VOL. 10, NO. 23, DECEMBER 2015 ISSN 1819-6608 ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences © 2006-2015 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved. www.arpnjournals.com 18130 A FRAMEWORK ON CLOUD TECHNOLOGY IN FACILITATING DESIGN LEARNING Nur Aziemah Mohamad 1 , Khairul Anwar Mohamed Khaidzir 2 and Roliana Ibrahim 1 1 Department of Information System, Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia 2 Department of Architecture, Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia E-Mail: naziemah4@live.utm.my ABSTRACT Nowadays, the technology has evolved and its advancement has affected the learning field. People opted to use the cloud technology as it can cater the communication between the instructor and students. In this study, the focused learning field is architectural design learning. Design has a vast disciplines and it is often related to the architecture domain. It comes with three distinct features which are propose, critique and iterate. Hence, communication between instructor and students is crucial in order to get the best design. Most of the types of communication occurred during the critique session. Currently, the instructor found out that it is hard to intervene with the students design during the personal critique session. Thus, cloud technologies can act as a scaffolding tool during the design process. To achieve this study, a proposal on cloud-based design studio to facilitate the communication between instructor and students is done. An in-class observation has been done to see how the cloud technology can fit in facilitating the design process. By adapting the cloud technology in design learning, it gives opportunity for the instructor and students to communicate among each other while improving the design virtually in real-time. Keywords: design learning, communication, cloud technology. INTRODUCTION In this modern day, the advancement of technology has affected the method of communication used in the learning field. Design is often used as a fundamental pillar in architecture, engineering, product design, graphic design and software design. As we all know, architecture is the most written about when it comes to design [1]. From time to time, the architecture designs are constantly changing and they have their own patterns and complexity [2]. Eventually, the outcome of the designs will be different from the existing one. There are a lot of definitions when it comes to the architectural design learning. When an architect creates a masterpiece, the design must have its own value and quality. Basically, it consists of three distinct features which are propose, critique and iterate [3]. In any learning pedagogy, communication is important to convey the information towards the student. Thus, most of the human- human communication in design learning occurs during the critique session. Currently, design learning uses the conventional method which follows the standard protocol consists of going through an understanding on the design procedure. Next, they will develop a design concept by hand-drawn sketches. The sketches will be drawn accurate to scale and the computational tools are used to visualize the design [4]. Hence, the current tools used do not support the dynamic communications between instructor and students in virtual environment. Nowadays, the latest technology has been used directly or indirectly in a daily routine especially for communications. Eventually, it has been integrated in the learning pedagogies. To accommodate the dynamic communications environment, the usage of cloud technology has been proposed to scaffold in design learning. In this study, cloud is the chosen tool to cater the communication in the design process. Recently, cloud is very popular among the technology savvy. It can be accessed anywhere around the globe as long as there are Internet provided. The technology that the developer offers is dynamic and can be synchronized across multiple devices. In addition, the design can be shared among the instructor and students synchronously. Thus, it promotes the scaffolding when the students are doing their design. In this paper, it will start with an introduction regarding with the study. Then, the second section will discuss on the literature review on design learning and the communications occurred within it. The next section will discuss on the cloud technology as a scaffolding tool to cater the communication. Then, section four will describe the related work from previous studies regarding the cloud implementation in learning. Section five and six are about the methodology of the study and the discussion respectively. Finally, the last section will conclude the paper. DESIGN LEARNING Design consists of multiple disciplines and it is crucial for the designers to have a vast knowledge to express their skills and creativity in their design practices [5]. To start a design, one must have a little knowledge in everything. The information gathered is required in designing for mental integration and synthesis [6]. Design is refers to an end product or a process [1]. Lawson also said that, in the design process, it consists of various disciplines and the designers need a set of skills and creativity to create it [1]. Besides that, the designers also need to decide the effects that they want and the methods to achieve it. Design is also a thinking model in which it will lead to the meaning of productive designing [6]. This is