Garden Design Competition

Online interactive garden design diploma course to the value of £5000 (plus VAT).  The course is a year long and starts in September 2010.

Oxford College of Garden design have teamed up with The Telegraph to offer the winner of this design competition a place on the world’s first

To enter the competition, and a chance of winning the place - simply design your perfect show garden. 

• 10m by 10m, open on three sides.  
• Submit birds eye views of the design (A3), either hand drawn or computer generated.
• Your design will be judged by college principal  Duncan Heather and designer Sally Court.

Please submit your garden design by either email to ocgd@ocgd.org or by post to Oxford College of Garden Design, PO Box 4784, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 9FE.

Terms & Conditions apply

More About The Online Diploma Course..

Is this Really The World’s First Interactive Online Garden Design Course?
Yes.  Other colleges do offer correspondence courses via their websites.  But most courses are little more than very expensive books with phone support.  We refuse to do this as we don’t believe you can teach art through the post.  And only 3% of people who start correspondence courses, finish them

New Innovative learning method
We believe ‘Whole-brain-training’ is the education of tomorrow.  In whole brain learning, imaging is seen as the basis for comprehension. Only 20% of the population respond best to traditional classroom teaching techniques but when you introduce whole-brain-training techniques – 60% of the information is absorbed.  Whole-brain-training lends itself perfectly to interactive online learning in design fields – as online you can teach using image centric multi-media.  The world’s first interactive online garden design post grad diploma is based on this premise. 

What the course offers

Oxford College of Garden Design online diploma students will experience:

• Interactive video tutorials/podcasts
• A personal tutor
• ‘A virtual classroom’; peer-to-peer interaction via online forums – online community based learning
• Multi application lectures – ability to listen to lectures on your iPod/phone/MP3 player
• Online galleries – featuring ground plan designs, planting plans, construction drawings and more
• Monthly webinars  - live video streams and question and answer session
• CAD (computer aided design) and modelling interactive video tutorials

The diploma is perfect for students who are unable to travel, geographically disparate or who simply want to study from home using progressive techniques. Lectures are time released to co-inside with the classroom taught program; so both online and face-to-face students learn together.

This new way of learning is also good for the environment, significantly cutting back on carbon footprints/the need to travel both internationally and locally.

Duncan Heather, Principal of Oxford College of Garden Design has partnered with Internet entrepreneur Elspeth Briscoe to pioneer interactive learning in garden design.