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Michael Thomas (born 1969) is research professor at Liverpool John Moores University. His work incorporates the field of digital education in relation to social justice, the educational implications of disadvantage, online and distance education, digitally mediated communication, and higher education policy.[ citation needed ]
Thomas attended Collingwood Junior School, Norham High School and Tynemouth Sixth Form College. He has studied at Newcastle University, the University of Manchester, Lancaster University, Cardiff University, Wales, the University of the West of England and the University of Leicester in the U.K. as well as at Cornell University in the U.S.[ citation needed ]. He holds a Ph.D. in Critical and Cultural Theory from Newcastle University focusing on the work of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, deconstructionism and post-modernism, and a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Lancaster University, which explored technology-mediated project-based learning.
Thomas was previously a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg in Germany (1998), Associate Professor (2002) and then Professor (2009) in English Communication at Nagoya University of Commerce & Business, Japan. He moved to the University of Central Lancashire in 2010 where he became Professor of Higher Education and Online Learning. [1] Thomas has also held visiting or affiliated positions at Stuttgart University and Mannheim University in Germany, the University of Liverpool in the U.K., and Harvard University in the U.S.
Thomas has published over 20 authored and edited books in these fields. He is the founding and lead editor of four international book series: Digital Education and Learning (publisher: Palgrave Macmillan), Global Policy and Critical Futures in Education (publisher: Palgrave Macmillan), Advances in Digital Language Learning and Teaching (publisher: Bloomsbury) and Advances in Virtual and Personal Learning Environments (publisher: IGI). He has authored 3 monographs and edited 26 books. Thomas was the founding editor-in-chief of the Scopus indexed International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments and since 2014 has been a member of the journal's International Advisory Board.
Thomas was project coordinator and principal investigator of the EU-funded CAMELOT Project on Language learning with machinima, a two-year project consisting of nine European Union partners that ran from December 2013 until November 2015; a partner in the Erasums+ VITAL project on learning analytics and online learning (2015–17; and coordinator of the EU GUINEVERE project (KA2 Strategic Partnership in Schools) on digital gaming in immersive environments (2017–19).
Outside of academia, he has published articles in The Times Higher Education Supplement on the use of iPods and podcasting, and The Guardian as a contributor in a debate about massive open online courses and the future of higher education and been interviewed by the French language publication Regards Sur Le Numerique on the subject of digital natives, among others. Thomas is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and the Royal Society of Arts.[ citation needed ]
Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via mail. Distance education is a technology-mediated modality and has evolved with the evolution of technologies such as video conferencing, TV, and the Internet. Today, it usually involves online education and the learning is usually mediated by some form of technology. A distance learning program can either be completely a remote learning, or a combination of both online learning and traditional offline classroom instruction. Other modalities include distance learning with complementary virtual environment or teaching in virtual environment (e-learning).
Computer-assisted language learning (CALL), British, or computer-aided instruction (CAI)/computer-aided language instruction (CALI), American, is briefly defined in a seminal work by Levy as "the search for and study of applications of the computer in language teaching and learning". CALL embraces a wide range of information and communications technology applications and approaches to teaching and learning foreign languages, from the "traditional" drill-and-practice programs that characterised CALL in the 1960s and 1970s to more recent manifestations of CALL, e.g. as used in a virtual learning environment and Web-based distance learning. It also extends to the use of corpora and concordancers, interactive whiteboards, computer-mediated communication (CMC), language learning in virtual worlds, and mobile-assisted language learning (MALL).
Student-centered learning, also known as learner-centered education, broadly encompasses methods of teaching that shift the focus of instruction from the teacher to the student. In original usage, student-centered learning aims to develop learner autonomy and independence by putting responsibility for the learning path in the hands of students by imparting to them skills, and the basis on how to learn a specific subject and schemata required to measure up to the specific performance requirement. Student-centered instruction focuses on skills and practices that enable lifelong learning and independent problem-solving. Student-centered learning theory and practice are based on the constructivist learning theory that emphasizes the learner's critical role in constructing meaning from new information and prior experience.
Henry Armand Giroux is an American-Canadian scholar and cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies, and critical theory. In 2002, Keith Morrison wrote about Giroux as among the top fifty influential figures in 20th-century educational discourse.
Educational technology is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. When referred to with its abbreviation, "EdTech," it often refers to the industry of companies that create educational technology. In EdTech Inc.: Selling, Automating and Globalizing Higher Education in the Digital Age, Tanner Mirrlees and Shahid Alvi (2019) argue "EdTech is no exception to industry ownership and market rules" and "define the EdTech industries as all the privately owned companies currently involved in the financing, production and distribution of commercial hardware, software, cultural goods, services and platforms for the educational market with the goal of turning a profit. Many of these companies are US-based and rapidly expanding into educational markets across North America, and increasingly growing all over the world."
Learner autonomy has been a popular concept in foreign language education in the past decades, specially in relation to lifelong learning skills. It has transformed old practices in the language classroom and has given origin to self access language learning centers around the world such as the SALC at Kanda University of International Studies in Japan, the ASLLC at The Education University of Hong Kong, the SAC at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and ELSAC at the University of Auckland. As the result of such practices, language teaching is now sometimes seen as the same as language learning, and it has placed the learner in the centre of attention in language learning education in some places.
Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Learning (ICALL), or Intelligent Computer Assisted Language Instruction (ICALI), involves the application of computing technologies to the teaching and learning of second or foreign languages. ICALL combines Artificial intelligence with Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) systems to provide software that interacts intelligently with students, responding flexibly and dynamically to student's learning progress.
Mark Warschauer is a professor in the Department of Education and the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, where is also the director of the Ph.D. in Education program and founding director of the Digital Learning Lab. He is the author or editor of eight books and more than 100 scholarly papers on topics related to technology use for language and literacy development, education, and social inclusion.
Peter Mayo is a professor, speaker, editor, writer, and former head of the Department of Arts, Open Communities and Adult Education at the University of Malta, in Malta. He is responsible for the UNESCO Chair in Global Adult Education at the same university. He formerly served as the university's head of the Department of Education Studies from 2008 to 2012. Mayo was a member of the Collegio Docenti for the doctoral research programme in Educational Sciences and Continuing Education at the Università degli Studi di Verona. He teaches in the areas of sociology of education and adult continuing education, as well as in comparative and international education and sociology in general. He was previously employed as a school teacher and later as Officer in Charge of Adult Education in the then Department of Education, Ministry of Education, Malta. Mayo has held visiting professorial appointments at multiple universities and was a Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Education, University College London during 2014. He was previously a member of the Collegio Docenti for the international doctorate in intercultural sociology and education at the University of Messina and was the President of the Mediterranean Society of Comparative Education (MESCE) from 2008 to 2010. He was visiting professor at the Institute of Education, University College London
Second Life is used as a platform for education by many institutions, such as colleges, universities, libraries and government entities.
Donn Randy Garrison is a Canadian professor emeritus at the University of Calgary who has published extensively on distance education.
Rupert Wegerif is a professor of education at the University of Cambridge in England.
Anthony G. Picciano is an American scholar, writer, and academic who has made significant contributions to the study of digital technology in education leadership, planning, and instruction. He has conducted major national studies with Jeff Seaman on instructional technology use in American K-12 education. He holds faculty positions at Hunter College, the Graduate Center, and the School of Professional Studies, all at the City University of New York.
Online learning involves courses offered by primary institutions that are 100% virtual. Online learning, or virtual classes offered over the internet, is contrasted with traditional courses taken in a brick-and-mortar school building. It is a development in distance education that expanded in the 1990s with the spread of the commercial Internet and the World Wide Web. The learner experience is typically asynchronous but may also incorporate synchronous elements. The vast majority of institutions utilize a learning management system for the administration of online courses. As theories of distance education evolve, digital technologies to support learning and pedagogy continue to transform as well.
Language MOOCs are web-based online courses freely accessible for a limited period of time, created for those interested in developing their skills in a foreign language. As Sokolik (2014) states, enrolment is large, free and not restricted to students by age or geographic location. They have to follow the format of a course, i.e., include a syllabus and schedule and offer the guidance of one or several instructors. The MOOCs are not so new, since courses with such characteristics had been available online for quite a lot of time before Dave Cormier coined the term 'MOOC' in 2008. Furthermore, MOOCs are generally regarded as the natural evolution of OERs, which are freely accessible materials used in Education for teaching, learning and assessment.
Digital pedagogy is the study and use of contemporary digital technologies in teaching and learning. Digital pedagogy may be applied to online, hybrid, and face-to-face learning environments. Digital pedagogy also has roots in the theory of constructivism.
Virtual exchange is an instructional approach or practice for language learning. It broadly refers to the "notion of 'connecting' language learners in pedagogically structured interaction and collaboration" through computer-mediated communication for the purpose of improving their language skills, intercultural communicative competence, and digital literacies. Although it proliferated with the advance of the internet and Web 2.0 technologies in the 1990s, its roots can be traced to learning networks pioneered by Célestin Freinet in 1920s and, according to Dooly, even earlier in Jardine's work with collaborative writing at the University of Glasgow at the end of the 17th to the early 18th century.
The Language Learning Centre is a self access language learning center that offers resources and facilities for those learning languages at Victoria University of Wellington.
Susan Broadhurst is a performance art practitioner, writer and academic. She is Professor Emerita of Performance and Technology, and Honorary Professor, at Brunel University London. Formerly, she was the Head of Research in the Department of Arts and Humanities and also led the Division of Production and Performance.
Stuart Dermot Lee is a British specialist in information technology at Oxford University Computing Services and a Reader in E-learning at Oxford University, but is best known for his scholarly books on J. R. R. Tolkien. He is also an award winning playwright.
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