KEYNOTE SPEAKERS LIST

Ivan Ivanov, SUNY Empire State College, U.S.A.
          Title: Cloud Computing in Education: The Intersection of Challenges and Opportunities

Rachelle Heller, The George Washington University, U.S.A.
          Title: Computer Education Journals: Leading or Following Research Trends

Lauri Malmi, Aalto University School of Science and Technology, Finland
          Title: Why, What and How Are We Doing Our Research?

Friedrich Hesse, Knowledge Media Research Center, Germany
          Title: Augmented Knowledge Communication Spaces

Ivan Ivanov SUNY Empire State College U.S.A.

Brief Bio
Ivan I. Ivanov earned his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Computing and Network Technologies from the Technical University at Sofia, Bulgaria.
He was a research fellow in leading universities in Great Britain, The Netherlands and France. He worked in joint European IT projects with partners from France, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Italy, and in cooperation with worldwide technology leaders to develop advanced technological infrastructure, information services, and professional training at educational establishments in Bulgaria. An active technology expert and educator for over 30 years, Ivanov has been researcher, program developer, lecturer, project manager, director and senior administrator in various academic institutions in Bulgaria.
As an Associate Professor in Computer Science and Information Systems at the State University of New York, Empire State College since 2003, he has worked with students from diverse area of studies in emerging technology topics that reflect their educational plans and career opportunities. The studies he teaches cluster in several areas: computer business applications; computer organization and architectures; data communications and networks, e-business technologies, information technology for management, management information systems, and project management. Since 2005, he is an organizer and sponsor for traditional Technology Workshops, annual forums for Empire State College students to build up researching, analytical, critical thinking and presentation skills; sharing best practice in technology topics as it relates to term projects and professional development to a select group of peers, IT experts, college alumni and faculties.

Abstract
In the last few years, in spite of concerns about the hype, cloud computing has expanded steadily both horizontally - across industries, and vertically - in organizations' technology stacks. Most technologies that enable cloud services existed prior to cloud computing's existence, although these days they rejuvenate, evolve and stimulate the computational ecosystem transformations. Actually the radical change for organizations is in rethinking and reengineering their traditional IT resources advancing them with cloud architectures and implementing services based on cloud computing delivery models. The change is underway on a large scale: from vendors and developers to providers and customers, and the key issues of "cloudiness" are not only in economics and management, but in provisioning, interoperability and security of the integrated services.

The Cloud Computing phenomenon likewise creates exciting challenges and opportunities for the entire educational system. For faculty, students, administration and IT professionals it is a thrilling journey driven by many agendas - cost cutting, delivering dynamic mobile and interactive computational services, utilizing and leveraging integrated IT infrastructures and systems. This talk will explore the impact of cloud computing on the educational socio-technical system and will provide the author's experience in strategizing and utilizing cloud-based applications and services.

Rachelle Heller The George Washington University U.S.A.

Brief Bio
Dr. Heller has over 30 years of experience in the computer field, including work in industry and teaching at the college level. Dr. Heller coauthored a nationally syndicated newspaper column, "All About Computers" from 1982 to 1986. She has served as an educational computer consultant to the National Geographic Society.
Dr. Heller is the co-principal investigator of many National Science Foundation grants. She is also the Co-PI for the VISIT System, a multimedia kiosk project designed to provide information about the park and to collect visitor preference data in US National Parks.
Dr. Heller has spoken at computer conferences at the national and international level including the 1981 and 1985 World Conferences on Educational Computing, the LOGO '84 and '85 Conferences in Boston, the 1987 IFIPS WG3.5 Conference on New Technology in Primary Education and the 1988 and 1989 National Educational Computing Conference. She has been the keynote speaker at Hollins College and Coppin State College. She lectured in the Soviet Union on the uses of computers in education at the invitation of the Soviet Academy of Science in the summer of 1986 and the winter of 1989. In the summer of 1988 she was in the Soviet Union as a computer specialist to the USIA exhibit, "Information USA". In addition to authoring and coauthoring numerous papers and technical reports on the uses of computers in mass spectrometry, teacher training and in educational classroom settings, Dr. Heller is the co-author with C. Dianne Martin of Bits 'n Bytes About Computing: A Computer Literacy Primer, the Bits 'n Bytes Gazette for school children and LOGOWORLDS, all published by Computer Science Press, Aleph-BASIC by Kar-Ben Copies, Bible Basic by Standard Press. Dr. Heller is the co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal "Computers & Education: An International Journal" published by Elsevier Science (formerly Pergamon Press). She is a lecturer for the Association of Computing Machinery and the IEEE.

Abstract
What is the role of a peer- reviewed journal? Is it to promote scientific inquiry? Is it to serve as an historical repository of a scientific field?
Is it an organ of a professional society? Is it to promote an individual scientist by expanding his or her vitae? Is it to observe the flow and direction of research or is it to help direct a research agenda?

A peer-reviewed journal provides a venue for research that demonstrates (or refutes) the efficacy of computer-supported education - with its shifting emphasis to online education, hybrid education, and the use of new technologies. But, are the journals being flooded with too many papers, many incremental rewrites of previous work? Are reviewers too overworked to provide the depth of analysis necessary to sort the wheat from the chaff, the real from the hype, especially in terms of what actually improves learning?

Where do the responsibilities lie?

This talk with address these themes in general and draw specific examples from the speaker's nearly 20 years as co-editor of Computers & Education, an International Journal.

Lauri Malmi Aalto University School of Science and Technology Finland

Brief Bio
Lauri Malmi graduated as MSc in Computer Science in 1985, and Doctor of Technology in Computer Science in 1997, both at Helsinki University of Technology. He has worked as a lecturer or researcher from 1985 till 1999 and thereafter as a professor of computer science at the same institute. His current affiliation is Aalto University, which was formed in 2010 by merging Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki School of Economy and University of Art and Design Helsinki.

For the past 10 years his main research area has been computing education research, focusing on automatic assessment technologies of programming exercises, algorithm and program visualization tools, and qualitative research on how students understand computing concepts and processes. He is a frequent member of program committees in several international conferences and workshops on computing education research and program visualization. He is also a board member of SEFI Engineering Education Research working group, and steering group member of Nordic Network of Engineering Education Research. He recent activities include organizing several international research training courses and doctoral consortia to support PhD training in both computing education research and engineering education research.

Abstract
Research in educational technology has a long history. There is a huge body of literature presenting and evaluating various ICT based tools, computerized learning environments, teaching methodologies and educational practices. In this talk I wish to take a look at the research process itself. I will consider some of the literature from several perspectives. What kind of general goals do the published research papers have? Which pedagogical aspects are considered? How is the research building on theories and results from other fields of science? What kind of research approaches and methods are being used? What kind of data is used to support the claims? Based on the findings I draw some conclusions and suggestions for the research community.

Friedrich Hesse Knowledge Media Research Center Germany

Brief Bio
Friedrich Hesse received his Ph.D. in 1979 from the RWTH Aachen University and qualified as a professor of psychology (1989) at the University of Goettingen. Since 1990 Friedrich Hesse has been Professor of Psychology in Tuebingen. He is founding director of the Knowledge Media Research Center (KMRC), serving since 2001 and he has also recently been elected as Vice-President of the Leibniz Association in Germany.

The main research interests of Friedrich Hesse are cognitive processes in learning with new media, or in net-based knowledge communication. His research seeks to discover, for example, empirical evidence and fundamental principles with respect to both individual and cooperative knowledge acquisition with new media and to individual and cooperative knowledge exchange with new media. He has been recognized as an initiator of and as a speaker for several large research alliances. Among them are the first interdisciplinary ScienceCampus in Germany on "Informational Environments", and other alliances supported by funding from the German Science Foundation (DFG), including a Research Group on "Orchestrating Computer-supported Processes of Learning and Instruction", a Special Priority Program (SPP) on "Netbased Knowledge Communication", and a Virtual PhD Program on "Knowledge Acquisition and Knowledge Exchange with New Media".

Abstract
In the era of the information society and globalization, Computer-Supported Collaboration (CSC) in virtual groups is becoming increasingly important, although it still involves interaction problems and is not really efficient enough. These problems occur mostly because participants in CSC scenarios are not adequately informed about the expertise or dispositions of the others. However, by using certain CSC techniques one can augment the knowledge communication space and thus make the exchange of knowledge more efficient.

In my talk I will present such innovative approaches for tackling the interaction problems of CSC in virtual groups. These CSC techniques aim at making group members aware of their collaborators dispositions and/or their knowledge. What is delivered by the technology can be seen as awareness, and the concrete technological application can be seen as an awareness tool. Awareness tools can implicitly offer/demand/afford directions for how to process input and behave accordingly (social navigation), or the tools can lead to reflection about one's own processes and behaviour. In both cases no explicit recommendations about how to proceed are given. Because the content of communication is personal knowledge, the nature of this content is also dependent on processes of social comparison. This means it has to be taken into account that participants might under certain conditions be inclined to withhold their knowledge and not be willing to share.

To enhance awareness is considered to be a crucial aspect in a communication scenario, when one is interested in improving participants' interaction without having to have the way they interact be prescribed.