University of Bayreuth · Mathematics and Didactics
Mathematics education, software development and digital learning – over 25 years of experience at the intersection of research, tool building and classroom practice.
Triangle with Circles – created with JSXGraph
Profile
Since 1999 I have been working at the Chair of Mathematics and Didactics at the University of Bayreuth – professional software development and research in mathematics education under one roof. Digital tools should not merely be technically mature; they must be designed consistently from the learner’s perspective.
This conviction has produced projects that shape mathematics classrooms well beyond Bayreuth: the gesture-based geometry software sketchometry, contributions to the globally used library JSXGraph, the interactive lecture companion egBook – and, most recently, AI-driven visualisation with JSXGraph AIR.
Transfer matters to me as much as development: in-service teacher training across Germany and abroad, tablet-classroom school trials, our own international conference series and the exhibition project ‘Alles ist Zahl / Everything is Number’, which makes mathematics tangible through art.
Research & Development
From GEONExT (1999) through dynamic worksheets to gesture-based geometry, interactive lecture notes and AI – each generation builds on the previous one.
Two new elements for maps and globes: twelve projections that morph into one another, a rotatable globe inheriting from view3d, and sixteen drawable objects that work on either – measured on the sphere, not on the screen. Prompted by the UN resolution on area-preserving world maps, September 2026.
Artificial Intelligence Renderer: AI generates interactive constructions, delivered as an in-house viewer for Visual Studio Code and as a text- and voice-controlled end-user tool, with inclusion and accessibility in mind. To be presented at the 7th International JSXGraph Conference, October 2026.
A Quarto extension that turns Markdown into interactive websites, PDFs and Word documents with embedded constructions – egBook’s functionality on a modern architecture.
Fostering Competence for Use of Smartphones: ten partners from six countries develop concepts for self-regulated smartphone use in schools. Coordination of the Bayreuth contribution, international webinars, transfer of the teaching modules.
Gesture-based dynamic mathematics for tablets, smartphones and PCs: sketches turn into exact constructions. With teaching modules, a professional development initiative, its own booklet series and the ‘Maths with the Index Finger’ school trials. Funded by think ING. / Gesamtmetall.
Open-source library for interactive geometry, function plotting and data visualisation in the browser – integrated into a range of platforms, including the e-assessment system STACK, and with more than a billion hits per year. Focus: connecting the library with modern assessment formats.
Interactive, responsive companion to the Elementary Geometry lecture: more than 200 interactive figures, accessible, usable anytime and anywhere – fully documented and evaluated.
Managing Director of the Center for Mobile Learning with Digital Technology: administration, meetings, conferences, public relations – and the English-language OER series ‘CMLDT publications’.
Tablet model classes at Gymnasium and Realschule level in Bayreuth, classroom observations with student teachers, mobile device management, and an expanding network of partner schools across primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education.
Cooperation with the Free State of Bavaria’s BayernLabs: sketchometry training for teachers of all school types, embedded in the official Bavarian teacher-training system (FIBS) – with more locations to follow.
One of the first platform-independent dynamic mathematics programs, uniting geometry and calculus. Eighteen years on the development team, subject of my doctorate – and a key influence on the development of sketchometry.
What ended it was not the didactics but the platform: Java disappeared from browsers, and the devices learners actually reach for had no room for a desktop application. That lesson – build on what the browser itself can do, and on the way people handle their devices – leads directly to JSXGraph and sketchometry.
Interactive visualisations with task prompts in the browser – digita 2005 and D-ELINA 2007. The core pedagogical idea that lives on through egBook and jsxgraph-quarto.
SINUS & SINUS-Transfer, Fibonacci, Inter2Geo, InnoMathEd, Key Competences, ITEMS, IDIAM, EXPERT, MATHCamp, and the Bavarian–Czech project on mathematical giftedness – continuous work in national and European consortia.
A selection. The full record of projects, consortia and collaborations since 1999 is in the CV (PDF).
Functiongraph – created with JSXGraph
Milestones
Reverse chronological; filled dots mark turning points.
JSXGraph Geography Extension: Twelve projections, one globe, sixteen elements: seeing what flat maps give up.
Exhibition at the Athénée de Luxembourg with IFEN teacher training, guided student tours and a sketchometry workshop; international FOCUS project meeting in Bayreuth.
JSXGraph AIR (Artificial Intelligence Renderer) with AIR for VS Code and text/voice-controlled AIR Compass; website/document generator plugin jsxgraph-quarto.
Erasmus+ coordination, with third-party funding secured; new on-site format ‘24 hours of JSXGraph’; BayernLab cooperation.
Invited expert of the Bavarian Ministry of Education (StMUK) on digital examinations; working meeting with the Thuringian Ministry of Education; jury member at Science on Stage 2023 and 2025; keynote in České Budějovice 2023.
The Elementary Geometry lecture gets its interactive companion; training courses for IQSH, the Hesse Teacher Academy and MINT-EC, among them.
Conceived together with Alfred Wassermann and launched online in the middle of the pandemic – annual ever since.
Co-conception of the Competence Center for Digital Teaching and Learning; Center for Teacher Education (since 2019); ITEMS, later IDIAM and EXPERT; University Entrance Examination Board (since 2021).
Launch of the university partnership with the Technical University of Liberec (TUL); mutual academic visits from 2016 onwards, fostering long-term collaboration in mathematics education and digital teaching.
Funding phase of the Gesamtmetall project (project running until the end of 2026): tablet classes, the professional development initiative (since 2015), teaching modules, the sketchometry booklet series.
Founding of the research centre (CMLDT) – Managing Director ever since: administration, events, public relations, membership development.
The generational leap: gesture-based geometry for the devices that learners actually use. User-interface design and the gesture concept as its unique feature.
Fibonacci (First European Conference 2010 in Bayreuth, session chair), Inter2Geo, InnoMathEd, Key Competences – inquiry-based learning across Europe.
Two-year special exhibition ‘Alles ist Zahl’ – mathematics for a nationwide audience; start of the accompanying publication series (ISSN 1868-3932).
Two long-term projects begin: the web library for interactive mathematics and the art project with Eugen Jost.
German Educational Media Award and German E-Learning Innovation Award for the dynamic worksheets.
Start of the exchange with the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice (talks in 2003 and 2013, keynote in 2023) and membership of Bayreuth’s Z-MNU centre.
First publication in the project line that shapes all subsequent work.
Collaboration with M. Ehmann on the development of GEONExT; innovative teaching concepts for interactive learning environments; doctorate on GEONExT (2004).
Contribution to one of Germany’s largest school development programmes: materials, website and server management, teacher training. Invitations to SINUS conferences continue to this day.
Start at the Chair of Mathematics and Didactics; GEONExT at CeBIT Hannover. Systems, LearnTec, didacta and the Frankfurt Book Fair follow – all the way to the e-Learning World in Tokyo.
Teaching
Around twenty different course formats across all teacher education programmes, from foundational lectures to an AI seminar.
Morley’s Miracle – created with JSXGraph
Teacher Education & Outreach
More than twenty years of in-service teacher training for state institutes, networks and international institutions – most recently in Luxembourg and Straubing.
Mathematics & Art
Since 2007, the project has been opening up new pathways to mathematics through the paintings of the Swiss artist Eugen Jost, in museums, schools and libraries across Europe.
Hardy’s Taxi by Eugen Jost
Traces – created with JSXGraph
Publications
More than 35 publications across a quarter of a century (2001–2026): international conference proceedings, practitioner journals and books – alongside (co-)founded publication series, each built end to end, from design and layout to online publishing and ISSN registration.
Complete list of publications in the CV (PDF).
Including the Books of Abstracts of the International JSXGraph Conference, citable via DOI.
Development work, reflection, classroom transfer – including first publications by student teachers.
Research in mathematics education from the chair, open access via EPub Bayreuth.
Towards New Teaching in Mathematics – the SINUS approach, internationally.
Popularising mathematics; the series accompanying the exhibition project.
Conferences & Talks
Conceived in 2020 together with Alfred Wassermann and held annually ever since: the meeting place of the worldwide JSXGraph community – with participants from Europe, Asia and beyond. Moderation, workshops, own contributions; the abstracts appear in the CMLDT publications. Complemented since 2025 by the on-site format ‘24 hours of JSXGraph’ with the SASIM group.
Own stand concept and full stand organisation since 1999 – from CeBIT, Systems and LearnTec through didacta and the Frankfurt Book Fair to the e-Learning World in Tokyo; more recently the 7th European Congress of Mathematics (Berlin 2016), the MNU national congress (Aachen 2017), Bridges (Linz 2019) and Science on Stage (London 2015, Bayreuth 2023).
In total: more than 100 talks, workshops and presentations in some 15 countries – in German, English and occasionally Czech. Complete list in the CV (PDF).