Ubiquitous Learning 2008: Main Speaker Announcement

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.

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.

Michael A Peters is Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in English Literature, and an honors degree in Geography, before attaining his teaching diploma and teaching in New Zealand high schools for seven years, the last two as head of department. While teaching he completed a major for a Bachelor of Science in Philosophy and returned full time to complete his Master in Philosophy, with first class honors, and PhD in Philosophy of Education with a thesis on the philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein. He has just completed a second book on the subject entitled Wittgenstein as Pedagogical Philosopher (Paradigm Press, 2008) with Nick Burbules and Paul Smeyers. He held a personal chair at the University of Auckland, NZ (2000-03) and Research Professor at the University of Glasgow, UK (2000-05), as well as numerous posts as adjunct and visiting professor throughout the world. He is the executive editor of Educational Philosophy and Theory (Blackwell) and editor of two international ejournals, Policy Futures in Education and E-Learning (both with Symposium) and sits on the editorial board of over fifteen international journals. He has written over thirty-five books and three hundred articles and chapters, including most recently: Global Citizenship Education (Sense, 2008); Global Knowledge Cultures (Sense, 2007); Subjectivity and Truth: Foucault, Education and the Culture of Self (Peter Lang, 2007); Why Foucault? New Directions in Educational Research (Peter Lang, 2007), Building Knowledge Cultures: Educational and Development in the Age of Knowledge Capitalism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), and Knowledge Economy, Development and the Future of the University (Sense, 2007). He has a strong research interests in distributed knowledge systems, digital scholarship and elearning systems and has acted as an advisor to government on these and related matters in Scotland, NZ, South Africa and the EU.