Award-winning British garden designer, Duncan Heather, launches the world’s first-ever interactive online garden design course which means you can now train as a top-class residential landscape designer from the comfort of your own home, anywhere in the world.
Each online student will be allocated their own qualified garden designer tutor and will follow the same timetable as the classroom students. The one-year course provides a post-graduate level qualification in residential landscape architecture and offers:
· Interactive video tutorials/podcasts
· A personal tutor
· Community-based learning in the “virtual classroom”,
· Lectures to listen to on iPod/phone/MP3 player
· Online galleries – featuring ground plans, planting plans, construction drawings and more
· Monthly webinars - live video streams and question and answer sessions
· Interactive video tutorials on CAD (computer aided design) and [ground] modelling
Heather - founder and principal of the prestigious Oxford College of Garden Design (www.garden-design-courses.co.uk) which has trained most of the country’s top contemporary designers; including the award-winning, Olympic garden designer, Sarah Price and the flamboyant Charlotte Rowe - was himself trained by Britain’s best-loved octogenarian designer and garden writer, John Brookes OBE, whom many regard as one of the world’s top five garden designers of the 20th Century.
“I pride myself on the fact that the Oxford College of Garden Design has always been a market leader in technology and innovation,” says Heather whose online course goes live on January 29th, 2010. “We have seen over the last few years how our students have benefitted from the use of technology in the classroom and have designed the online course so that seminars will coincide in real time with classroom lectures and, uniquely, our on- and offline students can learn together.”
Heather has recently also teamed up with internet expert turned garden designer Elspeth Briscoe, to help guide innovation in landscape design through new technologies. The one-year course now being offered online provides a post-graduate level qualification in Residential Landscape Architecture.
It also, says Heather, will significantly reduce the carbon footprint of both students and the college; allowing those who want to train as garden designers to do so from the comfort of their own homes anywhere in the world and without long commutes to the Oxfordshire classrooms. In the decade since the Oxford College of Garden Design first started, it has attracted students from around the world, including America, New Zealand and Japan and Heather is confident the online course will enable even more students who could not otherwise have been able to relocate to the UK to benefit from the same high standard of training as those based in the UK.
Each on-line participant will be allocated their own qualified garden designer tutor and will follow the exact same timetable as the on-site classroom students. Scientists have already shown how “whole brain training” will be the foundation of a new wave of 21st century education and the Oxford College of Garden Design is one of the first UK organisations to offer that pioneering technology to students around the world. Click here to see our Online Garden Design Course launch video Spokespeople and further information:
About Duncan Heather: Duncan Heather set up practice as a garden designer in 1987 and is the director of the prestigious Oxford College of Garden Design which offers a post-graduate diploma in residential landscape architecture now widely recognised as one of the best garden design courses in the world (www.garden-design-courses.co.uk). In a career now spanning over 30 years, Duncan has won five gold medals, one silver, one bronze and three awards for innovative design.
Skype Me:dgheather Phone: +44(0) 1491 628 950 Email: ocgd@ocgd.org Blog: www.gardendesigncourses.blogspot.com ;
Heather has partnered with Elspeth Briscoe to launch the online college and other exciting technology projects that combine design and new technologies
About Elspeth Briscoe: Elspeth Briscoe spent 15 years working in strategy and marketing developing some of the world’s most successful internet companies. Briscoe was one of the first 30 people at ebay.co.uk. She is also a qualified landscape designer PGDip OCGD (distinction) and enthusiastic blogger! See www.elspeth.tumblr.com for further information.
Skype Me:elspethaknight Phone: +44(0) 07884267306 Email: info@elspethbriscoe.co.uk
For more information and to sign up go to Oxford College of Garden Design
Comments
Best of luck with it all - you've certainly raised the bar for all the other colleges.
There's a lot misconception regarding the word online. This is not a correspondent course you download from the web; it truly is online. All lecture will be downloaded from the web and watched as on-line video tutorials. There will be interactive online exercises and students will talk to there tutors using web chat and classes will be given via webinars.
We are ahead of most universities on this one. Welcome to the bottom rung of the ladder!
So far I've found it to be easily as good as a face to face classroom course. You are right about the misconceptions and people thinking it will be like a traditional correspondence course - I hope that people will soon realise they are worlds apart with content delivery and interaction.
Really looking forward to seeing how your course progresses. I'm sure you will get excellent feedback, like I have. I bet a lot of garden design colleges busy with a notepad and paper now you've announced this!