Abstract:

Online learning is gaining traction as a critical tool in education. The strengths of the web, including universal access, the highly graphic nature, and the ability to evolve, offers design education a unique platform on which to operate. Landscape architecture education, continuing education, and practice, however, have yet to take advantage of those strengths. This session examines a set of web-based tools created by an American University in collaboration with an American non-profit organization that works to capitalize on the unique potentials of the web in order to expand teaching potentials for landscape architecture. These tools include interactive modules, wiki-based living libraries, presentations, and quizzes, each linked externally and internally in order to harness the multi-faceted chaining potentials of web-based environments. This paper will describe these tools, and examine the underlying concept, development process, and supporting framework necessary for their genesis. If possible, online demonstration of the tools will be shown.

The multivalent connectivity of the framework harnesses the non-linear nature of the web by allowing users to navigate along suggested routes. In addition to the information contained within the framework, users have quick access to industry resources, videos, and suggested links available online but outside of the framework itself. This bridging between data types and sources is crucial to exercising the potential of this model, as it provides an adaptable method for expanding existing knowledge and resources. It is imagined that this model can act as an archetype for future linkages between professional, industry, and academic environments.

Through the fusion of innovative exercises and wiki-based, open source web development, the framework also possesses room for growth. Templates have been developed for educators, students, and professionals that allow resources within the framework to be supplemented and expanded over time to capture emerging trends as well as regional and location-specific technologies and applications. These templates resolve the historic issue of content management by providing a simplified and unified means for additional resources to populate the framework. Tagging adds another layer of access to the framework by allowing users and administrators to link key terms to content which in turn allows for multiple combinations of navigation based on user inputs and preferences. This flexibility and specificity is intended to empower users and provide a more enriching experience.
The paper will conclude with a discussion of lessons learned, potentials for increased connectivity across diverse information sources, and future possibilities enabled through increased collaborations, technological advances and new applications.

Keywords:

Landscape architecture, pedagogy, internet, interactive, wiki.