Research at the cutting edge
The Chair of educational technology research focuses on didactics and organization of learning and knowledge cooperation in various fields with the use of online tools.
This we differentiate into several areas:
Main researchs of the chair
a) research focus on "online communities in vocational education":
This topic comprehends meanwhile 6 grants with the support of various programs of the European Commission, the German Federal Ministry for Education, Research and Technology, the German Social Accident Insurance, the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the Department of Psychology at the TU Dresden. Specifically we deal with online communities of safety specialists, trainees in the dual system of vocational training of educators and other professionals in the vocational guidance, young researchers in education and media studies, or to young people with mental health problems.
b) Structured graduate program "Education & Technology":
The Structured PhD Programme Education & Technology SPET brings together graduate students and faculty from three European universities (Dresden, Strasbourg, Bergen), 2 private European professional or educational colleges, and a number of other universities worldwide in the subject area ICT & Education. SPET is the result of previous efforts towards internationalization and structuring of the promotion, for the purpose of scientific quality, the international scientific competitiveness, but also the individual feasibility of the dissertation in a branch of Education to improve massively in generalizable way. SPET and the preceding activities (CD and IP funded by EU, DAAD, OEAD, DFU, the participating universities themselves as well as various scholarships, but also target agreements in the Technical University of Dresden to build institutional structures of doctoral supervision, etc., see http:// www.edu-tech.eu and www.tu-dresden.de/ew/idoc) are essential steps in the context of a long-term sustainable development for improved quality of research by young scientists.
c) Research and development cooperation with the Media Center of the TU Dresden as a central scientific equipment:
The Media Center (www.tu-dresden.de/mz) is a central research unit at the TU Dresden and sees itself as a research center and service provider in the fields of e-learning, knowledge organization, multimedia applications and e-science. In close cooperation with the Chair of Education and Technology supported by the personal union of the Directorate and Chair of a number of R&D projects are implemented together. In this case, the MC supports the development and introduction of multimedia teaching and learning opportunities for training and education at the TU Dresden in cooperation with all departments and institutions as well as the integration of these technologies through appropriate strategies of human resources and organizational development. The multimedia Advisory Board of the TU Dresden supports the media center, advises the Director of the MC in the performance of work and takes to the annual report position. At the MC of the "eLearning Task Force" is coordinated as the only working group of the national Rectors' Conference of Saxony, the strategy development of the TU Dresden is scientifically to questions the use of media in teaching, research and marketing.
Students benefit from this research focus in a special way, as concrete references arise regarding their subject-related vocational education reflectivity, which can be transferred to practical action scenarios. As well we apply suitable research projects for courses. Further research is taking place in the form of qualifying projects and theses instead - so in the structured graduate program "Education & Technology", which is funded by the European Union wherein since 2008 an international summer school takes place every year. You can find more information in the section on dissertations.