Gardens of the World in the Classroom

Imagine yourself walking through the extraordinary gardens of the Chateau Villandry in France or under the towering brick walls of the Villa Adriana in Italy. Sounds like a scenic snapshot from a European vacation, right? Imagine now that you are experiencing these places while earning college credit from home. Sound unbelievable? Well, a Utah State University professor has brought these picturesque gardens to life by creating virtual interactive tours for use in his “History of Landscape Architecture” class.

Benjamin George, adjunct professor in the Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Department and doctoral student in instructional technology and learning sciences, is using video technology to bring places like Villandry out of the textbook and into reality for his classroom as well as online students.

The “virtual tours” are designed to be living examples of landscape architecture styles that students have learned about previously only through two dimensional pictures. The tours are highly interactive as students follow arrows through magnificent gardens and click on informational icons to learn details about certain features of particular styles. The visual imagery is truly life-like, showing colorful flowerbeds, immaculate pathways and romantic architectural details. Viewers feel as if they can smell the fragrance of the flowers as they travel over the grounds of these remarkable properties.

George’s intent for the tours is to create a sense of spatial awareness for the students. He feels that they are an innovative use for this type of video technology and really help to bring textbooks “to life.”

“As a self-guided learning module, the tours serve as a more detailed and in-depth view of particular locations of interest,” said George. “I developed them to be intuitive and easy to use so viewers can focus on the material, not the mechanism.

“Previously, a student’s exposure to the sites covered in the course came primarily through static images, lectures and a few videos,” said George. “Some of the students were fortunate to visit a limited number of the sites, but cost precluded many students from being able to do so. Through the tours, all of the students in the class are able to virtually visit these sites and gain a greater understanding of the important design and spatial aspects of each site. The virtual tours engage the students, draw them into the site and put them in control of how they interact with the site.”

In order to create the tours, George spent a month in summer 2011 traveling to gardens in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. He worked with administrators at each site and, despite language barriers and a few miscommunications, said he was treated very well.

“Everywhere we went was quite receptive to us and accommodated our filming needs,” said George. “Most sites were thrilled to help and even gave us access beyond the normal public boundaries. One of the employees even ran around the entire garden individually turning on each fountain, which was quite the feat considering the size of the garden and the fact that the spigot for each fountain was often beneath a large granite grate.”

Not surprisingly, George says, the Vatican was the only site to deny them access.

He is quick to note that even though the project is still in its development phase it has so far been well received by students.

“The virtual tours are making some substantial changes to the way the course is taught by making the learning material more accessible and adaptable to the student’s needs and interests, as students can spend more time exploring sites which are particularly interesting to them,” said George.

“In general students appreciate using textbooks less and ‘real-life’ examples more,” said George.

George is hoping to share the technology with other faculty as well as with other academic peers. Though some universities have used the technology for architectural classes, George believes that his tours are the first of their kind in landscape architecture. He has been invited to make a presentation about the tours at the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture conference in March.

George had been thinking about the idea for years before he decided to search for funding to actually travel to Europe. Sean Michael, department head for Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, and George wrote a proposal and eventually found matching funding from multiple sources, including USU’s Office of Global Engagement and Regional Campuses and Distance Education.

“Our department has had a long-standing commitment to utilizing emerging technologies to creatively deliver our content, whether it’s to students in Logan or those situated remotely,” said Michael. “Ben’s work is at the very cusp of the cutting edge in America for design education. Those of us who have worked with him are very impressed with the results. This is truly an area in which USU is leading the way nationally.”

George hopes to secure long-term funding from other sources so he can expand the virtual tour collection and complete an entire library of digital tours.

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Contact: Benjamin George, b.h.g@aggiemail.usu.edu

Writer: Paige Pagnucco, 435-797-1429, paige.pagnucco@usu.edu