Facebook as a Boundary Object in Industrial Design Studio. A SoTL Study (original) (raw)
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Perceptions of undergraduate Graphic Design students on the educational potential of Facebook
The popularity of Facebook among university students inevitably raises questions on the educational potential of this Social Networking Site for Higher Education. From the limited literature on the instructional uses of Facebook, one can draw conflicting conclusions. Benefits were identified through the communicative potential, student participation in study groups and through informal learning, i.e. learning that takes place outside the formal structures of the learning environment. In contrast, it is also argued that the instructional benefits of Facebook are not straightforward. This phenomenographic investigation examines the perceptions of undergraduate Graphic Design students in a higher education institution in Cyprus, on the use of Facebook for teaching and learning. Characteristic of Art and Design education is the centrality of the studio and student self-reflection. Despite some literature that considers Facebook provides a viable alternative to the physical studio, the participants in this investigation expressed a preference for face-to-face instruction and consider Facebook as complimenting rather than replacing studio practices. Some participants benefited from the use of Facebook by joining support groups and exploring information relevant to their studies. Further research can investigate how Facebook can be embedded in studio-based teaching and learning.
Online Reflective Interactions: Social Network Sites in Design Studio Course
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This paper is part of a PhD study which focuses on design studio course, where learning and teaching take place in a reflective social environment. Studio critique, the means by which teachers and students reflect, is the medium of interaction and communication in studio. In this study, in order to address the issues on studio critiques, i.e. reflective interactions, an online environment is proposed to be used parallel to studio, to supplement interaction and communication. With the aim of forming an engaging online environment for teachers and students, the structure of social network sites is taken as a model, as these sites show similarities with design studio, and are the predominant media for online communication. In order to test how social network sites are used in design studio, an action research programme was conducted, where online social network sites were used parallel to a number of industrial design studio courses. Interviews and questionnaires were held with teachers and students to identify the specific limitations of the physical studio course in terms of reflective interactions. Upon implementation, network sites and questionnaire answers were content analysed, to find out if and how the use of these online platforms addressed the limitations.
Architectural design learning through online conversation: a case for the use of facebook.
Studio as a learning space stands at the centre of architectural design teaching and learning. However, the architecture studio, as we know it, is at a crossroads. Students spend less time in the studio and an increasing amount of time in computer labs. These spaces are not conducive to conversation and interaction - activities typical of the studio environment and necessary for critical thinking and design conceptualisation and development. This paper presents work that is part of a current doctoral study by the author, entitled “The online architecture studio: towards an instructional design framework for design learning.” The study addresses three types of conversation that facilitate design learning, namely the conversation with the self (internal), the conversation between peers (horizontal) and the conversation between student and tutor (vertical). This paper addresses the peer to peer collaborative learning that happens online through facebook. An adaptation of Gabriel and Maher’s coding scheme for communication in collaborative design is used to analyze the text “utterances” that occur on the pages of a facebook group set up to support a face to face undergraduate final year design program. The analysis highlights the key communication areas achieved through face book as a virtual environment for interaction and conversation. Theoretical underpinning includes social learning theory, constructivism and the role of place, collaborative learning and cognitive theory of multi-media learning. This paper presents a case for the use of face book to support the face to face studio as a place for creative and constructive conversation – the original role of the physical studio.
There is wide acceptance that the studio stands central to architectural design education (Bakarman, 2003, 2005; Sarah Kuhn 2001; Forsyth, G., Zehner, B. and McDermott, R. 2007). It is a social environment (Gross, 1997; Chen and You 2010:152) which is characterised by communication, critique and collaboration. The studio is a physical place that facilitates pedagogy that supports community-centred instruction. It utilizes the theories of apprenticeship, social constructivism, socio-cultural theory of learning, collaborative learning, situated learning in communities of practice and en culturation. However, the physical architecture studio, as we know it, is rapidly being transformed. Students spend less time in the studio and an increasing amount of time in computer labs. These spaces are not conducive to conversation and interaction - activities typical of the studio environment and necessary for critical thinking, ideation and design development. But all is not lost. The Web offers new ways to connect people and to nurture, foster, and enable a sense of community. This paper presents work that is part of a current doctoral study by the author, entitled “The online architecture studio: towards an instructional design framework for design-learning.” It reflects on the social nature, qualities and characteristics of contemporary studio learning, specifically related to the interactive and collaborative learning experience. It then proceeds to investigate how a similar social learning experience can be created online through the use of facebook in teaching and learning, for students involved in a fulltime final year of an undergraduate program in Architectural Technology at a University of Technology in South Africa.
How Social is the Virtual Design Studio? A case study of a third year design studio
With the advent of social networks, it became apparent that the social aspect of designing and learning plays a crucial role in students' education. Technologies and skills are the base on which learners interact. The ease of communication, leadership opportunity, democratic interaction, teamwork, and the sense of community are some of the aspects that are now in the centre of design interaction. The paper examines Virtual Design Studios (VDS) that used media-rich platforms and analyses the influence the social aspect plays in solving all problems on the sample of a design studio at Deakin university. It studies the effectiveness of the generated social intelligence and explores the facilitation of students' self-directed learning. Hereby the paper studies the construction of knowledge via social interaction and how blended learning environments foster motivation and information exchange. It presents its finding based on VDS that were held over the past three years.
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The purpose of this paper is to report on the ways that middle school age youth in the US appropriated a social networking forum (SNF) during an afterschool integrative STEM program, [The STEM Club]. SNFs are a form of social media created predominantly for social interaction and maintenance of relationships. In design-based learning environments, SNFs have the potential to facilitate the documentation of the design process from collaborative idea generation through testing and refinement. These records can be accessed from anytime and anywhere with Internet access, providing opportunities for youth to draw connections between classroom and afterschool environments. [The STEM Club] was designed intentionally to expose youth to scientific concepts related to electrical generation and energy transformations through collaborative design of lights powered through motion. Concurrently, facilitators encouraged youth to post to the SNF, Edmodo. All posts were analyzed using the theoretical framework of connected learning in which peer and instructor interactions mediated through SNFs might enhance learning. Results indicate that youth appropriated Edmodo to connect with others, articulate knowledge, and exchange design ideas. Facilitators played a strong role in encouraging youth to persist with design refinement through the use of Edmodo. Results suggest that youth are open to using SNFs to collaborate and provide updates on design processes, which is encouraging in terms of blending formal and informal STEM learning environments with social media.
Web 2.0 VDS : social networking as a facilitator of design education
Anzasca 2010 on the Border Architectural Science in Theory Practice Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference of the Architectural Science Association, 2010
In 2009, Deakin University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong trailed the use of Web 2.0 technologies to enhance learning outcomes in a third year architectural design studio that was modelled on the Virtual Design Studios (VDS) of past decades. The studio developed the VDS further by integrating a social learning environment into the blended learning experience.
Engineering student use of Facebook as a social media ‘third space’
2017
CONTEXT In the context of engineering education, the potential of social media to open new modes of communication, interaction and experimentation between students and teachers has been identified. Facebook (facebook.com) is a popular social network system, with hundreds of millions of users, and examples of its use in engineering education can be found documented in the literature. A systems view of engineering education would typically position social media as a communication space that is either: i) controlled by the university for academic purposes; or, ii) controlled by students for social purposes. An emerging area of social media research is the investigation of student-created Facebook groups as a ‘third space’, between the institutional space of teacher-managed Facebook groups and the noninstitutional, student personal space of the Facebook network.
Teaching Design from a distance: a case study of Virtual Design Studio teaching via a Social Network
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies EDULEARN15, 2015
Design Studio teaching has been an established method in art and design academia for over 80 years. In design studio, theoretical knowledge and practical skills mix. The design process is taught by living through it, thus accessing deeper levels of cognitive, technical, and social skills. Studio facilitates experimentation, exploration, and synthesis, along with team working and peer-learning. Virtual Design Studio (VDS) addresses the same needs in online design education, but has three significant differences: geographically distributed participants; teaching and learning via digital objects; and asynchronous or/and synchronous communication. Asynchronous increases schedule flexibility, but written communication is more time-consuming than discussion. Additionally, the large amount of data to be processed and the required feedback increases one’s workload. VDS feedback is not immediate and is limited to only uploaded designs, thus affecting subsequent developments of student drafts. Since interaction between participants depends on practical and psychological constraints and ICT skills, it may not be as focused, rich or immediate as in the traditional studio. Although several VDS solutions have emerged in the past two decades, yet there is no single established design-teaching model that replicates the design studio method. Nevertheless, most current ICT technologies, including social media, share several common core features: emphasis on cooperation, reliance on a common set of tools, merge of synchronous and asynchronous communication, easy remote access etc. As people’s skills are constantly evolving in the use of digital tools and social media, the integration of the latter into VDS gradually moves design tutors from teaching and makes them facilitators of learning, while all participants become stakeholders of classroom interaction. The current paper explores the aforementioned notion through the use of the deviantArt (dA) platform (a dynamic online studio) in a design teaching method. The study reports on experiences from a distance learning MA course in Graphic Design, with 50 mature distant students per year. At the end of each of 3 consequent academic years, an evaluation was carried out so as to assess its validity as a distance teaching method for design and identify its weaknesses, strengths and improvement opportunities. dA displayed visuals without the navigation overload of online collaborative virtual environments. Each year 5 main assignments were created and more than 700 images were posted, with more than 6000 page views. Feedback from peers and tutors was seen as an important part of the design studio process, however due to several factors, it was not practiced in full extent. The opportunity to have an overview of design portfolios and to compare one's work with another’s was favoured. This practice was particularly beneficial for weaker students and those without an art/design background, as it improved their understanding of assignment requirements, and made them aware of quality and assessment criteria. Since teaching design to a multi-disciplinary group of distant learners is a challenge marked by the lack of an established physical community and by limited opportunities for face-to-face tuition, the paper discusses how the use of social media as a VDS teaching method encouraged a sense of community and provided an overview of the work of peers, and therefore enabled creative stimuli and peer-review comments.
Are social network sites the future of engineering design education
2018
This paper presents how online social network sites (SNSs) are being used by students in distributed engineering design teams to support design activities; and its implications for the future of design education. Ethnographic studies of a Global Design Project (GDP) were conducted from 2015-2017 to collect information on the growing use of SNSs by students. Team diaries were kept, systematically recording observations, and students reported their personal experiences in reports. Nvivo 11 was utilised to code data and make conclusions on team’s collaborative behaviour, and their successes and failures with the technologies used. This study has revealed that students of the GDP have made a change in the way they collaborate by means of SNSs. Evidence shows that students are able to utilise the functionality of SNSs to support the design process, design activities and design thinking. The growth of SNSs within academia and industry suggest that students will need to utilise the technol...