KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Professor Philipp Gonon

University of Zurich, Switzerland

Philipp Gonon studied Law and Journalism from 1974 until 1976 at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Afterwards he continued studying Pedagogy at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. From 1986 until 1992 he became research assistant and lecturer at the Institute of Pedagogy of the University of Bern, Switzerland where he finished his postdoctoral lecture qualification in 1997. From 1999 until 2004, Gonon was appointed to Full University Professor at the Chair of Vocational and Operational Further Education at the University of Trier in Germany. Since 2004, Gonon has held the Chair of Vocational Education and Training and Vocational Teacher Training at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Gonon has done research about Georg Kerschensteiner, the relation of schooling and vocation and about the European educational reforms. He specialised in the areas of historical and international comparative educational research. In addition, Gonon does research in quality assurance and evaluation, modularization in Vocational Education and he publishes about Philosophy and Theory of Vocational Education.

 

 

Professor Charles Hodges

Georgia Southern University, USA

Charles B. Hodges, Ph.D. is a Professor of Instructional Technology at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, GA. He was formerly a faculty member at Virginia Tech. Dr. Hodges earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mathematics from Fairmont State University and West Virginia University respectively, followed by a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction focusing on Instructional Design and Technology from the School of Education at Virginia Tech. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the AECT journal, TechTrends since 2014, and he is the co-editor of the book Emerging Research, Practice, and Policy on Computational Thinking (2017) published by Springer, as well as editor of the book Self-Efficacy in Instructional Technology Contexts (2018) also published by Springer. He is co-Principal Investigator on the National Science Foundation funded project, Developing and Piloting a Game Design-Based Computer Science Curriculum.

Professor Andreas Schleicher

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, France

Andreas Schleicher is Director for Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris. He initiated and oversees the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other international instruments that have created a global platform for policy-makers, researchers and educators across nations and cultures to innovate and transform educational policies and practices. He has worked for over 20 years with ministers and education leaders around the world to improve quality and equity in education. Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that Schleicher “understands the global issues and challenges as well as or better than anyone I’ve met, and he tells me the truth” (The Atlantic, July 11). Former UK Secretary of State Michael Gove called Schleicher “the most important man in English education” – even though he is German and lives in France. Before joining the OECD, he was Director for Analysis at the International Association for Educational Achievement (IEA). He studied Physics in Germany and received a degree in Mathematics and Statistics in Australia. He is the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including the “Theodor Heuss” prize, awarded in the name of the first president of the Federal Republic of Germany for “exemplary democratic engagement”. He holds an honorary Professorship at the University of Heidelberg.

 

Professor Jon-Chao Hong

National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

 

Jon-Chao Hong has received his doctoral degree in Education from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and is currently working as a Chair professor in the department of industrial education at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). As the director of Digital Game-based Learning Laboratory (GBL), he has developed 9 web games, 24 educational Apps and VR for skill training and language learning.
As the secretary general of Taiwan Creativity Development Association, he also organizes several creative contests relevant to STEAM, such as PowerTech Contest to invite elementary, junior and senior high school students to produce robots or miniatures in the morning and using these to compete in the afternoon to ensure students’ hands-on creation without parents or teachers’ assistance. As the executive secretary of International Exhibition for Young Inventors (IEYI), he also promotes the innovative contest to give students an opportunity to stimulate their science inquiry abilities, and also cultivated students’ creativity and thinking attitude of STEAM. In addition, he has published a number of academic articles in international journals related to digital game-based learning and thinking skills and creativity about 45 articles on Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) journals and received the Outstanding Research Prize from Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan.

 

Associate Professor Pedro Teixeira Isaias

UNSW Business School, NUNSW Sydney, Australia

 

Pedro Isaias is an associate professor at the Information Systems & Technology Management School of The University of New South Wales (UNSW – Sydney), Australia. Previously he was an associate professor at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Before moving to Australia, he served at the Universidade Aberta (Portuguese Open University) in Lisbon, Portugal, where he was responsible for several courses and director of the master degree program in Management / MBA. Pedro was director of the master degree program in Electronic Commerce and Internet for 10 years. Pedro Isaias holds a PhD in Information Management (in the specialty of information and decision systems) from the NOVA University of Lisbon. Author of several books, book chapters, papers and research reports, all in the information systems area, he has headed several conferences and workshops within the mentioned area. He has also been responsible for the scientific coordination of several EU funded research projects. He is also member of the editorial board of several journals and program committee member of several conferences and workshops. Currently he conducts research activity related to MIS in general, and more specifically Learning Technologies, Data Analytics, Business Intelligence, Digital Transformation, e-Business and WWW related areas.