Speakers

Opening speech: Jaume Sarramona

Jaume Sarramona is Professor emeritus at the University Autonoma of Barcelona; Director of the Ph.D. Programe of the Department of Systematics and Social Pedagogy at the University Autonoma of Barcelona, taught in Chile and in Guadalajara (Mexico); Member of Scientific Committee FREREF (Regional Foundation European Educational Research); member of the Accreditation Committee in Research of the University Quality Agency of Catalonia; member of the International Academic Working Group of the Secretariat of Basic Education in Mexico and member of the editorial board of several national and international scientific journals. His areas of research have been: educational technology, distance learning, job training, participation in education, educational research methodology and evaluation.

He has worked as a teacher at all educational level. He was Chairman of the Council for the Evaluation of Educational System of Catalonia and School Council of Catalonia. He has been a director and advisor of training programs for teachers and supervisors in several Latin American countries, as well as external evaluator of programs. He has participated as a lecturer and speaker at various national and international conferences (in Europe and Latin America)..

He has authored over 200 technical papers in journals. Is author of, or contributor to 90 published books, including, among others: Tecnología didáctica, Fundamentos de la Educación, Tecnología educativa, Cómo entender y aplicar la democracia en la escuela, Idees i propostes d’acció per a una pedagogía actual, Estrategias de formación en la empresa, Teorías e instituciones contemporáneas de la educación (1997), La educación en la familia y en la escuela (1999), Los desafíos a la escuela del siglo XXI (2002), La formación continua laboral (2002), Factores e indicadores de calidad en educación (2004), Las competencias básicas en la educación obligatoria (2004), Debate sobre la educación (2006), Qui té raó? (2008), Teoría de la educación (2008), Formación básica para los profesionales de la educación (in press).

Keynote Speaker: Margalida Coll

Margalida Coll Andreu is a researcher in the Psychobiology Unit (Dept. of Psychobiology and Methodology of Health Sciences) and Institute of Neurosciences at the University Autonoma of Barcelona (UAB). Her research is focused on the study of the participation of two neuromodulatory systems, the brainstem cholinergic system and the adrenergic system in learning and memory. More recently she has also begun to investigate the effects of exercise on synaptic plasticity mechanisms and cognitive processes, in order to find parameters of exercise that can improve learning and memory in normal animals and to reduce cognitive deficiencies caused by traumatic brain damage. Although her research is carried out began at the basic level, in laboratory animals (rats), the ultimate goal is to find mechanisms and future treatments that may be applied to people with difficulties caused by various learning etiologies.

Her publications include: Jurado-Berbel P, Costa-Miserachs D, Torras-Garcia M, Coll-Andreu M, Portell-Cortés I. Standard Object Recognition Memory and “What” and “Where” Components: Improvement by Post-Training Epinephrine in Highly Habituated Rats. Behav Brain Res. 2010 Feb 11;207(1):44-50. García-Capdevila, S., Portell-Cortés, I., Torras-Garcia, M., Coll-Andreu, M, Costa-Miserachs, D. Effects of Long-Term Voluntary Exercise on Learning and Memory Processes: Dependency of the Task and Level of Exercise. Behav Brain Res. 2009 Sep 14;202(2):162-70. Homs-Ormo, S.; Torras-Garcia, M.; Portell-Cortés, I.; Edo-Izquierdo, S.; Morgado-Bernal, I.; Coll-Andreu, M. Effects of Post-Training Damage to the Pedunculopontine Tegmental Nucleus on Conditioned Stimulus Transfer in Two-Way Active Avoidance in Rats. Behav Neurosci. 2007 Apr;121(2):411-21. Andero R, Torras-Garcia M, Quiroz-Padilla MF, Costa-Miserachs D, Coll-Andreu M. Electrical Stimulation of the Pedunculopontine Tegmental Nucleus in Freely Moving Awake Rats: Time- and Site-Specific Effects on Two-Way Active Avoidance Conditioning. Neurobiol Learn Mem., 2007 May;87(4):510-21. Satorra-Marín, N; Homs-Ormo, S.; Arévalo-García, R.; Morgado-Bernal, I.; Coll-Andreu, M. Effects of Pre-Training Pedunculopontine Tegmental Nucleus Lesions on Delayed Matching- and Non-Matching-to-Position in a T-maze in Rats. Behav Brain Res. 2005 May 7;160(1):115-24. Torras-Garcia, M.; Costa-Miserachs, D.; Coll-Andreu, M.; Portell-Cortés, I. Decreased Anxiety Levels Related to Aging. Exp Brain Res. 2005 Jul;164(2):177-84.

Keynote Speaker: Gabriela Diker

Gabriela Diker holds a PhD in Education, specializing in the History of Education and Pedagogy (Universidad del Valle, Colombia). She did her post-doctoral studies at the University of Valladolid, Spain (Fundación Carolina). She currently works as a research professor at the Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

She has focused her research on the training of teachers, working with children and adolescents in complex situations and pedagogy as a field of knowledge in itself. Her publications include: Educar: saberes alterados;  Tiempos de infancia. Argentina: fragmentos de doscientos años; ¿Qué hay de nuevo en las nuevas infancias?; Educar: posiciones acerca de lo común; Educar: figuras y efectos del amor; Educar: (sobre)impresiones estéticas; La formación de maestros y profesores: hoja de ruta, among others. She has received many scholarships and awards: Fellowship of the German Academic Cooperation Service (DAAD), award from the National Academy of Education on the theme “Teacher Education: Theoretical and empirical foundations” (essay co-authored), Fellowship of the Colombian Institute of Educational Credit and Technical Studies Abroad, post-doctoral Fellowship of the Carolina Foundation; mention in the UBA Award for dissemination of educational content for national journalism (radio production category) for the program Apuntes, co-presented with Graciela Frigerio.

For 10 years she has led, along with Graciela Frigerio, the Multidisciplinary Studies Center. They have focused on topics such as work on transmission, aesthetics, children, the question of the ordinary and authority in contemporary times.

Keynote Speaker: Stephen Downes

Stephen Downes is a senior researcher for Canada’s National Research Council and a leading proponent of the use of online media and services in education. As the author of the widely-read  OLDaily online newsletter, Downes has earned international recognition for his leading-edge work in the field of online learning. He developed some of Canada’s first online courses at Assiniboine Community College in Brandon, Manitoba. He also built a learning management system from scratch and authored the now-classic “The Future of Online Learning“.

At the University of Alberta he built a learning and research portal for the municipal sector in that province, Munimall, and another for the Engineering and Geology sector, PEGGAsus. He also pioneered the development of learning objects and was one of the first adopters and developers of RSS content syndication in education. Downes introduced the concept of e-learning 2.0 and, with George Siemens, he developed and defined the concept of Connectivism, using the social network approach to deliver open online courses to three thousand participants over two years.

Downes has been offering courses in Learning, Logic and Philosophy, both online and offline, since 1987. He has 135 articles published in books, magazines and academic journals, and has presented his unique perspective on learning and technology more than 250 times to audiences in 17 countries on five continents.

Keynote Speaker: Ruth G. Thomas

Ruth G. Thomas is Professor Ph.D in the University of Minnesota. Her research interests concern cognitive theory-based instructional design, curriculum and program development, and family and parent education. She directed a higher order thinking research program for several years. This research program investigated the thinking capacities that people use to meet the challenges of everyday life. Two basic questions guided this research program: What is the nature and depth of the knowledge that people bring to problems and actions?, and What kind of impact can instruction have in facilitating higher-order thinking and on the knowledge structures that support such thinking? This research program involved nine different research projects and six researchers, produced eight monographs, four doctoral dissertations, several journal articles and book chapters, and two books. Some of these efforts have involved collaboration with other University units and other universities. Two graduate courses and an assessment procedure used in the Medical School have also been developed as an outgrowth of this work. In addition, ways to use technology in cognitive theory-based instructional design to bring about and assess complex learning have been developed. A recently federally-sponsored study of Internet use in high schools emerged from this area of interest and also incorporated work on educational reform. Her scholarly work has also focused on curriculum and program development, an area in which she has also done national and international consulting. Finally, she is interested in family education history and philosophy, an area in which she has developed and taught courses and published.

Among her high impact publications are: Thomas, R., & Lien, L. (2009). Family education perspectives: Implications for family educators’ professional practice and research. Family & Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 38,(1), 36–55; Thomas, R. & Lien, L. (2005). Alternative curriculum perspectives: Implications for teachers’ curriculum development in Taiwan. Journal of Educational Research & Development, I(2), 177-203; Thomas, R. (2003). Engaging learners in thinking. In V.M. Chamberlain, & M.N. Cummings (Eds.), Creative instructional methods (pp. 215-230). Peoria, IL: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill; Thomas, R. & Englund, M. (2001). Supporting children’s social development. CD-ROM courseware. St. Paul: University of Minnesota; Thomas, R., & Laster, J. (Eds.). (1998) Inquiry into thinking: Family and consumer sciences teacher education Yearbook 18. Peoria, IL: American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences and Glencoe/McGraw-Hill; Thomas, R. (1998). The tailored response test. In R. Thomas & J. Laster (Eds.), Inquiry into thinking: Family and consumer sciences teacher education Yearbook 18, 223-250. Peoria, IL: American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences and Glencoe/McGraw-Hill; Laster, J., & Thomas, R. (Eds.) (1997). Thinking for ethical action in families and communities: Family and consumer sciences teacher education: Yearbook 17. Peoria, IL: American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences and Glencoe/McGraw-Hill; Thomas, R. G. (1996). Reflective dialogue parent education design: Focus on parent development. Family Relations, 45, 189-200.

Closing speech: Nel Noddings

Nel Noddings is Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education, Emerita, at Stanford University.   She is a past president of the National Academy of Education, the Philosophy of Education Society and the John Dewey Society. In addition to seventeen books—among them, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, Women and Evil, The Challenge to Care in Schools,  Educating for Intelligent Belief or Unbelief, and Philosophy of Education—she is the author of more than 200 articles and chapters on various topics ranging from the ethics of care to mathematical problem solving. Her latest books are  Happiness and Education, Educating Citizens for Global Awareness, Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach,  When School Reform Goes Wrong, and The Maternal Factor: Two Paths to Morality . Her work has so far been translated into 12 languages.

Noddings spent fifteen years as a teacher, administrator, and curriculum supervisor in public schools; she served as a mathematics department chairperson in New Jersey and as Director of the Laboratory Schools at the University of Chicago.  At Stanford, she received the Award for Teaching Excellence three times. She also served as Associate Dean and as Acting Dean at Stanford for four years.

She is a Laureate member of Kappa Delta Pi, and holds a number of awards, among them the Anne Rowe Award for contributions to the education of women (Harvard University); the Willystine Goodsell Award for contributions to the education of women (AERA); Medal for Distinguished Service, Teachers College Columbia U.; Lifetime Achievement Award from AERA (Division B); the Award for Distinguished Leadership in Education, Rutgers University; and honorary doctorates from Columbia College; Montclair State University;  Queen’s University, Canada; Lewis and Clark College; and Manhattan College.