Specialties: serious game design & analysis, gamification of learning, course & curricular design, distance education, educational object design, programming, teaching, assessment - all in both institutional and corporate spaces.

B.Sc. (CPSC 1981) University of Calgary
M.Sc. (CPSC 1983) University of Calgary
Ph.D. (EdTech 2008) University of Calgary
C.I.D. (Certified Instructional Designer)
GCert Serious Game Design & Research (2013) Michigan State University

Born in Berlin (Germany), raised in Ontario (Canada), moved to Calgary with my family when I was 15. I liked it, so I'm still here.

I started university (at Calgary) in 1977, and I taught/learned there until 2006 (see below). I'm not the work-at-a-regular-job kind of person: where else can you get paid to learn stuff? I've taught on and off in the Department of Computer Science since 1983, and at Mount Royal University since 2008. My status @ UofC was part-time until about 1999, largely because I have 3 children and we felt it was important to spend time with them while they were growing up. I've been married to the same guy since 1981, and I still like it (cool, huh?).

I've had an interest in teaching throughout my career, and now that I've been at this for over 20 years, I finally felt I had enough experience, and something worth sharing, to take the next step: my Ph.D., which I finished in 2008.

My big passion these days is Serious Games (games used for purposes other than pure entertainment), and the use of games in teaching. I've been using games as assignments in my first-year classes for some years. The students tell me they really like it, but that it's also pretty hard. Teaching with games is not about making things easy.

In my spare time, I look after our small farm (see link), and try to do my little bit towards reminding people what real life is about.

Here is a picture pf me, taken in 2005, in front of Sunnydale High School (where Buffy & the Scooby gang went). Click on the image to see a larger version.

In the interests of full disclosure, note that due to the fact that many of these organizations have substantial membership fees (and no breaks for individuals who are not students but do not have a regular income), and that Katrin does NOT have a professional spending allowance, she is only able to maintain memberships in some of these organizations each year.