Prof. Dr. Norbert Meder was born in 1947. He studied philosophy, mathematics and pedagogy at the Universities of Mainz, Munich and Cologne and attained a PhD in Philosophy at Cologne in 1974 and a post-doctoral lecturing qualification in pedagogy at Cologne in 1984. From 1986 to 1992 he worked in the software industry and commerce. He was one of the seven founders of the International Society of Knowledge organisation (ISKO) in 1990 and served as their Vice President until 1994. From 1992 to 2001 he was a professor of computer science in education and social work at the University of Bielefeld, where he was on the management board of the "Institut für Didaktik der Mathematik" (IDM) from 1994 to 2001. Since winter semester 2001/2002 he has been professor of general systematic pedagogy at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

His main fields of research are: philosophy of education, theory of media, theory of didactics, information technology in pedagogical activities, the conjunction of knowledge organisation and general didactics, theory of the knowledge society.