Designing for Designing: Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Professional Education

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) appear to be well fitted to the education of design professionals, such as architectural and engineering students, mainly because of the unique culture of these professional schools, where the emphasis is on creativity, collaboration, social relevance and rapid communication of ideas. Attention is focused on the reflection-inaction theory of Donald Schon as well as the educational paradigm of constructivism as it is articulated by Dewey and Vygotsky. It is also argued that the full implementation of ICTs for professional education would also be extremely beneficial to the development of professional collegiality beyond the borders of geography and culture. All of this is followed by a consideration of important criticisms brought to bear upon both the use of ICTs in the classroom and the commonly held assumption that constructivism is the optimal educational paradigm.