His previous roles include Professor and Director, Centre for Research in Digital Learning at Deakin University, Australia, Manager of Applied Research and Learning Analytics at Open Universities Australia, Professor for Education and Interim Department Chair at the University of Mannheim, Germany, as well as Associate Professor for Instructional Design at the University of Freiburg, Germany. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Springer journal Technology, Knowledge and Learning and a member of the Editorial Board for Educational Technology Research and Development. Dirk is the 2013-2014 President for the AECT Design and Development Division, 2013-2015 Chair for the AERA Special Interest Group Technology, Instruction, Cognition and Learning and Co-Program Chair for the international conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA). Nicole Bellin Mularski is a research assistant at the Department of Applied Teaching and Learning Research at the University of Potsdam, Germany. She received her M.A. and Phd from Freie Universität Berlin, Germany and eventually worked as a research assistant in the fields of curriculum development, at the Technische University of Dresden and school development of full-day schools, and SES and migration related achievement disparities in elementary education at the Department of Empirical Education at the Freie Universität Berlin. She received her M.A. in Educational Science from the Berlin Institute of Technology, Germany, including a semester at Stockholm University, Sweden. She worked as research assistant in the fields of higher education, analysing doctoral candidates’ supervision and students’ satisfaction within their university.