Delivering Distance Learning Design Education through the use of Technology
About the Atelier-D Project
The project looked at the development of a virtual design studio space to support student learning throughout the Design programme of the Open University.
Year One Activities - Course Delivery Innovations (CDIs)
There are two videos below which provide an overview of the first year's activities of the Atelier-D Project.They provide a snapshot of the project and provide some initial first year findings. The first year's project activities involved a series of six mini-projects called ‘Course Delivery Innovations’ or CDIs. The video below introduces the Atelier-D team and gives an overview of the project along with some initial findings from Year One.
These six CDIs form the basis upon which to build second year research objectives.
The second video (see link below) provides a more detailed overview of each CDI along with some initial findings.
Six 'How-To' Guides were created for the six technologies used within the CDI studies. These were created to provide participants and users a easy step-by-step guide to assist them with getting started with the new technologies The PDF guides are as follows:
A large amount of the data collection was carried out using surveys. Some of these were created using GoogleDocs and some examples of these are available below:
Elluminate Questionnaires
Two different Elluminate Questionnaires were created for the CDI 3 (Extended Study). The aim was to capture Tutors experiences of using Elluminate, but also those Tutors who choose not to use Elluminate. The surveys can be downloaded here:
A survey form was used to extract qualitative data from students who had used OpenDesignStudio within their learning during the Course U101 Design Thinking. The survey can be downloaded here:
This survey is used to explore students views of the desigNing social networking site specially created for cross student communication. The live GoogleDoc form can be downloaded here:
In order to define what a 'Atelier Design Studio' is a number of discussions took place during Camel and Project Meetings. These discussions were extended through the use ofCloudworks. A Cloud was posted in order to generate further discussion in order to create a framework. This is still ongoing and we are encouraging anyone to add to this discussion their views on what a Design Atelier is? Please feel free to comment. The link is: http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloud/view/2715
6. Dissemination Papers, Workshops and Events
There have been a few published papers from the Atelier-D Project first year activities, as follows:
Schadewitz, N. and Zamenopoulos, T. (2009) Towards an online design studio - A study of social networking in design distance learning. IASDR 2009.Dowload pdf
Holden. G, Ferreira, G., & Zamenopoulos, T. (2009) ‘Web2 and beyond: creating community and learning through engagement’, Workshop run at 'Making Connections' as part of Exploring Scholarship for the Digital Age, Open University, June.
Holden, G, Zamenopoulos, T., & Schadewitz, N. (2009) ‘Creating an online design atelier’, Design on eLearning Conferences, DeL Online 2009, Learning & Teaching with Technology in Art, Design & Communication.See Designs on eLearning
Ferreira, G, Fisher, W., Rosewell, J., Kear, K (2009) 'Exploring Web 2.0 to Support Online Learning Communities: Where Technology Meets Pedagogy'. Workshop run with 28 participants at the ICL 2009 Conference, Villach, Austria (September).
Holden, G, (2009), Design at a Distance, EPDE 09, The 11thInternational Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education, University of Brighton, 10th – 11th September
PowerPoint Slides: The Future Learningscape of a Virtual Atelier (July 2010)
"The project has had an impact locally and internationally.
The project benefits and impacts a range of stakeholders at the Open University. A number of teaching resources have been combined or created and evaluated to benefit the OU student and tutor communities (Objective 5). The project outputs and findings have informed the development of a radically new Level 1 course „Design Thinking‟ (U101) that was first presented in February 2010 (Aim 1). They are now informing the regeneration of two other courses (T211, T307) (Aim 2). Students and tutors from a number of courses have contributed to ATELIER-D helping to create innovative learning experiences. Internal workshops and seminars continue to seek to assist the transference of these e-Learning initiatives from art and design to other disciplines, particularly ATELIER-D is informing new STEM initiatives at the Open University (Aim 4).
ATELIER-D has also impacted on other UK universities. Birmingham City University are currently hosting a trial of OpenDesignStudio in support of their postgraduate design programme (Aim 3 & Objective 3). Aston University and Loughborough University have shown interest in adopting selected technologies from the ATELIER-D portfolio.
Members of ATELIER-D have recently secured a share of 400,000 euros of new funding from the EU Lifelong Learning programme (Key Activity 2: Languages) for a two-year project titled ARCHI 21 - Architectural and design based education and practice through content & language integrated learning using immersive virtual environments for 21st century skills. This involves six EU partner universities and will transfer a number of the learning technologies developed in ATELIER-D. It began in November 2010 (Aim 4 & Objective 4).
The project team have been actively engaged in dissemination: populating the JISC design studio since it was first launched, giving presentations at various external-facing workshops and seminars, through published papers and by taking a leading role in our two CAMEL cluster groups (Aim 3). A number of further publications and presentations are in preparation.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.