Professor Maggi Savin-Baden
Professor of Higher Education Research, Coventry University
Maggi Savin-Baden is Professor of Higher Education Research and Coventry University and Director of the Learning Innovation Group. Maggi's current research is exploring the impact of innovative forms of learning in new spaces such as Second Life and new distance spaces. To date she has published 9 books on teaching, learning and research and her latest A Practical Guide to Using Second Life in Higher Education was published in September this year.
Michael Callaghan
Lecturer, University of Ulster
Michael Callaghan is a Lecturer in the School of Computing and Intelligent Systems at the University of Ulster. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the University of Ulster and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He is an editor of the International Journal of Online Engineering and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the IAOE (International Association of Online Engineering). Michael currently leads the activities of the Serious Games & Virtual Worlds Research Team at Intelligent Systems Research Centre (ISRC) at the University of Ulster. His main research interests include remote experimentation and virtual worlds.
Carmela Dell'Aria
University of Palermo-University of VeniceCarmela Dell’Aria is currently a teacher of English and Italian as Foreign language and a specialized teacher for students with special needs in a secondary school in Palermo (Italy). Since 2007 Carmela Dell’Aria (Misy Ferraris in Second Life) has been carrying out Café Italia, an experiment about teaching and learning Italian in SL. For this experiment she designed courses as part of the main project, around small groups of foreign students from Duke University (Durham, NC) and from DIT (Ireland). She is also an independent researcher in the fields of virtual world use in teaching and learning. She has been a contract Professor of CALL at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy (University of Palermo) and actually she’s investigating the potentials of MUVEs for foreign language learning, as well as the factors that impact the learners’ language performance, as part of her Action Research project submitted to the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari for the second level Master Itals in Advanced Didactics of Italian as a Foreign Language.
Bernhard DraxMachinima JournalistBernhard Drax writes music for TV, commercials and feature film. His orchestral score for the Disney comedy "Sommer" gained critical acclaim in Germany as the film remained among the top ten for 4 consecutive months in 2008. In the virtual world “Second Life” Bernhard regularly files machinima reportages on social and political issues. His story on virtual Guantanamo won the 2008 Human Rights Media Awards from internews in France. His series on "Public Good in Virtual Worlds", co-produced with the Network Culture Project at USC has been used in many classrooms to illustrate the power of immersive 3D platforms for cross-cultural collaboration. Sponsored by the US Department of State, Bernhard is also finishing up a video series the use of virtual worlds in public diplomacy, focusing on the 6-month collaboration between architecture students from Cairo and USC in Los Angeles.
Jonathan Himoff
CEO, Rezzable
Jonathan Himoff is the CEO & Founder of Rezzable and believes that web-based virtual world are the beginning of a very exciting direction toward the 3D Web, where a new type of interaction with information, content and people will be possible. The avatar will be the essential interface/guide/companion for this dynamic new environment. http://heritage-key.com/
Julio Lopez-Losada
Research Associate, University of Ulster
Julio López Losada studied Computer Science Engineering at the University of A Coruña (Spain), doing the last year and the Final Project at the Politecnico di Bari (Italy). After graduation he started working as a placement student for the Intelligent Systems Research Centre at the University of Ulster. At present, he is a Research Associate in the Intelligent Systems Research Centre and member of the Serious Games and Virtual Worlds Team.
Daniel LivingstoneLecturer in Computer Game Technology, University of the West of ScotlandDr Daniel Livingstone lectures in Computer Science at the University of the West of Scotland. He is co-founder of the open source SLOODLE project – the world’s first project attempting to formally integrate multi-user virtual environments with web-based virtual learning environments. Daniel is the lead investigator in the JISC Grant funded project "Supporting Education in Virtual Worlds with Virtual Learning Environments".
Joe Mangru
Dataworks
Joe Mangru is a post graduated in business entrepreneurship and specialises in the design and delivery of custom ICT solutions. He is a certified project and programme manager with over 25 years experience having lead IT consultancies in the USA, UK and the Republic of Ireland. Joe’s background is extensive; he managed the complex custom development of the UK’s first Managed Learning platform developed under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme for the Bristol LEA. The solution was launched to acclaim by Prime Minister Brown. joe has more recently been working with the Creative Futures project, an EU funded initiative working with partners from Ireland, UK, Austria, Denmark and Latvia. Managing the custom development of sophisticated simulation teaching tools developed in the immersive technologies of Linden Labs’ Second Life environment. http://www.dataworkstudios.com/
Kerri McCuskerResearch Associate, University of Ulster
Kerri McCusker is a Research Associate within the Serious Games & Virtual Worlds research team at the Intelligence Systems Research Centre, University of Ulster, Magee Campus. Kerri is an active researcher in virtual worlds with a particular focus on the teaching of STEM subjects and the integration of virtual learning environments/virtual worlds She is an active member of the Second Life community and frequently haunts other virtual worlds including OpenSim, Activeworlds, Small Worlds, Whyville and Twinity.
Anthony McCannUniversity of UlsterAnthony is the Founder and Director of the non-profit Crafting Gentleness. He is an experienced researcher and educator who has held positions at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University, and the University of Ulster (current position). He has graduated from Queen's University Belfast (B.A. Celtic Studies and Spanish), University College Galway (M.Phil. in Irish Studies), and the University of Limerick (Ph.D., Ethnomusicology). In 1999 he was assistant co-ordinator of a UNESCO/ Smithsonian World Conference in Washington DC entitled 'A Global Assessment of the 1989 UNESCO Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore: Local Empowerment and International Cooperation'. He later undertook postdoctoral research in cultural policy at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC in 2001-02, where he was part of the team that drafted the working text of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention.
Susanna NocchiAssistant Lecturer, Dublin Institute of Technology
Susanna Nocchi is currently an Assistant Lecturer in Italian at DIT. She got her Laurea (Italian equivalent of a Master Degree) in Foreign Languages and Literatures from the University of Pisa (Italy) in 1988, with a specialisation in Scandinavian languages and literatures and a research thesis on N.F.S. Grundtvig, Danish writer, poet and educator. Her minor languages were German, English and Spanish. She also spent 2 years at the University of Reykjavik (Iceland) where she studied Icelandic language and literature, from 1992 to 1994. In 1999 she finished her Master in Applied Linguistics at Trinity College Dublin, with a research thesis on the use of Translation strategies by students translating from Italian into English. Title of research: Exploring the benefits of peer collaboration in L2 translation.
Susanna has been teaching Italian as a Foreign and Second language since 1989, and she has worked in Italy, Iceland, Finland, Ireland and India for different institutions. She has been involved in teacher training since 2003. She is collaborating with the Irish Department of Education, for which she has designed, developed and taught a two-year course for future Secondary Teachers of Italian and a refresher language and culture course for working secondary teachers of Italian. She has contributed material to the website designed by the Department of Education for Secondary School Language Teachers, under the Post-Primary Initiative.
Susanna is the representative for Third Level Education and ICT on the board for the Association for Teachers of Italian (ATI).Her main current research interest is the use of technology in the teaching of foreign languages. She is working on a PhD researching the potential of Virtual Environments for acquiring competence in Intercultural Awareness in the study of a Foreign Language.
Danny RomanMA Creative Director, DataWorks Studios
Danny set up DataWorks Studios in 2005 after a career as a freelance IT consultant working for IBM, Unilever, HJ Heinz and British Telecom among others . In 2007 Danny obtained a Master's Degree in Digital Games Theory & Design at Brunel University in the UK. Danny spent the following year teaching graphic design at Brunel and helped set up courses that incorporated teaching in virtual worlds. Based near Brighton Sussex (UK) and with offices in Dublin (Ireland), DataWorks Studios was recently made a Linden Labs Gold Partner Developer and has been developing content in Second Life since 2005. Their Portfolio includes Educational campuses for Brunel University, renewable energy projects, cross platform education initiatives and the Creative Futures project. DataWorks Studios continues to work with clients to design and create cutting edge immersive experiences using virtual world technology such as Second Life to change the way they work and do business. http://www.dataworkstudios.com/
