Distance learning in Architecture is incipient. The main difficulty is the need for teachers and learners to simultaneously see, manipulate, and discuss the artefacts being designed. 

The high cost in the communication systems for discussing design is another issue. Most research has focused on expensive setups (Velasco, 2000).

Real time collaboration systems, RTCS’s, particularly desktop and application sharing and voice chatting, may provide a low cost environment for architectural distant learning, which maybe as effective as an onsite design studio. 

Most publications in RTCS’s involve system specification and evaluation (Lonsing, 2003). Few authors focus on how much RTCS’s environments are equivalent with onsite teaching or how these technologies change learning in the design studio.

Keegan (1995) and Simonson et al (2000) regarded equivalence to on site education as the key criteria to assess the success of distance learning. Ko and Rossen (2001) consider that online synchronous courses can compete favourably with traditional ones.

We describe an experiment comparing teaching, supervising and discussing design projects through RTCS’s with developing the same activities on site. A group of students taught on site was compared with another taught through RTCS.

We sought answers to the following questions: How configuration, connection speed and reliability affected the distant learning experience? Was there a different learning pace between the onsite and distant learning environments? How much the distant learning experiment required changes in teaching methods? Did RTCS’s facilitate holding more than one topic session simultaneously? Did the distant learning environment impose constraints on group discussion? What is the advantage of recording and replaying distant supervision sessions on learning? Were there differences between onsite and distant learning experiences in participation, loss of attention, absences and drop out? Did the distant learning experience encourage increasing the rate of students per teacher?

The results still show technical problems to overcome regarding system configuration, connection speed and reliability. They required development of different meeting techniques. No evidence was found for increasing the rate of students per teacher. However, the overall results are promising. The RTCS’s are a low cost viable alternative to expensive setups. Above all, the design studio supervision was of high quality, perhaps better than onsite, facilitated the learning of a new subject, was helpful to clarify doubts and reinforced a taught subject, whenever the technical problems were overcome.

References:
Keegan, D. (1995) Distance education technology for the new millennium: Compressed video teaching. (ERIC ED 389 931).
Lonsing, Werner (2003). Collaboration in the independent architectural office. In Dokonal, W. (editor) Digital Design, XXI eCAADe Conference, Graz, Austria.
Ko, Susan and Rossen, Steven (2001). Teaching Online. A Practical Guide. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, New York.
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M. and Zvacek, S. (2000) Teaching and Learning at a Distance, Foundations of Distance Education, Prentice Hall, Collumbus, Ohio. 
Velasco, G. V, Angulo, A. and Hutchinson, D. (2000) Desarrollando la Sala Infinita: Realidad Virtual en el Taller de Diseño, in Sigradi 2000, RJ., Brazil.
