Looking Up & Out
& Digging Deeper Speakers

Donald J. Leu, Ph.D., is the John and Maria Neag Endowed Chair in Literacy and Technology and holds a joint appointment in Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut. He directs the New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut and is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association and the Reading Hall of Fame. He is a past President of the National Reading Conference. A graduate of Michigan State, Harvard, and Berkeley, Don’s work focuses on the new skills and strategies required to read, write, and learn with Internet technologies and the best instructional practices that prepare students for these new literacies. He has more than 100 research publications and seventeen books on topics that range from phonics and phonemic awareness to teacher education and the new literacies of online reading comprehension.

Dr. Yong Zhao is a professor in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education at the College of Education, Michigan State University. He is the Director of the Center for Teaching and Technology as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. Dr. Zhao is the Executive Director of the Confucius Institute at Michigan State University.

Brian Cambourne, Ph.D., is presently a Principal Fellow in the Faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong in Australia. Since 1980, Brian has been researching how learning, especially literacy learning occurs. He argues for an approach to teaching literacy which un-complicates the process of learning and makes literacy more accessible to more students, especially non-mainstream students. He believes that we can only have better, fairer, and kinder societies if highly productive, critical literacy is made accessible to as many members of a culture as possible. Brian is on the editorial board of several academic journals including Reading Teacher, Reading Research Quarterly for the International Reading Association. Brian is also a reviewer for Language Arts (NCTE) and the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy (JECL).

Milton Chen, Ph.D., has been a leading figure in educational media for more than 20 years. He joined The George Lucas Educational Foundation as executive director in 1998, bringing new leadership to its mission of gathering and disseminating the most innovative models of K-12 teaching and learning in the digital age. Before that, he was the founding director of the KQED Center for Education & Lifelong Learning, in San Francisco, delivering educational services for teachers, parents, and community groups in support of public television programming. He has been a director of research at the Children's Television Workshop, in New York, and an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

Dr. Jose Picart is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, West Point where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in General Engineering and Humanities. Following his graduation from West Point, Dr. Picart served his country for 28 years in the active Army as a commissioned military officer, a research scientist and a college educator. He retired from active duty with the rank of Colonel in October 2003. For 16 years he served on the faculty in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, at West Point, developing military officers for a career in the United States Army. He presently serves as the Vice Provost for Diversity and African American Affairs and Interim Dean for the College of Education at NC State University. Dr. Picart earned a Master of Science and Doctoral degree in Experimental Cognitive Psychology from the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

Kirsten Weeks is the Sr. Community Relations Manager for Cisco’s Research Triangle Park, NC campus. Immediately prior to joining Cisco in February 2007, Weeks served as Sr. Manager for Strategic Communications, and in other communications roles, in the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer. Weeks is a native North Carolinian. She holds an undergraduate degree in Mass Communication from North Carolina State University. She also holds a master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she was a Roy H. Park Fellow and a master’s degree in Business Administration from Kenan-Flagler Business School.   

Dr. Hiller Spires, will be a facilitator for the Video/Multimedia for Analysis and Student-Generated Productions area of the Digging Deeper Breakouts. She has been on the NC State faculty since 1986 as a Professor of Literacy and Technology in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She received her Ph.D. in literacy education with a cognate in English from the University of South Carolina. Dr. Spires served as the founding director of The William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation from 2002-2006 and currently serves as FI Senior Research Fellow. Dr. Spires's research focuses on the effects of digital literacies on learning, including emerging literacies associated with gaming environments and Web 2.0 applications. Dr. Spires and Dr. John Lee co-direct the Friday Institute’s New Literacies Collaborative.

John K. Lee Ph.D., will be a facilitator for the Social Networking as a Learning Tool area of the Digging Deeper Breakouts. He is associate professor of social studies and middle grades education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction North Carolina State University. He serves as the co-editor of the social studies section of Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education and is the K-12 editor for the Journal of the Association for History and Computing. For nine years he taught middle and high school social studies. His publications have appeared in Social Education, Social Studies International Forum, Theory and Research in Social Education, the Journal Computing and Teacher Education and The International Journal of Social Education among others. He conducts research on digital history and the development of pedagogical content knowledge.

Carl Young, Ph.D., will be a facilitator for the Social Networking as a Learning Tool and the Video/Multimedia for Analysis and Student-Generated Productions areas of the Digging Deeper Breakouts. Carl Young, a former middle and high school English language arts teacher, an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education at North Carolina State University.  He teaches courses in English methods, teaching composition, and content area reading and writing.  He conducts research on Web 2.0 and other technology applications in English education. Other research interests include content area reading and writing strategies, effective language instruction, teaching English in rural and inner-city schools, making the transition from preservice to inservice English teacher, responding effectively to student writing, and integrating critical literacy, technology, and inquiry-based applications into the English language arts classroom.  Selected publications have appeared in English Education, English Journal, Journal of Literacy Research, and Reading Psychology. He also serves as the lead editor of the English language arts section of Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education.

Dr. Julie Coiro will be a facilitator for the Online Reading Comprehension area of the Digging Deeper Breakouts. She began her teaching career as a special education teacher after graduating from the University of Connecticut. She received her Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus in Reading from the University of New Orleans. Upon returning to Connecticut, Julie worked as a technology specialist at LEARN, a regional educational agency, before pursuing her doctorate in Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut. Currently, Julie is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Rhode Island. Among her research interests are strategic reading comprehension instruction, new literacies of the Internet, online reading comprehension, and effective practices for technology integration, assessment, and professional development. Selected publications have appeared in Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, and Educational Leadership. Julie is also co-editor of The Handbook of Research on New Literacies (Erlbaum, 2008).

Jill Castek, Ph.D.  is a trained reading specialist and curriculum leader with a decade of experience working with students in grades K-12. Her work examines the challenges and opportunities for reading, writing, and learning on the Internet. She is particularly interested in inquiry approaches across the curriculum and the instructional contexts that facilitate acquisition of the new literacies of online reading comprehension. Her classroom-based research integrates a wide-variety of collaboration strategies to support students in developing the skills and strategies needed to read, write, and collaborate on the Internet. Jill earned her Ph.D in 2008 at the University of Connecticut in the area of Cognition and Instruction. She currently holds a post-doc position with the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading project at the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley.