ITcon Special Issue

ICT Supported Learning in Architecture and Civil Engineering

editor(s) Per Christiansson, Professor
Aalborg University
email: pc@bt.aau.dk, http://it.bt.aau.dk
summary ICT supported learning has come more and more in focus during the last two decades. The wide spread introduction during 1993 of the World Wide Web (WWW) was a catalyst for deepened interest and extended implementation of learning and knowledge transfer systems. It is a well-documented (unfortunately) truth that the development within didactics has been very gentle during the latest centuries. Lately the development has taken a quantum leap due to standardization and global spread of the Internet based applications and communication support. We are in fact right now in the middle of an intense development phase where creative ideas on ICT tools and tools to design tools (meta tools) as well as new organization of the learning environment and enhanced pedagogical methods are tried out. This summer (2004) the ITcon Journal publishes a special issue on ICT supported learning. The special issue focuses on both practical and theoretical aspects of learning and knowledge transfer with special emphasis on experiences and future developments within the area. The issue reports experiences mostly from the AEC domain, but with findings and research results that are valid outside this area. This editorial paper elaborates on properties of virtual learning spaces and ICT tools to support teaching, learning, and (meta) information handling taking into account improvement of learning styles, course content and learning material. Experiences from many years involvement in ICT supported learning and development of ICT in construction courses are reported with particular emphasis on the Aalborg University Project Oriented Problem Based, PPBL, learning model. Finally the six papers of the special ITcon edition on distributed learning are summarized.

Papers in this special issue

no. citation
1Christiansson P (2004).
ICT supported learning prospects (editorial),
ITcon Vol. 9, Special issue ICT Supported Learning in Architecture and Civil Engineering , pg. 175-194, http://www.itcon.org/paper/2004/12
2Kalay Y E (2004).
Virtual learning environments,
ITcon Vol. 9, Special issue ICT Supported Learning in Architecture and Civil Engineering , pg. 195-207, http://www.itcon.org/paper/2004/13
3Christiansen E (2004).
Educated by design - learning by doing - outline of a HCI-didactics,
ITcon Vol. 9, Special issue ICT Supported Learning in Architecture and Civil Engineering , pg. 209-217, http://www.itcon.org/paper/2004/14
4Lindemann J, Sandberg G and Olsson K (2004).
An approach to teaching architectural and engineering students utilizing computational mechanics software ForcePAD,
ITcon Vol. 9, Special issue ICT Supported Learning in Architecture and Civil Engineering , pg. 219-228, http://www.itcon.org/paper/2004/15
5Brohus H and Svidt K (2004).
Application of ICT supported learning in fluid mechanics,
ITcon Vol. 9, Special issue ICT Supported Learning in Architecture and Civil Engineering , pg. 229-256, http://www.itcon.org/paper/2004/16
6Rebolj D and Menzel K (2004).
Another step towards a virtual university in construction IT,
ITcon Vol. 9, Special issue ICT Supported Learning in Architecture and Civil Engineering , pg. 257-266, http://www.itcon.org/paper/2004/17
7Rivard H and Bedard C (2004).
A course on computer-aided building design,
ITcon Vol. 9, Special issue ICT Supported Learning in Architecture and Civil Engineering , pg. 267-279, http://www.itcon.org/paper/2004/18