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Biographies
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Dr Jordi Sánchez-Navarro
Jordi Sánchez-Navarro is a lecturer at the Information and
Communication Sciences Department at the Open University of Catalonia, where he
coordinates and teaches on screen studies, interactive narratives and digital
publishing. He has taught at the Universitat Ramon Llull, and collaborated in
several masters at the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona
and the School
of Cinema and
Audiovisuals of Catalonia (ESCAC). He achieved a PhD in Film Studies
(Universitat Ramon Llull) with a dissertation about the concepts of
authorship, crisis of the genres and cultural recycling in post-modern media.
At present, his research interests are screen studies, current film practices
in contemporary media landscape, video games, animation, children and youth
media education in leisure time and rethinking media. He is currently
involved in a project which is researching into how video games work as
educational tools, and in the formal aspects of video games, approaching both
issues to the more general field of screen studies. Among other activities,
he collaborates with the research groups SPIDER (Smarter People through
Interactive Digital Entertainment Resources) and COMCAD (Audiovisual
Communication and Digital Culture). Both groups have commissioned or funded
by public institutions research in progress.
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Jordi Sánchez-Navarro
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Dr Daniel Aranda
Daniel
Aranda is a Lecturer responsible for the area of Theory and Sociology of
Communication at the Open University of Catalonia (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya).
He has achieved a PhD in Media Studies (University Ramon Llull) and a Master
in Education and Communication (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona). He
is also the Coordinator of a research group called COMCAD (Open University of
Catalonia) which investigates the context of digital media creation
(integration and legitimization of digital art and Digital aesthetics) and
the use and consumption of technologies related to digital leisure: p2P
networks, phone culture and video games (http://spider-uoc.blogspot.com/). He is currently involved in
a project which is researching into how video games work as educational
tools; the formal aspects of video games, but also, and fundamentally, their
use and application by children and youth in leisure settings managed by
non-formal education bodies, such as leisure associations for young people.
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Daniel Aranda
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Professor Thomas M Connolly
Thomas Connolly is a Professor in the School
of Computing
at the University
of the West of Scotland, having managed the
Department of Computing and Information Systems for several years. Thomas
worked for over 15 years in industry as a Manager and Technical Director in
international software houses before entering academia. His specialisms are
games-based learning, online learning and database systems. He has developed
three fully online MSc programmes and developed and leads the undergraduate
BSc Computer Games Technology programme. He is co-author of the highly
successful academic textbooks Database Systems (now in its 4th
edition) and Database Solutions (in its 2nd edition). He is a
reviewer for several international journals and has been on the committee for
various international conferences. He is a member of CPHC (Council of
Professors and Heads of Computing) and member of the Higher Education
Academy.
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Thomas Connolly
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Dr Mark Stansfield
Dr Mark Stansfield is a Senior Lecturer in the School
of Computing
at the University
of the West of Scotland. He has a PhD in Information
Systems and has written and co-written more than 70 refereed papers in areas
relating to e-Learning, games-based e-Learning, information systems and
e-Business. Journals in which papers have been published include the European
Journal of Information Systems, Systems Practice and Action Research, the
Journal of Further and Higher Education, the Journal of Electronic Commerce
Research, the Journal of IT Education, and Computers and Education. Mark also
serves on the editorial boards of several international journals that include
the International Journal of Information Management, Journal of Information
Systems Education, ALT-J and the Journal of IT Education. Mark was appointed
Member of the International Association of Science and Technology for
Development (IASTED) Technical Committee on Education for the term 2005-2008
and is a Registered Practitioner of the Higher Education Academy in the UK.
He has presented
papers at international conferences for over 15 years and has won Best Paper
Awards at a number of conferences that include the UK Systems Society
Conference in 1993 and the Informing Science and IT Education Conferences in
2003 and 2006
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Mark Stansfield
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Dr Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen
Simon
Egenfeldt-Nielsen(PhD, Psychologist) is currently an assistant professor at
the IT-University of Copenhagen.
He researchers the educational potential of computer games, but has during
the last 10 years covered a wide area of game research. He is also CEO of
Serious Games Interactive that is recognized as a world leader in the
development of educational computer games. Earlier he worked in the industry
with online games, learning, entertainment, children, and web applications.
He has served on the Digital Game Research Association Board for 3 years,
edited the Ivory tower column for 2 years, and has served as a reviewer for
several journals, research projects and conferences within game research. He
is a founding member of Centre for Video games Research Copenhagen,
co-founder of Game-research.com, and has authored four books covering the
topics video games, education and learning.
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Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen
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Ben Sawyer
As co-founder of Digitalmill, Ben Sawyer is in charge of strategy,
technology, and business development and is the producer of Virtual U, a million dollar plus foundation
funded project to build a university management simulator. Virtual U, now
shipping Version 2.1, was a 2000 Independent Games Festival finalist. Ben is
also the author of Serious Games: Improving Public Policy through Game-Based
Learning and Simulation Whitepaper for the Woodrow Wilson
International Center
for Scholars (wwics.si.edu) and was a contributor to Game Developer Magazine.
He is author of
two books on gaming for Coriolis Group Books and is developing a book on simulations
with Paraglyph Press. He has published several research reports on the games
industry for DFC Intelligence.
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Ben Sawyer
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Dr Wilfried Admiraal
Wilfried Admiraal is a researcher, teacher and administrator at the
Graduate School of Teaching and Learning of the University of Amsterdam.
Wilfried's academic background is social and organizational psychology
(University of Amsterdam, 1988). His PhD has been on teachers' coping with
daily hassles (Utrecht University, 1994). His main activities include the
project management of projects in the area of ICT, secondary education and
teacher education, research in similar projects, and tutoring PhD-students.
His publications cover teacher training, workplace learning, educational
designs, and the use of ICT. His research interest covers the combination of
educational sciences, social psychology and ICT. He is focused on
location-based technology for learning and technology for game-based
collaborative learning.
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Wilfried Admiraal
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Dr Tobias Bevc
Dr Bevc was
awarded his PhD in 2004 in Augsburg,
Germany in
Political Theory. From 2004 -
2008, he has been a lecturer at the Lehrstuhl für Politische
Wissenschaft at Technische Universität München. Since Spring 2008
he is lecturer at Goethe University of Frankfurt. One of his research foci
since 2005 is the Construction of Society and Politics in Video Games.
Further focus of research: Political Theory and History of Ideas, Visual
Politics/Film and Politics. He was a consultant in the development of the
2007 published video game "Genius Politik" (Cornelsen Verlag).
Recent Publications are: Tobias Bevc (ed.) (2007): Computerspiele und
Politik. Zur Konstruktion von Politik und Gesellschaft in Computerspielen,
Münster. ( Videogames and Politics) and Tobias Bevc (2007), Politische
Theorie, Konstanz.
(Political Theory).
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Tobias Bevc
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Dr Erik Champion
Erik’s
doctoral thesis evaluated cultural learning environments using game-style
interaction. He has taught game design at the University of Queensland
and UNSW, and presented work on gaming for heritage and history at VSMM, New
Heritage Forum, VAST/Eurographics, and Interactive Entertainment. He was an
invited speaker at State of Play V, Learning in Cyberspace 2007, DACH 2007
and VSMM 2007, and co-edited special issues of Techné, International
Journal of Heritage Studies, and Leonardo Electronic Almanac.
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Erik Champion
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Dr Begoña Gros
Begoña Gros is Professor
at the University
of Barcelona, and vice
rector of Innovation at the Open University of Catalonia. Her main focus of
research is related to the use of ICT for learning. She has been working in
games-based learning since 1995. She has been involved in a large number of
projects about the use of video games and their application in formal
education. Last publication of this topic is: "Digital Games in
Education: The Design of Game-Based Learning Environments" in Journal of
Research on Technology in Education, 40, 1, 2007 (23-38).
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Begoña Gros
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