What we learnt from design teaching in collaborative virtual environments

Abstract

Collaborative virtual environments clearly have potentials to enable innovative and effective education, involving debate, simulation, role play discussion and brain storming and project based group work etc. Integration of the collaborative virtual environments into the design curricula offers significant potentials for design schools. In this paper, based on our previous teaching in collaborative virtual environments, the student’s perceptions and evaluations of the courses, we discuss the pedagogy of design teaching in collaborative virtual environments, considering what skills the new generation of designers should have in terms of collaboration, communication and design.