilized as an assessment factor of the curriculum’s goals as this audio file is kept for the entire course of their learning, which can be reviewed by every student at any time (Bender, 2006).
Incorporating technology in the studio education, according to one research, enhances different kinds of communication as well, like a teacher to student, student to student, student to experts and student to the community (Loannao, 2018), which increases their knowledge base and gives more room for creativity and development with the students. Content sharing increases, allowing the students to review and understand the work of another student, unlike in traditional settings where the content is shared between the student and teacher only, while the communication is mostly student-teacher based (Loannao, 2018). This enhances the interaction and creates a social context in the learning process (Kurt, 2009), influencing the procedure and making it more effective as students get a chance to know and discuss ideas and their inputs with its fellows and gain more in-depth insight.
There are different modes and formats that incorporate technology and helps enhance the entire design studio education, like blended learning and network structured communication (Loannao, 2018). Blended Learning is the grouping of both traditional learning and learning via the internet, providing both types of courses and learning material (Bender, 2006) while the network communication is for engaging and connecting the students (Loannao, 2018). This will develop and encourage students not to get pressured with the traditional pedagogical style of education and learn freely as the physical confinement of the classrooms restricts student’s learning process (Loannao, 2018). Not only this, but online communication also incorporates different other parties from different domains related to the projects to enhance the knowledge base related to the project (Loannao, 2018).
The nature of design education demands openness in the learning environment for it to be effective, like group discussions, teamwork, and collaboration, which encourages more ideas and an active environment for the students to immerse themselves (Loannao, 2018). This requires the integration of technology within the education as the traditional system is based on the supervision of tutors only, cutting out the exchange of ideas and discussion among the students since the system lacks sharing of materials and peer review (Loannao, 2018). Online Design studio can expand and also enhance the educational scope as it will involve active discussion, peer-to-peer connectivity, and broaden the knowledge base of its courses.
Incorporating technology develops a diverse use of all environments to base the entire educational system on the student, making it a student-centered approach (Loannao, 2018) where the students can reach up to their full intellectual and learning potential. Similarly, incorporating it within the design studio courses like architectural design studio will enable the learning procedure in all kinds of setting like formal or informal to generate more learning capabilities (Loannao, 2018). This is important as the entire educational process is influenced by the environment in which the learning process takes place while the interaction, curriculum, and goals also play a crucial role in the entire procedure (Kurt, 2009). So, it is not only the course or the academics that impact learning procedure, the environment, both internal and external, is very much responsible for it to be effective (Kurt, 2009).
Online studio education also reduces or completely removes the insecurity of the students related to their designs being subject to copy or theft as students collaborate and start sharing their work online, making the environment secure and broader for learning (Loannao, 2018). This makes them free and open to share their content and understand/review their peers’ content. Students feel more secure with their content and understand how each of them can come up with unique and different ideas, making them understand the uniqueness and diversity of human nature (Loannao, 2018).
Online studio education is a little misunderstood in its approach as it is thought to be blocking the main components of studio education, which is based on pedagogy (Nottingham, 2014). Its influence on the pedagogy is neglected as it encourages open spaces for learning and communication, which therefore enhances the entire educational process (Nottingham, 2014). A research conducted on the graphic design studio shows that there is a massive difference between how education is perceived in traditional studio education and online design studio (Nottingham, 2014). It showed that online education not only influences the pedagogy but also makes it more organized and contemplative (Nottingham, 2014).
Conclusively, as the world is moving towards technological advancement and digital innovation, the educational fields have also realized the importance of technology in making the entire learning procedure more effective. Online studio education has immense benefits for the entire curriculum, learning objectives, course outline, and the educational environment of the students, imparting within them the new technological changes that will enhance their overall learning procedure. Even the pedagogy is influenced by the use of online studio education, developing a different kind of teacher-student relationship, making the environment more interactive and engaging (Nottingham, 2014). The assignments are introduced via the internet and submitted online, while the audio feedback is like the benchmark for future references of the same semester (Bender, 2006). Online Studio Education transforms the entire learning process, making it more useful for the modern era as it incorporates the current social, economic, and other changes. So, the learning procedure is enhanced, the curriculum is updated, and methodologies are made more effective in the online design studio, revolutionizing the Studio education.
References
Bender, D. M. (2006). Using Online Education Technologies to Support Studio Instruction. Educational Technology and Society.
Kurt, S. (2009). An analytic study on the traditional studio environments and the use of the constructivist studio in the architectural design education. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 401-408.
Loannao, O. (2018). Opening up design studio education using blended and networked formats. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education.
Nottingham, A. (2014). Reshaping design education: teaching graphic design online and onsite. The University of Melbourne.
Pasin, B. (2017). Rethinking the Design Studio-Centered Architectural Education. A Case Study at Schools of Architecture in Turkey. The Design Journal.
Siddiqi, A. A. (2002). ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN STUDIO PROJECTS AND THE CHARADES OF CURRICULUM. The 6th Saudi Engineering Conference, KFUPM. Architecture Department, College of Environmental Design, KFUPM Dhahran