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introduction |
The LAIR Website and the LARC Virtual Classroom
The LAIR Website has been designed to foster active, collaborative learning and encourage community building across a variety of campuses serving landscape architecture education. The project takes advantage of computer technology in a manner that encourages independent study and cooperative problem solving. It supports a student-centered education, both inside and outside the classroom, that will generate group discussions, student partnerships, and the development of individual research, writing and design skills. With access to a variety of instructional materials and technologies, faculty and students from around the world will develop their own multimedia presentations that integrate text, images, sound, video, and animation. The participants who developed this site have created an image bank that has become a source for new instructional materials.
This shared image bank is a library of digital images that have been collected from a variety of sources. These images are available to anyone who would like to use them for educational purposes (see Copyrights).
Many of the faculty affiliatedwith the LAIR website project have used these images in the preparation of teaching materials (see Courses & Projects). The result is an information delivery system called the LARC Virtual Classroom which allows easy access and distribution of digital course materials related to the study of landscape architecture. It includes course syllabi, on-line lectures, tutorials, essays, design projects, and interactive multimedia textbooks. As it develops further, the LARC Virtual Classroom will enable users to establish discussion groups, chat areas, and on-line testing and assessment tools.
As computers become a major part of the everyday life of landscape architecture students, the LAIR website will have a substantial impact on the way students --and faculty-- think, work, study, learn and communicate.
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