LAS FORMAS DE LA ORILLA URBANA Entre el río y la ciudad.

Studies report that technology integration into any teaching settings is not without challenges. Teachers are generally found to be reluctant in accommodating technology in their teaching (Howard & Mozejko, 2015). This is based both on scepticism, and unfamiliarity with technology. Therefore, technology integration in teaching is generally low (Li, Worch, Zhou, & Aguiton, 2015). This reluctance has, however, failed to advance the penetration of technology into education. While many teachers are turning away from technology, after early attempts met with success since the late 1960s, e-learning has pushed the learning boundaries and changed the learning environment (Harasim, 2006, p. 7). The world’s largest educational television (ETV) infrastructure, an asynchronous media for long-distance learning, was built in 1964 in American Samoa (Goldfarb, 2002, p. 28). In the mid-1970s, universities started utilising e-mail and video conferencing to aid teaching (Harasim, 2006; Hiltz & Wellman, 1997). However, it is not until the 1980s and 1990s that e-learning underwent a drastic transformation. In 1986, the ’Virtual Classroom’ project —the first undergraduate classroom entirely taught online — was launched by Murray Turnoff at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. The first online private school in the

Figure 2: Teachers as users in online teaching environments.

The challenges of using online technology to support various teaching activities have long been discussed in higher education (Gonzáleza, Santosb, Vargasb, Martín- Gutiérreza, & Orihuelab, 2013; Kluge & Riley, 2008). For design teaching, studio pedagogy typically involves several types of activities: demonstration, discussion, practice, and group activities. Non-verbal signals, gestures, and body language are frequently used for communication between teachers and students. However, these communication patterns are not all supported online. Effective online design education must bridge the gap between human learners — who need lots of communication activities — and online learning technology. Notably, not every design teacher is computer savvy; and as an experienced user of computer technology since 1992 when studying a graduate program in the US, I still encountered technical problems in online teaching. For some teachers, online platforms merely provide a place for transmitting materials, whose communication function can be easily replaced by other handy Internet tools, such as email, WeChat, and Facebook. Without proper integration in online platforms, teachers need to employ many tools to perform tasks needed to achieve totally online education. Communication methods or platforms may hamper the control of dynamic information. In the period of time

higher education, e-learning platforms are often cheaper than their traditional counterparts, and often attract a large student base (Yuan & Powell, 2013). The penetration of the Internet makes education based on technology a key utility of contemporary education. At present, online education is growing rapidly, and a variety of terms are used to describe online education. These include virtual learning, distance education, e-learning, electronic learning, and virtual schools.

A survey for K-12 online learning shows many countries embrace the online trend in the bricks-and-mortar classroom. These new virtual schools provide all instructions and examinations online, with both students and teachers working remotely, and independent of each other. Their popularity is illustrated by the growing number of students who enrol for these virtual schools every year (Miron & Gulosino, 2016). International Consultants for Education and Fairs (2012) report that Australia and China are the two leading countries, where fully online schools serve thousands of students annually. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, and Turkey also have integrated e-learning in district schools. It is expected that as online classrooms allow students to learn at their individual pace, and work from wherever they like, the enrolment in such schools will continue to rise. These are also in no way limited to school and college education. A large number of online platforms cater to professionals who want to improve their skills and continue their learning. Similarly, various hobbies such as art and music are also now being supported on these online learning systems. In fact, many of these allow for the interface to be customized to meet the specific requirements of the subject being taught (Battersby & Verdi, 2015). This increasing interest in online learning globally necessitates academic investigations of various online learning platforms and technologies.

The e-learning development before the 1990s focused on the technology to initiate distant learning and collaboration; however, the design of e-learning environments was overlooked. The initial e-learning projects tended to be experimental and small- scale, for which the technology was able to cope with well. However, as e-learning grew large in scale towards the end of the 1990s, intricate problems started to surface. These include challenges associated with hardware and software technology implementation and more subtle factors such as making sure the coursework is understandable to students from diverse cultural backgrounds (Sywelem, Al-Harbi, Fathema, & Witte., 2012). Kebritchi, Lipschuetz, & Santiague (2017) point out several issues in transforming face-to-face teaching to online teaching. First, the use of information and communication technology (ICT) changed students' expectations and shifted their attention, making the classroom more student-centric. According to Kebritchi, Lipschuetz, & Santiague (2017), due to the difficulty in acquiring help with the technology, many teachers resisted converting traditional classroom settings to online. Factors that caused teachers to be unwilling to involve in online teaching included lack of technical skills, lack of software and hardware, and lack of appropriate internet infrastructure. These issues are still prevalent in academic institutions as there is still a lack of necessary training and infrastructure (Kebritch et al., 2017). A few other challenges are highlighted by Islam, Beer, and Slack (2015). Their research points out that e-learning caters to students of diverse backgrounds and basic education. Since there is no one basic degree that is globally accepted, e-learning syllabuses and materials have to accommodate a diverse array of learning styles and students of various cultural backgrounds. The learning pedagogy for e-learning is still diverse and yet to be entirely codified. Additionally, it is often noted that preparing for e-learning takes longer on the part of the teacher than the preparation for a face- to-face class in a physical classroom. The teacher has to anticipate and predict

communication design with different degrees of teaching experience in physical and online environments.

This qualitative study used a mixed-methods approach to investigate design teaching in both physical and online settings. First, design teaching activities in both settings were observed. This was followed by interviews with the participating design teachers. In observing design teaching, the tools, activities, materials, and environments of design teaching were captured, and the elements and components of design teaching were identified. The participant interviews further revealed the teachers’ needs and experiences in both physical and online teaching settings. The final reflection on my own teaching presents a cross-cultural perspective relevant to the globally growing online design education.

This thesis studies design education, reveals various aspects of design teaching, and discuss the phenomena in design teaching. The study suggests future directions for designing online teaching environments, rather than giving specific “formulas” or “how-to” answers.