Search

During a design process, a student of architecture learns how to communicate with various tools, understanding the problem and reflect his/her own solution and how to work together with his/her peers. To be able to examine how a student of architecture learn, communicate and act in a networked environment, this study analyses an architectural theory lesson as a case study in consideration of ACAD (Goodyear Carvalho, 2014) framework. An online assistant acts as an observer of the online platform of the course used as a case study, analyses the 14-week course according to ACAD framework. As a conclusion, students can learn collaboratively by articulating and sharing their ideas while they follow their education if they have a chance to frame their own curriculum, and they also continue to share their experience and expertise through discussion and dialog with the help of online communities after they had graduated.

Storytelling is an integral part of narratives relating to our daily events, news, personal experiences, and fantasies. While humans have long narrated their stories, the mediums they have used to do so have evolved over time through the effects of technological developments: initially, storytelling was solely oral, then written forms were added, and now, with the effects of new media, such narratives have also begun to employ photography and video. These new media tools are also undergoing their own processes of expansion and development. Today one of the most attention-getting are those using Virtual Reality (VR) technologies, a means that allows users to experience being-in-the-virtual-environments, with possibilities of becoming entirely immersed in a virtual environment. The ability to experience an environment with three-dimensional features enhances the experience in sensorial ways, with simultaneous stimulation of both the user’s visual and auditory sensorial systems. The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of what exactly the user experiences through VR storytelling. To this end we have conducted an experimental research based on an examination of the immersive experience in VR, which constructs the presence feeling. The experiment has been designed to study the effects on forty users. These participants used the HTC Vive head-mounted display to experience the contents of a story called “Allumette” (designed by Penrose Studios). User behaviors were recorded and observed by the tools used to collect data from both the physical world and the virtual environment. Users’ physical movements were documented as coordinate data, while the behavioral reflections in the virtual environment were recorded as a video. Following this virtual experimentation, users were asked to answer a questionnaire that measured their responses to their VR storytelling experience. User experience was finally measured by analyzing both the behavioral outputs of the subjects and the questionnaire. “Cinemetrics” methodology was implemented to analyze the camera movements, which were considered as the user behavioral reflections in VR. The results of this study based on analyzing the behaviors and the reactions to visual and aural stimuli in the VR environment both lead to a clearer understanding of VR storytelling and uses these results to propose a design guide for VR storytelling.

In a learning space, whether it is surrounded by digital tools or not, the way a tutor represents the information is usually in a linear fashion. However, e-learning platforms have already started to support the learner and a new paradigm for learning. In light of these thoughts and concerns, this paper is focused on the education of an architect and examines potential e-learning platforms including BlackBoard, Facebook in the case of an architectural course, EdX, and Khan Academy Knowledge Map based on the types of visual narrative, the aim of the platform, the information visualization quality, and data types. As an output, this study creates a comparative visualization to see and discuss the potentials of the tools for the education of an architect. After the analysis of e-learning platforms, this study concludes that (1) an education model based on a network can help architects to see the big picture, however it also causes data reduction and loss, (2) an education model based on a network allows architects to create their own learning paths and share it with their colleagues, (3) an education model based on a network may be a sustainable platform for architects from different experience levels and enhance the communication between them to support the youngers’ education, 4) an education model based on network decentralizes the process of learning and enriches it through the interaction between other learners, concepts, thoughts, and objects, (5) an education model based on network bridges the gap between what one already knows and what one needs to know to understand the whole picture, (6) an education model based on network gives the opportunity to compare previous years’ feedbacks, concepts, and thought in one medium.