Miscellaneous activities

Special issue in "Education and Computing" in 1991. The work presented in this special issue was based on work we had been doing in the SIMULATE project. It took quite some while to make it an integrated total, but at the end of the day I thought it gave a nice overview of our work. The special issue appeared under the title "Computer simulations in an international context".

 

NATO ARW in Bonas (France). In November 1992, Doug Towne, Hans Spada, and myself organized a NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "Simulation-based Experiential Learning". We succeeded in getting together a wonderful group of people in a little "Chateau" in Bonas in the south of France. We spent there a few inspiring days and I think you may sense the spirit of this meeting in the book that resulted from it. As Doug wrote in the preface to the book: " ... it cannot reflect the spirit of sharing, of constructive criticism, and of healthy and genial scientific debate which made for a most enriching experience." If you are interested in design of simulation based learning environments I can recommend Doug's book published in 1995 by Educational Technology Publications.

 

A book on "Design and production and multi-media learning material". In 1994, Luigi Sarti (from CNR in Genova) and myself were the editors of a book on "Design and production of multimedia and simulation-based learning material". It was published by Kluwer and it reflected the state of the art in Europe since it included all EC sponsored projects in this area plus a few other selected projects. Working with Luigi on this was a wonderful experience.

 

A book on "The role of multiple representations in learning and problem solving". Together with Maarten van Someren, Peter Reimann, & Els Boshuizen, I edited a book on this topic. The book was published by Elsevier. This book resulted from a large project called Learning in humans and machines, sponsored by ESF.

 

The PISA subject matter expert group (of which I was member) on "problem solving" prepared a problem solving test for PISA 2003, the second cycle. More information on the OECD PISA site.

 

In October 2007, as a closing of the Kaleidoscope NoE, Ard Lazonder and I organized a three day conference in the parador of Santiago de Compostella. The results of this conference are documented in a book.

 

From 2003 to 2008, I have been scientific director of ICO, the national research school on educational research in the Netherlands.

 

From June 2007 to July 2008, I chaired a project sponsored by NWO/PROO that explored relations between neuroscience and educational science. An international expert workshop was held in Amsterdam in March 2008 and the resulting report was published by Springer Verlag. A pre-publication of this book can be downloaded here. The official page for the book can be found here.

 

From 2008 until September 2011, I was a member (since 2010 vice chairman) of the Dutch Programme Council for Educational Research, part of the Dutch NSF (NWO).

 

From October 2004 until 2012, I was a member of the Belgium (Flanders) "Fund for Scientific Research" for the committee to evaluate proposals in the areas of psychology and pedagogy.

 

From 2012-2015, I was member of the Supervisory Board of Deltion (Zwolle).

 

I was in the supervisory board for an NSF sponsored project of Science Magazine called ‘Science in the Classroom’. In this project papers from Science are annotated  in order to make them accessible for graduate students.

 

Chair of the alpha/gamma cluster evaluation committee of STW/NWO’s “Take –off” program (2014, 2015 (spring and autumn).

 

Member of the preparation committee of the NWO call Professional Games for Professional Skills (2016).

 

Chair of the Programmaraad Onderwijsonderzoek (Program Council Educational  Research) of NRO, 2020— 2023.

 

Member of the Kuratorium of the Deutsche Telekom Stiftung (2024—).