Wolfgang Mueller, Univ. of Education Weingarten, Germany
BIO Wolfgang Mueller is a Professor for Media Education at the University of Education Weingarten, Germany. There he leads the Media Education and Visualization Group, fostering research in the fields of E-Learning, Human-Computer Interaction, and Visualization. The research focus of his group is on Game-based Learning, Interactive Storytelling, and E-Learning. His team participates in the research network Sail-M funded by the German Ministry of Research, designing new approaches to active learning in math and computer science classes at University level. He is a main developer with the development team of the Scenejo Interactive Storytelling Framework. Together with his students he is developing innovative approaches and systems in the field of E-Learning, Learning Games, and Information Visualization. Wolfgang received his doctorate in Computer Science from Darmstadt University of Technology in 1997 and his diploma also from Darmstadt University of Technology in 1990. Before joining the University of Education Weingarten, he held research positions amongst others with the University of Frankfurt in the field of visualization and with Fraunhofer Computer Graphics Research Group. He also gained industrial experiences with ekkono, designing and developing innovative solutions for the domain of knowledge management. Wolfgang Mueller has published several papers in international magazines and at international conferences in the fields of Visualization, Multimedia, and Human Computer Interaction. He has contributed to books in the field Visualization and Computer Graphics. Moreover, Wolfgang Mueller served as in the program committee and as a reviewer for several international conferences and magazines. Currently, he serves as a Co-Editor in Chief for the Springer Journal Transactions on Edutainment. He is a member of ACM, ACM SIGCHI, and the German Informatics Society (GI). He is a German delegate to IFIP WG 3.3. He also serves in the steering board of the GI Special Interest Group on Animation and Simulation (ANIS).
Title: Advancing the Effectiveness of Educational Computer Games Abstract: Technological approaches to informal learning have received increasing interest in the last years. Still, while there exist some very interesting and even successful examples from the fields of Edutainment and Educational Computer Games, the vast majority of developments falls short of learners' and educators' high expectations. Why is this so? Of course, the successful design and implementation of such applications can be considered a wicked problem, requiring high degrees of expertise and attention on aspects such as, game design, learning design, interaction and experience design, usability, and game technology. Nevertheless, there seem to be some typical mistakes that can be observed frequently. In this talk, a selection of problems related to learning context and processes on the one hand, and coherence and fun in games on the other hand will be highlighted and discussed. As possible solutions to such problems, some general principles and promising strategies will be presented. In this context, narrative driven approaches to the development of Edutainment systems will be emphasized, and Interactive Storytelling technologies and their possible application will be discussed.