(in the order of chapters they authored)
Agnieszka (Aga) Palalas
Dr. Agnieszka (Aga) Palalas is Associate Professor and the Doctoral Program Director in the Open, Digital, and Distance Education Program at Athabasca University, Canada. She is an experienced educational leader, practitioner and researcher of innovative pedagogy and digital technologies for human-centred learning. Drawing from over 25 years of experience as a face-to-face and online educator, instructional designer, and an IT programmer, combined with her two-decade-long mindfulness practice, Aga researches and designs digital learning that nourishes the intellect, body, and mind. Her expertise in computer-assisted language learning (CALL), mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), and blended language learning (BLL) stems from years of practice and research in the fields and a formal background in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, and technology-assisted teaching and learning. She is an internationally recognized speaker and expert in those fields. Aga is one of the Founding Directors and Past President of the International Association for Blended Learning (IABL) and the International Association for Mobile Learning (IAmLearn). In those roles, she collaborated with scholars, learning and training experts around the globe across diverse educational and cultural contexts. Aga has published numerous articles, book chapters and edited books pertaining to digital learning, CALL and MALL, as well as digital wellness.
Chrysoula Lazou
Chrysoula (Chryssa) Lazou is an EFL educator in the public sector, Hellenic Ministry of Education. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a Master’s of Education in Distance Education, Athabasca University, Canada’s Open University. Chryssa is a founding member and Past President of the Association of State School Teachers of English in Kavala, Northern Greece, IABL General Secretary and Chair of the Digital Communications Committee, and an IVLP and U.S. programs alumna with a specialization in media literacy, cultural awareness, and inclusive leadership and practices in education and community. Chryssa organizes, coordinates and presents at educational events, workshops, webinars, and national and international conferences. Her teaching practices are based on the Universal Design for Learning principles, the incorporation of new technologies and project-based learning in various fields, leveraging the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) method and blended learning. She is the coordinator of the “Media Literacy for Teens.gr” (Bravo Schools 2020 distinction), “DigiTEENS.gr” and “VerifyInfoED” projects and trains undergraduate students of the English Language Department (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) in online instructional design. She has received the Northern Lights Award (2017), ELT Excellence Award 2020, 2021, Education Leaders Award 2020, 2021, and Governor General’s GOLD MEDAL Award for academic excellence.
Rita Zuba Prokopetz
Dr. Rita Zuba Prokopetz completed a Doctor of Education in Distance Education at Athabasca University in 2019. Her research interest includes ePortfolio as disruptive pedagogy in blended and online learning spaces. She has publications in the International Journal of ePortfolio, TESL Canada Journal, and AAEEBL ePortfolio Review. Rita is an educational consultant and an instructor of English as a second language (ESL) at Red River College in Winnipeg, Manitoba – Canada.
Nikolaos Panagiotou
Dr. Nikos Panagiotou is Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Media Communication, Aristotle University. He has been a DAAD Scholar at Deutsche Welle, Chevening Scholar of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office UK, RCAP Scholar from APU University Japan, Scholar to Beijing Foreign Studies University, Scholar at Sabanci University (Turkey), Scholar of the State of Luxembourg. He has extensive research work which is currently funded from Google (DNI Initiative fund). He is the initiator and organizer of Thessaloniki International Media Summer Academy. He is in charge of Digital Communication Network Hub in Southeast Europe, member of the advisory board for Networking Knowledge, Member of the board of Municipal Company of Information, and Communication of Thessaloniki (2017-2019). He has participated in a series of scientific research, has published articles in International and Greek journals and in edited volumes. His research interests are upon: International Journalism, Audience Studies, Mass Media Literacy Conflict Analysis and Resolution.
Avgoustos Tsinakos
Dr. Tsinakos is a Professor and Director of Advanced Educational Technologies and Mobile Applications (AETMA) Lab in the Department of Computing Science at International Hellenic University in Greece. Member of the Institute of Educational Research and Development of the International Hellenic University, Director of Education of the Con-E-Ect Headquarters of UNESCO in Greece, Founding Director of the International Association for Blended Learning (IABL) and National Ambassador of SELFIE in Greece. Prof. Tsinakos collaborates with several Open Universities in Canada, Spain, Netherlands, and China being also the Coordinator/member of the Coordination Team, in more than 26 national/international projects on the topic of distance education and technology-enhanced learning. In addition, Prof. Tsinakos has participated in more than 58 world /international/ national conferences as an invited speaker/presenter. His publication list includes four books in English and one in Chinese, four book chapters, more than 75 papers on the topic of e-learning/mobile learning and Augmented Reality.
Elżbieta Gajek
Dr. Elżbieta Gajek is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw, Poland. She is Head of Department of Language Acquisition Studies and Head of New Media in Applied Linguistics Lab. Her main research areas cover Computer Assisted Language Learning, and Methodology of Computer-Enhanced Teaching Languages, Distance Learning and Mobile Assisted Language Learning. She has worked as an English teacher and teacher trainer for many years. She participated in many European research projects. She has also coordinated academic telecollaborative projects with American, European, and Chinese universities. As a Polish national expert, she has been involved in eTwinning programme since 2004 as an expert, analyst, member of various national and international juries and a teacher trainer who participated in eTwinning teacher training initiative. She is an author and co-author of over 120 books, book chapters, and journal articles on CALL and MALL, on teacher training for media, and ICT-based instruction published worldwide.
Sangeeth Ramalingam
Sangeeth Ramalingam is an English lecturer at a private higher learning institution in Malaysia. She received her Undergraduate Degree and Master’s Degree from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Her academic background is English Language Studies. Currently, she is doing her Phd in Teaching English as English language under the Faculty of Education at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Her research interests include use of technology in education and language and Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL). She has also presented her research findings at national seminars and international conferences.
Haida Umiera
Haida Umiera is a lecturer in the English and Linguistics Department, Academy of Language Studies in Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Malaysia. She is also a researcher at the Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. She earned her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree at the University of Malaya and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in the field of education (Teaching English as Secondary Language) respectively. She is currently pursuing her degree of philosophy (PhD) at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in the same area. Her fields of research are English as Secondary Language (ESL) Learning, Teaching English as Secondary Language Learning (TESL), Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) and Innovations in Education and Language Learning. She has published an array of research articles in indexed journals and have become a jury for international innovation competitions also a reviewer for indexed journals.
Melor Md Yunus
Dr. Melor Md Yunus is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and is currently the Deputy Dean (Research and Innovation) at the Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). She holds a B.A. in English (Linguistics) from the University of Nevada-Reno, USA and an M.A. in TESL from the Arizona State University, USA. She then earned her Ph.D. in Education (TESL) from the University of Bristol, UK. Her areas of concentration are TESL, language pedagogy and the use of technology in TESL. Her expertise is in the area of Technology-enhanced Language Learning (TELL).
Hiroshi Miyashita
Hiroshi Miyashita is an EFL teacher at a public high school in Tokyo. He earned an MEd in teaching English as an additional language at the University of Calgary. He also holds an MA in literature. He is currently a doctoral candidate at Athabasca University. His research interests include online learning, sociocultural theory, and language policy. He has been invited to higher education institutions in Japan to talk about quality online learning advancing in North America.
Tyler Barrett
Dr. Tyler Barrett teaches online courses about English and ESL at California Baptist University and University of California, Irvine, DCE. He is co-editor of the books ‘Transcultural Flows of English and Education in Asian Contexts’ and ‘Critical Inquiries in the Sociolinguistics of Globalization’, and author of ‘A Sociolinguistic View of a Japanese Ethnic Church Community’ in the Routledge Studies in Sociolinguistics collection.
Yasushige Ishikawa
Dr. Yasushige Ishikawa is Professor of English Education at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Japan. His research interests include CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning), MALL (Mobile-Assisted Language Learning) and corpus linguistics. He has designed and implemented innovative methodologies for CALL/MALL blended learning approaches to language teaching in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) courses.
Shinnosuke Takamichi
Dr. Shinnosuke Takamichi received the B.E. degree from Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Japan, in 2011, and the M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from the Graduate School of Information Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Ikoma, Japan, in 2013 and 2016, respectively. He is currently an Assistant Professor at The University of Tokyo. He has received more than 20 paper/achievement awards including the 2020 IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper Award.
Takatoyo Umemoto
Dr. Takatoyo Umemoto is an associate professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies, Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Japan. He obtained his Ph.D. in Psychology at the Graduate School of Education and Human Development, Nagoya University, Japan in 2013. His specialty is educational psychology, especially motivation and learning. His research interests are instability of situational motivation during learning, and learner’s motivation regulation process.
Yasushi Tsubota
Yasushi Tsubota is an Associate Professor at Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan. He received a Bachelor of Technology from Kyoto University in 1999 and a Master of Informatics from Kyoto University in 2001. His original research interests are applying educational technology into foreign language education such as CALL and MALL. Currently, he focuses on cooperative/collaborative learning, telecollaboration in foreign language education, and STEAM education. His area of research is not limited to English education, but also extends to other foreign languages, such as Chinese and Japanese.
Masao Aikawa
Dr. Masao Aikawa is currently a professor in the Department of British and American Studies at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies. He obtained his Ph.D. at Kobe University, Japan. His research interests include TESOL, foreign language education policy in Asia, and teacher training.
Kishio Sakamoto
Kishio Sakamoto is currently a professor in the Department of British and American Studies at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies in Japan. He received his M.A. in 1985 at Doshisha University, Japan. His research interests include TESOL, American Modern Poetry, American Culture, and Film Studies.
Kikuko Yui
Dr. Kikuko Yui received Ph.D. in Japanese Linguistics from Osaka University in 1997. She has engaged in Teaching of Japanese as a Second Language. She is currently a Professor in the Faculty of Global Engagement, Kyoto University of Foreign Studies in Japan.
Shigeo Fujiwara
Shigeo Fujiwara is the Product Planner of the ICT Product Planning Department at Uchida Yoko Co., Ltd., Japan. He has been working in the R&D field for 20 years. He is currently engaged in planning products for use in the EFL education field and developing a teaching assistant system for K-12. He also works with IMS Japan Society as a Secretary-General and IMS Certified Training and Implementation Manager.
Ayako Suto
Ayako Suto is the Product Planner of the ICT Product Planning Department at Uchida Yoko Co., Ltd., Japan. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Education and had been engaged in planning products for use in the EFL education field for 14 years. She is familiar with EFL pedagogy and the government’s policy. She is especially experienced in planning and promoting the e-learning system designed for Japanese EFL learners.
Koichi Nishiyama
Koichi Nishiyama is Executive Director of Infinitec Co., Ltd. He has been engaged in developing Ed-tech products for educational institutes and workplaces for over 30 years. He directs the creation of photo and video programs and develops and promotes ICT products.
