Keynote speech of E-Learn 2013

Organized by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education the 18th international E-Learn World Conference “E-Learn 2013” took place from October 21th – 24th in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. The annual conference serves as a multi-disciplinary forum for the exchange of information on research, development, and applications of all topics related to e-Learning in the Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education sectors. Kai-Uwe Martin of CrossWorlds’ Learning tandem presented his work
“Delivering complex learning content on mobile devices” as well as the general concept and idea of CrossWorlds. Highlights of the conference were the keynote by Roderick Sims of the University of Southern Queensland, Australia “The E-Learning Wars: The Force and the Dark Side!” and the first gathering of the special interest group “E-Learning Trends and Innovations (ELTI)”. During the conference and the workshops very controversial views on the current role of e-learning and of the emerge of trends like personal learning and open learning have been expressed and discussed which was possible thanks to the open atmosphere of the conference and certain degree of professionalism kept by all participants.

From September 23rd to 25th the German Psychological Society held its biannual symposium about pedagogical psychology. This year’s topic ‘gemeinsam verschieden’ (collectively different) inspired talks about the many different ways educational psychology is taught and experienced in the field of pedagogical psychology. The keynotes were presented by Prof. Dr. Marcus Hasselhorn (Frankfurt), Prof. Dr. Haci Halil Uslucan (Duisburg-Essen), Prof. Dr. Peter Farrell (Manchester) and Prof. Dr. Kathy Sylva (Oxford). Crossworld researcher Madlen Wuttke attended the symposium and gathered new input for her pedagogical agent scenario – for example the contribution by Roland Gabner (Neu(ro)-learning) as well as the findings of the panel on ‘Learning through text and images’ and ‘Optimized learning processes based on Eye-Tracking’.

INTERACT 2013 – Opening Plenary

At this year’s INTERACT conference crossWorlds presented the publication ‘Diverse Ecologies – Interdisciplinary Development for Cultural Education’. Within their work crossWorlds researchers Heidt, Kanellopoulos, Pfeiffer and Rosenthal explore the implications of highly interdisciplinary research settings. Showing how differences between project participants can act as assets, they argue for a design process infused by multiperspectivity, disciplinary diversity and mutual sensitivity. The presentation at Cape Town, South Africa was met with a high amount of interest and sparked many engaging scientific discussions.
INTERACT’s motto ‘conference with a conscience’ also provided a helpful climate for articulation of ethical motivations underwriting design processes at crossWorlds. The conference thus provided a unique venue for discussion of ethical commitment as well as practical design. Hence, experiences made, positions exchanged and insights acquired have proven to contribute invaluably to ongoing research. Situated within multi-cultural Cape Town, INTERACT attracted participants from 37 countries, contributing to an atmosphere of diversity, curiosity and mutual tolerance.

On June 6th, Professor Greg Welch, Ph.D. was giving a guest lecture on “Physical-Virtual Humans for Training and Teleportation”.

Greg Welch is a Research Professor in the Institute for Simulation & Training and the Computer Science division of EECS at The University of Central Florida. In 1986 he received a degree in Electrical Technology from Purdue University (with Highest Distinction), and in 1996 a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to UCF, Welch was a Research Professor at UNC, he worked on the Voyager Spacecraft Project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and on airborne electronic countermeasures at Northrop-Grumman’s Defense Systems Division.

His current research interests include virtual and augmented reality, human tracking systems, 3D telepresence, computer vision, and stochastic estimation. He has co-authored over 60 publications in these areas, and is a co-inventor on multiple patents. He has co-chaired conferences, workshops, and seminars; served on numerous international program committees; and is an Associate Editor for the journal Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments. He maintains an internationally-recognized web site dedicated to the Kalman filter. He is a member of the IEEE Computer Society, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the Society for Simulation in Healthcare.

CHI ’13 Opening Plenary

crossWorlds fellows Kalja Kanellopoulos and Michael Heidt were invited to present their paper ‘Stubborn Materialities / Unruly Aesthetics’ at CHI ’13. The participation in the workshop ‘Crafting Interactive Systems’ included a talk as well as acting as panellists for the session ‘technology as critique’. Focussing on a reconceptualization of the relationship between artistic and scientific practices, both researchers explored the potentials inherent in digital materialities. According to their positions, displacements introduced by interactive art open new expressive possibilities for aesthetic unmasking of power relations. The presentation sparked lively discussions as well as obtaining strongly positive feedback.
Throughout the conference, the field of HCI articulated itself as driven by a highly dynamic community. An atmosphere of openness towards heterodox thought was perceived as helpful intellectual catalyst, creating exciting opportunities for integration of scientific, artistic and designerly practices.
ACM CHI is widely acknowledged as the most prestigious conference in the field of Human-Computer-Interaction. This year’s CHI was the largest and most multicultural event hosted so far with around 3300 attendees, representing a total of 54 nations.

Crossworlds participated at the expert discussions on Serious Gaming at the GameDays 2013 at TU Darmstadt last week. The goal of the talks was a get together and a consolidation of different game research groups within the German Society of Computer Science and the creation of a possible new interdisciplinary group concerning Serious Games research. Thanks to Stefan Göbel for inviting us!

Our fellow researchers Michael Heidt and Kalja Kanellopoulos visited the Ars Electronica Center (AEC) in Linz from October 16-17. The AEC unites art, science and technology in many different ways. One of the projects, which made the AEC famous all over the world, is the Ars Electronica Festival. It takes place in Linz every year in September.

The museum’s permanent exhibition introduces the visitor to topics of genetic engineering, robotics, neurology and media art, while the current temporary exhibit “Out of Control” delivers some insight into “What the Web knows about You”. Overall the center’s main focus lies on interactivity and participation and one cannot avoid the impression to visit a huge playground. Whether old or young, people seem to love it and while exploring deep space, interacting with little robots, or doing scientific experiments – supported by the museum’s accommodating staff members – they learn while playing. Next to the wide-ranging exhibition space one can find the Ars Electronica FutureLab, the center’s think tank, consisting of 50-60 research staff members. In addition to exploring the exhibition our two fellow researchers had a meeting with Michael Badics, one of the directors of Ars Electronica Solutions.

For more news and activities from the CrossWorlds team, you can now follow us on Facebook and Twitter. While this website will cover most of the news regarding our research activities, we will use social media for more broader and informal news.

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