“Innovative Learning with Generative AI: Developing Intelligent Educational Applications”
Course Description
This course explored how to responsibly integrate generative AI into educational workflows. 18 students from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the University of Stuttgart, and FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg worked alongside two professors and two doctoral researchers over two weeks in South Tyrol. Their shared goal: to build a convincing prototype of ORPHEUS, an AI-powered learning application that transforms static teaching materials into dynamic, adaptive lecture videos featuring digital instructor avatars.
The course ran in English and addressed students in Computer Science, Business Informatics, and Games Engineering (from the 4th bachelor semester onwards). A virtual kick-off on July 15 set the stage before the group traveled to South Tyrol on September 21.
- The Murrerhof in Weißenbach — home base for two weeks of focused work and collaboration.
The ORPHEUS System
The teams developed ORPHEUS across four tightly integrated workstreams, ensuring that every participant could make visible contributions to the final product:
- Content Curation — One team curated existing learning materials such as lecture slides and videos, preparing them as input for the AI pipeline.
- Learning Concept Generation — A second team designed the AI-based creation of structured learning concepts from the curated content.
- Presentation Creation — A third team handled the generation of individualized slide presentations from the learning concepts.
- Video & Media Production — A fourth team produced the video building blocks, including the digital instructor avatar that presents the generated content.
This structure allowed for short, clear iteration cycles. Daily stand-ups kept all teams synchronized and enabled reliable integration of each team’s progress.
- Late-night collaboration at the Murrerhof — where code meets camaraderie.
Beyond the Code
The daily rhythm balanced focused work sessions with physical activity and exchange. From the very first evening, a 6.5 km night hike through the valley helped turn a group of strangers into a cohesive team.
- Ascending through early snow on the way to the summit.
- Summit celebration at the Kassianspitze (2,581 m).
Over the following days, the group embarked on mountain hikes in the Reinswald area — reaching the Kassianspitze (2,581 m) and the Seeblspitz (2,347 m). A day trip to Bozen included a visit to the South Tyrolean Museum of Archaeology, home of the famous glacier mummy Ötzi.
- The full group during their day trip to Bozen.
In the evenings, the group gathered at the Murrerhof for card games, board games, and an impromptu table tennis tournament — creatively substituting missing paddles with smartphones.
Results
On the final evening — the traditional “Bunte Abend” — the teams presented a fully functional end-to-end prototype. The demonstration walked through the complete pipeline: uploading teaching materials, extracting content, generating slides, integrating the instructor avatar, and playing back the finished video lecture. The audience, participants of another Ferienakademie course, responded enthusiastically to the results.
The prototype held up under live conditions and showed that generative AI can meaningfully enhance educational processes — not just as a technical novelty, but as a didactically sound tool. ORPHEUS continues to serve as a foundation for future teaching and learning scenarios that make university education more engaging, adaptive, and accessible.