Description

Bill Cope is a Research Professor in the Department of Education Policy, Organization & Leadership, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA and an Adjunct Professor in the Globalism Institute at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is also a director of Common Ground Research Networks, developing and applying new publishing technologies. He is a former First Assistant Secretary in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs. His research interests include theories and practices of pedagogy, cultural and linguistic diversity, and new technologies of representation and communication. He was Research Director then Director of the Centre for Workplace Communication and Culture at the University of Technology, Sydney and RMIT University, Melbourne. He was also involved in a joint Common Ground/RMIT University research initiative, Creator to Consumer in a Digital Age, funded by the Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources. Amongst his recent publications are edited volumes on The Future of the Book in the Digital Age and The Future of the Academic Journal, and with Kalantzis and Magee, Towards a Semantic Web: Connecting Knowledge in Academic Research.

Mary Kalantzis is Dean of the College of Education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Before this, she was Dean of the Faculty of Education, Language and Community Services at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, and President of the Australian Council of Deans of Education. She has been a Board Member of Teaching Australia: The National Institute for Quality Teaching and School Leadership, a Commissioner of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Chair of the Queensland Ethnic Affairs Ministerial Advisory Committee, Vice President of the National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia and a member of the Australia Council’s Community Cultural Development Board. With Bill Cope, she is co-author or editor of a number of books, including: The Powers of Literacy: Genre Approaches to Teaching Literacy, Falmer Press, London, 1993, Productive Diversity, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1997; A Place in the Sun: Re-Creating the Australian Way of Life, HarperCollins, Sydney, 2000; Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, Routledge, London, 2000; New Learning: Elements of a Science of Education, Cambridge University Press, 2008 (2nd edition, 2012); Ubiquitous Learning, University of Illinois Press, 2009; and Literacies, Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Anastasia-Olga (Olnancy) Tzirides holds a Ph.D. in the Learning Design and Leadership Program from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Her research interests include advanced digital technologies, artificial intelligence, user experience research, learning design, online education, as well as language and culture learning. Her dissertation research project focused on exploring the potential of advanced digital technologies and artificial intelligence for collaborative language learning utilizing translanguaging and multimodal communication approaches. In the past, she has worked as a teaching assistant and learning designer for online graduate courses in the Learning Design and Leadership Program and the International Studies Program at the College of Education, UIUC. She was also an instructor at the Modern Greek Studies program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and designed the elementary and intermediate level courses in an online format.Anastasia-Olga also holds a joint Master’s degree in Multilingual and Multicultural Education from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and Université du Maine, France, and a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.