Beginners' IT Instructional Support Environment

This paper elaborates on the development and implementation of an IT (information technology) mediated instructional support environment for beginners’ design studios. Initially the paper concentrates on the description of the cognitive processes that are manifested during design, and in particular it provides a more detailed description of the role of spatial visualization processes. In such a framework, the paper proposes that regardless the method of instruction implemented in the teaching of beginners’ design studios, it is the perceptual handling and the nature of the design representations that are used during the design process the main factors in the level of elaboration of the final design product. A case study is used in the validation of these initial assumptions and for the identification of new development avenues in the teaching and learning of visualization skills. The characteristics of the IT instructional support environment described in this paper, and its implementation criteria, are product of an opportunistic strategy in the application of techniques, resources, and media. The conceptual design of the IT instructional environment includes the identification of available 3D grabbing and 3D printing technologies that define it as a “multimodal and media-rich support environment”.

Volume Editors
David Covo & Gabriel Mérigo Basurto

ISBN
0-935502-57-2