Collaborative Concept Mapping in Architectural Education

Paper presented at the ICTE 2002: International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies in Education, Badajoz, Spain paper describes a pedagogic work, carried out in a School of Architecture, with a web-based learning environment that allows students to analyze texts in collaboration. This learning environment is based on the integration of three distinct components: 1. A theoretical framework, built up from ‘theory bits’ taken from different disciplines (architectural theory, linguistics, semiotics, graphic design, interface design) 2. Individual and collaborative exercises, designed to explore in a practical way the theoretical issues raised during the lectures. The exercises are individual (understanding and representing the content of a text with multimedia authoring software) and collaborative (building up a vocabulary and establishing relations between concepts, constructing a concept map) 3. A web system, with which students construct collaboratively the vocabulary and the concept map. Altogether, the intertwining of these three components, makes a case for a constructivist pedagogy supported by information and communication technologies.