Digital Literacy for language learning

Digital Literacy for language learning and Teaching in the Multilingual societies

Research group

We are a diverse researcher group from around the globe aiming at advancing awareness for media and digital literacy education in everyday life as well as in research and pedagogy.

The group will focus on language teaching in multilingual societies, covering pedagogical as well as linguistic educational aspects. The group will attempt to define these aspects in the era of media and digital literacy.

Aims

• Building global outlines and establishing guidelines for promoting "learning and teaching languages in the age of digital literacy".

• Researching students’ digital literacy skills in the domain of language teaching across languages and cultures

• Examining teaching skills within digital environments in schools and higher education institutions

• Promoting digital literacy skills among multilingual students and teachers.

• Connecting language education with personal digital practices.

• Promoting the development of unique tools to integrate media and digitization for language teaching, tailored to the characteristics of the varied languages, societies, and cultures.

• Description and analysis of existing and evolving digital literacy practices.

• Offering international educational exchange programs for undergraduate and graduate students, in cooperation with the international school.

• Engaging in a pedagogical academic discourse on bridging digital literacy, teaching practices and language Identities.

Projects

• Exploring available applied research and pedagogical tools for the promotion of digital literacy

• Advocating the promotion of digital literacy for language instruction and learning in multilingual societies

• Organization of symposia and workshops

• Improving of inter-group academic and pedagogic relations through the global lab of Media Education and Literacy.

Dr. Bahaa' Makhoul

Orcid ID

ResearchGate Page:

Dr. Baha Makhoul received her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, "investigating Arabic reading acquisition". She finished her Post-doctoral studies, examining the characteristics of skilled and poor readers among Arabic native speaking children, in 2010 in the department for learning disabilities at the University of Haifa.

Currently, she is a senior lecturer and researcher at Oranim Academic College, and senior researcher in Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Centre for the Study of Learning Disabilities - Haifa University.

Until 2020, Baha served as a senior academic consultant at the NCJW (Research Institute for Innovation in Education). Since 2007, she has been serving as the head for the Arabic language section at the Centre for Educational technology (CET).

As of January, 2022 she became an affiliated Faculty Member of the Media Education Lab at the Harrington School of Communication and Media, University of Rhode Island USA.

Dr. Makhoul is currently cooperating with both national and international leading researchers in the field of literacy, Digital Media Literacy and education

Main research interests:

● Literacy

● Reading acquisition: A focus on Arabic language

● The integration of technology in literacy, teacher education and blended learning

● Remedial literacy programs

● Academic language development

● Bridging research-acquired knowledge and insights from the educational field

Prof Renee Hobbs

Renee Hobbs is one of the world’s leading authorities on digital and media literacy education. As a teacher, researcher, activist, and media professional, she has offered programs for educators on four continents and produced some of the leading empirical research on the subject. A pioneer in online and digital learning, Hobbs is the Founder of the Media Education Lab and Co-Director of the Graduate Certificate in Digital Literacy at the University of Rhode Island (USA), where she has offered professional learning experiences in both face-to-face and online settings. Her award-winning digital media and curriculum resources for educators in elementary and secondary schools include Mind Over Media, Create to Learn, Assignment: Media Literacy, Tuning into Media, and Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning. She has received academic degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Renee Hobbs is a dynamic and inspirational presenter whose insights on the most pressing issues in media, technology and education empower educators and help them be responsive to the zeitgeist of the present time. She is the author of 12 books including:

● Media Literacy in Action (2021, Rowman and Littlefield)

● Mind Over Media: Propaganda Education for a Digital Age (2020, W.W. Norton) – winner of the 2021 PROSE Award for Excellent in Social Sciences from the American Association of Publishers

● The Library Screen Scene (2019, Oxford University Press)

● Create to Learn: Introduction to Digital Literacy (2017, Wiley)

● With Paul Mihailidis, she is the editor of The International Encyclopedia on Media Literacy (2019, Wiley and the International Communication Association), this is the two-volume edition that offers a state-of-the-art look at the interdisciplinary and global practice of digital and media literacy education.

Renee Hobbs has spoken at the United Nations and consulted extensively with educators, school leaders, and government officials in Belgium, Brazil, China, Croatia, Greece, Lebanon, Netherlands, and many other countries. She has been a regularly featured presenter at the professional development programs of the Near East and South Asia Council of Overseas Schools (NESA), a regional network of private and independent schools.

Contact

Renee Hobbs, Media Education Lab: www.mediaeducationlab.com

University of Rhode Island USA

Twitter: @reneehobbs Email: hobbs@uri.edu

Recent publications:

Hobbs, R. (2021). Media literacy in action: Questioning the media. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Hobbs, R. (2021). Hope Matters: How an Online Learning Community Advanced Emotional Self-Awareness and Caring during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 13(3), 123-132.‏

Dr. Danny Glick

Dr. Glick is a Research Affiliate at the University of California, Irvine’s Online Learning Research Centre where he explores ways to improve student persistence and performance in online courses using early warning systems and light-touch interventions. He is a former visiting scholar at the University of California, Irvine’s School of Education where he investigated the effects of learning technologies on academic achievement of Latino students. Dr. Glick is also the Academic Director of Edge - Center for EdTech Research and Innovation, run jointly by Oranim Academic College and Zvulun Regional Council. He has presented and published on various topics including self-regulated learning, early warning systems, targeted interventions, and student retention. Dr. Glick is the editor of the best-seller “Early Warning Systems and Targeted Interventions for Student Success in Online Courses".

Dr. Rawya Jarjoura Burbara

Born in Nazareth (1969), Dr. Burbara serves as Chief Inspector Director of Arabic (for native speakers of Arabic) at the Ministry of Education, and a lecturer at the Language Department, Oranim College. She is also a writer, and her 10th book was published in 2021 (collection of short stories titled "I do not want to get used to you"). Her Arabic novel, titled "On the shores of wandering" was translated to Hebrew and published by Pardes (2020). Dr. Burbara is editorial member at Maktoob series and The Translators Forum at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She is also a member of the Mahmoud Darwish Association.

Dr. Rima Baransi, Ph.D

Born in Nazareth in 1981. Dr. Rima Baransi the Head of Language teaching program at Oranim college; Developer of Arabic Teaching Program at Mofet online academic college and national Arabic instructor at the Ministry of Education. In 2003, she got her B.A. degree in Arabic and special education. In 2006, she got her M.A degree on her research The Visual Poem in Modern Arabic Poetry. In 2011, she got her Ph.D. degree on her research on the Oxymoron in Arabic Poetry and Its Contribution to the Poetic Meanings. She obtained her degrees from the University of Haifa. She published many articles on Modern Arabic literature and Arabic teaching.

Dr. Orly Fuhrman Ph.D.

Orly Fuhrman (PhD) is an Israeli researcher, lecturer and developer of techno-pedagogical solutions. She specialises in embodied learning, and is passionate about physical interfaces that help technology maintain the physical, social and emotional context of learning.

She holds a M.A in developmental psychology from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and a PhD in cognitive psychology from Stanford university. Her research career focused on language and thought from a broad viewpoint: integrating methods from neuroscience, linguistics, anthropology and cognitive science. Following the completion of her doctorate degree, she co-founded Lingua.ly, an AI-driven solution for personalised foreign language learning on the web. She then joined the Israeli Centre for Educational Technology (CET), where she focused on adaptive learning solutions for literacy education. In parallel, she completed her post-doctoral training at Tel-Aviv university, where she explored the unique potential of virtual reality environments for vocabulary learning in a foreign language. For the last 2 years, she has been leading the pedagogical aspect of the ‘virtual companion’ project (‘Ameet’) at CET, a physical-digital platform for social learning in the kindergarten. Ameet, a digital companion. joins-in and mediates activities where children play with peers using tangible, real life, play objects.

Dr. Jiwon Yoon

Dr. Jiwon Yoon (Ph.D., Temple University) is an affiliated faculty member at Media Education Lab. She has more than 20 years of experience teaching media literacy in various educational settings, including public/private schools, alternative educational settings, universities, and teacher education programs in the U.S., South Korea, and China. She was an associate professor of media studies at Roosevelt University in Chicago (2010-2017, tenured) and at Northwest University in Kirkland, WA (2017-2019).

Dr. Yoon works with North Korean defectors as their teacher, mentor, and friend. As a researcher, she examines their mediated experiences in North and South Korea, exploring how media literacy education promotes cultural competence during their acculturation process. Her recent research interests include media and bilingual education, digital parenting, and media literacy education at home. Her works have been published in scholarly journals and as book chapters, and she has received research awards from BEA (Broadcast Education Association) and ICA (International Communication Association).

Publications:

Yoon, J., Jeong, H. S., & Kim, A. (2022) “K-Education” during the Pandemic: What

Covid-19 Has Revealed About Schooling in the World's Most Wired Country.

In The Routledge Handbook of Media Education Futures Post-Pandemic (pp.

355-365). Routledge.‏

Choi, G. Y., Armstrong, A. L., De Friese, A., Hernandez, D. G., Larrosa-Fuentes, J. S.,

Nankani, S., ... & Tanca, K. E. (2022). Intercultural Dialogue: Educational

Media. In The Routledge Handbook of Media Education Futures Post-

Pandemic (pp. 376-382). Routledge.‏

Haixia He

Haixia He is a doctoral student in the Language, Literacy, and Technology program of the College of Education at Washington State University. Previously, she was a college English teacher in China for 10 years and earned the title of assistant professor. She worked as a visiting scholar in the Media Education Lab at Temple University in 2011 and co-authored an article in TESOL Journal. Currently, she is working on supporting student engagement in a blended class. Her research interests focus on student engagement, blended teaching and learning, second language teaching and learning, and academic writing.

Publications:

Mali, Y. C. G., Bantawtook, P., He, H., Morisson, S. J., & Salsbury, T. (2022). The

exploration of a Korean EFL student's motivational factor over a yearlong

intensive English program. Korea TESOL Journal, 17(2), 109-134.

Egbert, J. L., Shahrokni, S. A., Zhang, X., Abobaker, R., Bantawtook, P., He, H., ... &

Huh, K. (2021). Language Task Engagement: An Evidence-Based Model. TESL-

EJ, 24(4), n4.‏

Huan Gao

Huan Gao is s Ph.D. candidate in Language and Literacy Education at the University of Florida. Her research interest in literacy and technology and her international background inspired her to explore research at the intersection of digital/information literacy, identity, and transnationalism. Her research aims to empower transnational students to navigate socioculturally different digital information ecosystems.

Recent publications:

Gao, H. (2022). Book review: News literacy and democracy. Journal of Media

Literacy Education, 14(2), 81-83.‏

Prof. Yonty Friesem

Yonty Friesem is an Assistant Professor of communication and civic media and the graduate programs director in the Communication Department at Columbia College Chicago. He provides professional development for media educators as his role as the Associate Director of the Media Education Lab. His publications in academic and professional journals include theory of empathic dialogs via media he calls digital empathy, evaluation of various civic media programs, and explorations of implementing digital and media literacy in schools.

Publications:

Yeh, E., Choi, G. Y., & Friesem, Y. (2022). Connecting Through Flipgrid: Examining

Social Presence of English Language Learners in an Online Course During the

Pandemic. CALICO Journal, 39(1), 26–52.

Friesem, Y. & Friesem, E. (2021). The secret sauce of online community of practice

during COVID-19 pandemic: Nonviolent Communication. Journal of Media

Literacy Education, 13(3), 133-136.

Prof. Judith McConnell Mikkelson

Judith McConnell Mikkelson is an Emeritus Professor of Education at Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, USA and the Facilitator of fifty-one, four-day International Round Table Symposiums at Oxford University, Oxford, England. She developed and led twenty university student study abroad programs to the following locations: Belize, Central America; Jamaica, West Indies; and, in Europe to England and France. For People to People International she led North American educators to China (twice), Cuba, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Russia. She is the Immediate Past President of the USA Organisation for Early Childhood Education and Care (OMEP-USA) and has presented more than two hundred international conference papers. Dr. McConnell Mikkelson is co-editor of the book, Teacher Renewal: Professional Issues and Personal Choices, Teachers College Press, and the editor of the following three books for Linton Atlantic Books, Ltd.: The Education of Young Children: Research and Public Policy, Adventures, Fantasy and Dreams in Children’s Literature, and most recently in 2021, the World of Children: Perceptions, Connections, and Sustainability during the Pandemic. Her research interests include international early childhood curriculum issues and development, the history of early childhood and the digital implications of teaching and learning.

Recent publications:

McConnell-Farmer J. L, Weinberg L. P.., & Williams, T. L. (2022). Seeing the world

through others' eyes: Diverse learnings and participation in university study

abroad programs in Belize, Central America. In F. Reza (Ed.), Diversity and

Inclusion in Educational Institutions (pp. 167-188). Cambridge Scholars

Publishing.

McConnell-Farmer J. L, & Williams, T. L. (2021). Fostering diversity and inclusion:

Academic collaboration on campus and abroad. In P. R. Cooke (Ed). Diverse

learning in 2020 and beyond (pp. 147-163). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Prof. Lenore Peachin Wineberg

Prof. Lenore Peachin Wineberg is Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and at Loyola University in Chicago. Her research interests include environmental education for young children and the impact of the pandemic, magical power of oral storytelling and promoting play for parents and children in a homeless shelter. An ongoing area of interest is parent involvement which stems from her doctoral dissertation on this topic.

She has received numerous grants and has offered well received /keynote speeches at international, national, and regional conferences. She is past president of OMEP (World Organisation for Early Childhood Education).

She has recently published “Seeing the World Through Other’s Eyes: Diverse Learning and Participation in Belize, Central America” pp. 188-214, in Diversity and Inclusion in Educational Institutions edited by Fawzia Reza, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, (January 26, 2022) and Wineberg, L., Beeth, M. and Frazin, B., “Creating Connection through Place-Based Environmental Education in Wisconsin USA".

Recent publications:

McConnell-Farmer J. L, Weinberg L. P.., & Williams, T. L. (2022). Seeing the world through others' eyes: Diverse learnings and participation in university study abroad programs in Belize, Central America. In F. Reza (Ed.), Diversity and Inclusion in Educational Institutions (pp. 167-188). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Wineberg, L., Beeth, M. and Frazin, B. (2021). “Creating Connection through Place-Based Environmental Education in Wisconsin USA" In J. L. McConnell-Farmer (Ed.), The World of Children: Perceptions and Connections in Sustainability with Reflections during the Pandemic. Linton Atlantic Press, Ltd.

Dr. Helen Abadzi

Dr. Helen Abadzi is a Greek psychologist who spent 27 years as a Senior Education Specialist at the World Bank and currently lectures at the University of Texas at Arlington in the US. is a polyglot who attained at least intermediate-level knowledge of 19 languages, including advanced Hebrew and standard Arabic. She has drawn on cognitive psychology and neuroscience to improve the outcomes of educational investments. She is particularly interested in the low-order neurocognitive variables of visual and auditory perceptual learning. She regularly monitors the emerging neurocognitive research and synthesizes relevant findings to explain and predict likely outcomes from various interventions. Thanks to her work, early-grade reading fluency has become an international priority. For learning efficiency, she has developed a series of perceptually enhanced beginner textbooks in multiple writing systems as well as oral grammar development.

Publications:

Abadzi, H., & ElAsad, S. (2021). The Art and Science of User Exploitation: AI in the UAE and Beyond. In Artificial Intelligence in the Gulf (pp. 247-278). Palgrave

Macmillan.‏

Abadzi, H. (2020). Accountability features and their implications for education policies. Comparative Education Review, 64(1), 66-86.‏

Dr. Blythe Hinitz

Distinguished Professor Emeritus EECE

The College of New Jersey

Ewing, New Jersey, USA

Editor. Impeding Bullying Among Young Children in International Group Contexts. Springer.

Exchange Exceptional Master Leader

Blythe Hinitz, Ed.D. (Temple University) is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Elementary and Early Childhood Education at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), where she taught graduate and undergraduate courses in social studies, administration and supervision, and early childhood education. An Exchange Exceptional Master Leader, and a peace educator, Dr, Hinitz is the editor of Impeding Bullying Among Young Children in International Group Contexts (2018), The Hidden History of Early Childhood Education (2013), and the forthcoming Oxford University Press Bibliography of the History of Early Childhood Education in the United States (2022), co-author of History of Early Childhood Education (2011), and author of numerous book chapters and journal articles. An eminent scholar, she has presented her research at universities and conferences worldwide. Dr. Hinitz is Past President of the TCNJ chapters of the Honor Societies of Phi Kappa Phi (PKP) and Kappa Delta Pi (KDP), and a member of the Honorary Eleanor Roosevelt Chapter of KDP.

Selected list of international and national presentations:

International

• International Association for Intercultural Education & MOFET 2021

• International Conference on Improving University Teaching & MOFET 2017

• International Conferences on Teacher Education of the MOFET Institute [face-to-face & virtual] 2013, 2011, 2007, 2006, 1999, 1996

• World Organization for Early Childhood Education

• International Standing Conference on the History of Education [ISCHE]

• International Froebel Society

• International Reading Association

• Childhood Education International [CEI] formerly: Association for Childhood Education International [ACEI]

• Hawaii International Conference on Education

• Warwick [University, U.K.] International Early Years Conference

• Bar Ilan University [lectures]

• Pakistan University conferences [Virtual]

o Women University, Multan 2021

o Keynote Address - Combating Contemporary Challenges Through Education. Fourth International Conference on Research in Education University of the Punjab, Lahore 2016

• The First UPI International Conference on Primary and Early Childhood Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Kampus Cibiru, Bandung, Indonesia [Virtual] 2015

• Deutsches Institut Fur Internationale Padagogische Forschung at the University of Frankfurt, Germany [lecture] 1990

• The International Forum for the Culture and Literature of Peace

National (in USA)

American Educational Research Association

National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators [NAECTE] She was the keynote speaker in June 2018.

National Association for the Education of Young Children [NAEYC] National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS]

History of Education Society U.S. [HES]

American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education [AACTE] Association of Teacher Educators [ATE]

Early Childhood Leadership Institute. National-Louis University Webinar on anti-bullying - EdWeb.net

Studentcentricity on Bam! Radio Network

Recent publications:

Hinitz, B., Staring, J., & Aldridge, J. (2022). Margaret Naumburg. In Geneser V. (ed.) Scholarly Snapshots: The Importance of Child Play as a Human Right. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.‏

Hinitz, B. F. (Ed.). (2018). Impeding Bullying Among Young Children in International Group Contexts. Springer International Publishing.‏

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