FOREGROUND /NOW

VIRTUAL ASSISTANT
FOR REMOTE STUDIO REVIEWS, ONE PROFESSOR
FINDS PROMISE IN A SIMPLE WHITEBOARD APP.

A s famously intense collective experiences, design studios are

often pointed to as the one aspect of design education
that can’t be replicated online. This spring, that belief was
tested as classes were forced to migrate into the virtual Guess
Who? grid of Zoom. Although this way of teaching was new
and unwelcome for many, some educators already had been
experimenting with digital tools, which they say helped ease
the transition. Among them is Richard leBrasseur, an assistant
professor of landscape architecture at Dalhousie University in
Truro, Nova Scotia.

LeBrasseur says that one of the most effective tools he has

found for providing feedback in remote studio sessions is a
digital whiteboard app that he had begun using before the pan-
demic. The app is called ShowMe, and it’s largely marketed to
K–12 teachers. What makes it useful in a studio setting, beyond
even more sophisticated software platforms, leBrasseur says,
is the way it integrates live markup and synchronous audio,
which together are recorded as a video that can be replayed by
students. He came across the app two years ago and began in-
corporating it into one-on-one reviews. “I thought it was a good
tool to not repeat myself,” he says. “[Students] could go back and
play it at their own speed, on their own time. They could look up
words, take notes.” He says the playback feature is also useful
for students for whom English is a second or third language.

Among ShowMe’s benefits is its price point, which ranges

from $7.50 to $12.49 per month per instructor but costs stu-
dents nothing. Ensuring equitable access to digital platforms
has been a key challenge of the pandemic, and will continue
to be important as education migrates online. According to the
National Telecommunications and Information Administra-
tion, more than three million households in the United States
lack broadband Internet at home. In Canada, the proportion
is roughly the same.
ABOVE RIGHT
ShowMe, a tablet-
based whiteboard app, This digital divide disproportionately affects students from
allows design reviews low-income and rural communities. Recent research from
to be recorded and the Brookings Institution confirms that the pandemic has
replayed by students. increased the urgency for educators. “As COVID-19 requires
more schools to transition to online learning, the
students who were already the most vulnerable to
falling behind will face even more hurdles to keep
pace,” say Brookings staffers Lara Fishbane and
COURTESY RICHARD LEBRASSEUR
Adie Tomer. In what is sure to be a glut of new
platforms and remote-learning software, the most
effective solution may be the simplest. But even an
app like ShowMe requires an Internet connection,
which means that ensuring equitable access in
remote learning environments will require more
than new tools.

20 / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE JULY 2020