Main Speakers

The Speakers

• Bill Cope
  
  

  Bill Cope is a Research Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA and Director of Common Ground Publishing. His current research interests include theories and practices of pedagogy, cultural and linguistic diversity, and new technologies of representation and communication.

• James R. Gavelek
  
  

  James R. Gavelek is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Gavelek received his PhD from Washington State University. His scholarly interests focus on the role of language and other embodied semiotic processes in understanding the development of mind. He is especially interested in the implications of an integrated and embodied semiotics for rethinking teaching, learning and the school curriculum. Dr. Gavelek serves on the editorial boards of Reading Research Quarterly and the Yearbook of the National Reading Conference. He is the coordinator of the Ph.D. program in Literacy, Language, and Culture.

• Juana M. Sancho Gil
  
  

  Juana M. Sancho Gil is and Educational Technology Professor at the University of Barcelona. She is the Coordinator of the Quality Research Group Education, Training, Innovation and New Technologies (FINT-Formación, Innovación y Nuevas Tecnologías) http://fint.doe.d5.ub.es/fint; and co-director of the Centre for the Study of Change in Culture and Education http://www.cecace.org at the Scientific Park of the University of Barcelona. She’s developing research on: (a) teaching and learning for understanding and sense making in the Information Society; (b) institutional, organisational and symbolical aspects of new learning environments that integrate information and communication technologies; (c) the construction of students and teachers subjectivity in a changing and complex world; and (d) new forms of exclusion and the Information Society. These research interests are developed through different European, international and local projects. She is codirector of the book series Repensar la educación (Rethinking education) published by Octaedro and has published a good number of books and articles both nationally and internationally.

• Fernando Hernández
  
  

  Fernando Hernández is a professor in the Unit of Art Education at the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of Barcelona and coordinator of an Interuniversities Doctoral program on “Art Education: Teaching and Learning on Visual Arts”, where several researcher projects are carried out on how primary and secondary students and teachers understand Art Education issues and notions, particularly those around Visual Culture. In this field he is the director of a post-graduate course on 'Studies on Visual Culture'. He is also a member the Quality Research Group Education, Training, Innovation and New Technologies (FINT-Formación, Innovación y Nuevas Tecnologías) http://fint.doe.d5.ub.es/fint; and codirector of the Centre for the Study of Change in Culture and Education http://www.cecace.org at the Scientific Park of the University of Barcelona. He is codirector of the book series Repensar la educación (Rethinking education) published by Octaedro and has published a good number of books and articles both nationally and internationally.

• Mary Kalantzis
  
  

  Dr Mary Kalantzis is Dean of the College of Education and Professor of Education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois Urbana Campaign, USA. She also is an Adjunct Professor at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, attached to the Globalism Institute and Research Director of the Knowledge Design Forum. She was the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education, Language and Community Services at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia from 1997-2003, the President of the Australian Council of Deans of Education from 2000-2004 and an inaugural member of the Australian National Institute for Quality Teaching and School Leadership 2004–2005. She has also been a Commissioner of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Chair of the Queensland Ethnic Affairs Ministerial Advisory Committee and a member of the Australia Council’s Community Cultural Development Board. Her academic research and writing, crosses a number of disciplines, including history, linguistics, education and sociology; and examines themes as varied as Australian immigration, leadership and workplace change, professional learning, pedagogy and literacy learning. With Bill Cope, she is co-author of a number of books, including: 'The Powers of Literacy', Falmer Press, London, 1993, 'Productive Diversity', Pluto Press, Sydney, 1997; 'A Place in the Sun: Re-Creating the Australian Way of Life', Harper Collins, Sydney, 2000; 'Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures', Routledge, London, 2000; and 'Learning by Design', Victorian Schools Innovation Commission, Melbourne, 2005.

• Kimberly A. Lawless
  
  

  Kimberly A. Lawless is an associate professor of Educational Psychology and Language, Literacy, and Culture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Lawless studies how individuals acquire and comprehend information from nonlinear digital environments, focusing on how aspects of the learner, the media, and the task influence navigational strategy and learning outcomes. She has procured over five million dollars in grant funding and published over 90 articles in these areas. She currently serves as the principal investigator on the Digital Literacy Assessment Project, funded by the Institute for Educational Science. This project seeks to build an instructional assessment of middle school students' 21st century literacy skills. She recently (2007) co-edited a yearbook for the National Society for the Study of Education focusing on technology integration in teacher education. In addition, Dr. Lawless serves on the editorial boards of several major journals within the field of education including the American Educational Research Journal, Contemporary Educational Psychology and Instructional Science.