SEANN DIKKERS
sdikkers@gmail.com
Seann Dikkers is a researcher and recent doctorate graduate of educational technologies
at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Prior to his doctoral studies, he spent twelve years as a teacher and principal. Now he’s serving as designer and consultant in new media education strategies for leadership and learning. Dikkers edited the recent release of Real-Time Research: Improvisational Game Scholarship.
His work focuses on 21st century skills and tools, digital game engagement mechanics, educator professional development, and educational leadership. His projects include: ParkQuest; History in our Hands; the Mobile Media Learning project and Augmented Reality and Interacitve Storytelling editor (ARIS) with Kurt Squire; the Comprehensive Assessment for Leadership in Learning (CALL) with Rich Halverson & Carolyn Kelley; a game based history curriculum (‘The American Idea’); consulting on digital tools for teachers; managing Gamingmatter.com; and raising two pretty awesome kids with his wife Stephanie.
JOHN MARTIN
John Martin’s heart is in expeditionary learning, and his doctoral research under Kurt Squire considered the use of mobile devices to connect people to the land and to each other at a deep woods camp in Maine. He now works for UW-Madison’s Division
of Academic Technology, and uses tools (like ARIS) and processes (like Digital Storytelling and game design) to support informal and formal learning environments and communities. He thinks people learn more by doing things than by studying them, and is excited that modern mobile devices have become Swiss Army Tools for learning and research. He blogs at times at regardingjohn.com.
BOB COULTER
Bob Coulter is director of the Litzsinger Road Ecology Center, a suburban St. Louis nature center managed by the Missouri Botanical Garden. He also serves as Principal Investigator and Project Director for two NSF-funded research projects conducted with MIT that leverage mobile technology to engage students in their local community. A key focus for his work is investigating the boundary between the virtual and the real, exploring ways to use technology to enhance students’ understanding of the world. He is also writing a book on teacher agency, articulating a model of how teachers who lead rich community-based projects approach their work. In an earlier life he was an award-winning elementary math and science teacher, and he continues to promote recreational math through weekly volunteer stints in five St Louis area schools.