Dr Heather Lotherington is Professor of Multilingual Education at York University, where she is appointed to graduate schools in both the Faculty of Education, and the Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics (LAPS). She is an applied linguist who has taught in universities in England, Germany, Fiji, and Australia as well as Canada. Her research interests span multimodality; multilingual and plurilingual education; language, literacy and technology; and pedagogical innovation. Her current research focuses on capturing digital communicative competencies, and investigating how literacies in the post-human spectrum can be applied to language learning. Professor Lotherington’s most recent book is: Pedagogy of multiliteracies: Rewriting Goldilocks (Routledge, 2011). Current research How is human communication altered in digital environments? Historically,”second” and “foreign” language teaching was normed on face-to-face speech encounters and alphabetic print norms, and based on structural ideologies of language and national heritage concepts of culture. However, in the multimodal, interactive, networked environments of today, symbolic conventions, media, genres, discourses, identity, authority and authorship,to name but a few aspects of communication, have shape-shifted beyond recognition. My current research project ties together specialists in English language teaching and testing, intermediality, new media communication,multilingualism, and digital literacy, who are spread across four countries.Together we are developing new paradigms for understanding communication,using lifelogging technology. Presentations & Workshops Is a picture worth a thousand words? What can lifelogging tell us about media of communication? Links YorkU Profile Q&A with People for Education
Faculty of Education
Kurt Thumlert is an associate professor in York University’s Faculty of Education. His research and teaching focus on production pedagogies and new media, the arts and multimodal literacies, and informal/DIY cultural production. Kurt’s work examines the opportunities of digital media, game-based learning, and simulation and role-play for inviting sustained engagements within multiliteracy-learning challenges, as well as for supporting authentic modes of art and knowledge making. His courses invite students to critically co-explore the sociotechnical resources and participative opportunities of emerging media ecologies, as well as related production-based learning environments. Kurt’s recent publications include several articles co-authored with Suzanne de Castell and Jennifer Jenson on educational theory, games, and technology studies. Connect with Kurt via: Serious Play Lab Twitter: @MerlotPontiac
Associate Professor Biography Dr. Winton’s critical policy research examines how education policies and policy processes support and/or undermine critical democratic commitments to equity, diversity, social justice, and public participation in policymaking. Links Faculty Page People for Education
Tannaz is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Manitoba, Faculty of Education and a Research Associate at the Canada Research Chair in Queer, Community and Diversity Education. Tannaz received her PhD from York University’s Faculty of Education. Her area of research is social media, digital literacies, social justice, and spatial justice. Her current project “Narration of Belonging: Experience of Otherness amongst Marginalized Women and Non-Binary Individuals in Higher Education” navigates the interconnection of offline and online spaces. She investigates the similarities and differences between online and offline senses of belonging, cultural identities and learning experiences of marginalized students in higher education.
Dr. Jennifer Jenson is Director Emeritus-Supremus of the Institute for Research on Digital Learning because she rode off into the sunset and is now at The University of British Columbia. Prior to this move Jen was professor of Pedagogy and Technology in the Faculty of Education at York University, Toronto. She is co-editor of Loading:The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association and President of the Canadian Game Studies Association. Working with Professor Suzanne de Castell (Dean, University of Ontario Institute of Technology), Dr. Nicholas Taylor (NC State University) and a team of students in her CFI-funded Play:CES (Play in Computer Environments) lab, she has designed a series of educational games including: “Contagion”, “Epidemic: Self-Care for Crisis”, a Baroque music game, and an iPad game for early readers, Compareware (available for free in the app store). She has completed 2 longitudinal studies of gender and digital gameplay, and held a Partnership Development Grant, Feminist in Games, since 2011 to support women and others who wanted to play and make games. She also completed a 3-year, mixed methods study of massively multiplayer online games and their players in partnership with SRI International, Simon Fraser University and Nottingham University, UK. She has published widely on education, technology, gender, design and development of digital games, and technology policies and policy practices in K-12 schooling. She has considerable experience working on and with teachers in relation to technology, pedagogy and curriculum, and authored a report for the Ontario Ministry of Education entitled “21st Century Skills, Technologies and Learning“. She has also worked with school boards, colleges, and technology companies to support the integration and implantation of technologies in the K-12 sector and she has considerable experience designing online learning experiences in higher education. Dr. Jenson has been described by a colleague as the perfect combination of smart, perky, […]
Dean of the Faculty of EducationFounding Director of the Institute for Research in Learning Technologies (now IRDL) Biography Dr. Owston is Professor of Education and founding director of the Institute for Research on Learning Technologies (formerly the Centre for the Study of Computers in Education) at York University. He has spoken at numerous national and international conferences, and published in a variety of fields including technology in education, program evaluation, and teacher development in journals such as Research in the Teaching of English, Journal of Computer-Based Instruction, Journal of Information Technology in Teacher Education, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, and Journal of Research on Computing in Education. Links Faculty Page Educause Profile
Mary Leigh Morbey is Professor of Culture and Technology in the York University Faculty of Education, Toronto, and serves as the Associate Co-Chair of the York Institute for Research on Digital Learning. She researches, teaches, and publishes widely on the theory, history, practice, and education of Web participatory and Social Media technologies, digital literacies, and technological mediations in visual culture, with an emphasis on the Global South. Her publications are included in Allgemeines Kunstlerlexikon, Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, SIGGRAPH Visual Proceedings, the International Journal of Learning and Media (The MIT Press), and the International Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship, as well as other academic journals and books. She is currently completing a book on information communications technology access and education, and is the research team leader of the Ugandan Heritage Sites and Stories social media project of the Uganda National Museum in Kampala. Links Research Gate
Stephen Chan has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Western Ontario and a Bachelor of Education from York University. He is currently completing his Master’s of Education at York University.
Maureen Senoga, B.A. Hons., M.Ed., is currently a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education, York University. As an art educator and artist graduate of Makerere University Kampala, and a lecturer in the Department of Art and Industrial Design at Kyambogo University, Uganda, Maureen’s experience includes art and design syllabus and module development, and facilitating the Teacher Education program through distance education. Other positions include Vice Chairperson of the UNESCO Uganda Culture committee, and member of the Uganda Museum research group on preparation of the Nomination File of Bark Cloth Making Skills submitted to the Third UNESCO Proclamations of the Master Pieces of the Oral and Intangible Human Heritage List. She recently presented her research work on indigenous pottery and a Ugandan perspective of Web 2.0 development for the Uganda National Museum at conferences and guest lectures. Her research interests include art education curriculum issues and pedagogy.
Mary Pat O’Meara is a digital media specialist and certified teacher with a unique blend of technical digital media expertise and formal educational training and practice. She brings over 7 years of professional experience as a digital video editor and graphic designer to her practice, with credits that include Food Network Canada and TVO. Mary Pat recently completed a Master of Education degree at York University with a research focus on practices of multimodal digital literacy within formal and informal learning spaces. She is currently working as a supply teacher in Toronto, Ontario and holds the position of Digital Education Specialist for the EdTech consulting firm, MindShare Learning.
Dennis York is a Distance Learning Specialist at the University of Guelph and a Postdoctoral Research Associate at York University. He holds an MSc and PhD in Education, specializing in e-learning and educational technologies, from the University of West Alabama and York University respectively. He is a past recipient of an Edmund S. Muskie fellowship. He’s currently working on the development and evaluation of online and blended learning programs. His research interests include multimedia instructional design, online student engagement strategies, and the role of social media in facilitating teaching and learning in postsecondary education.