SPEAKER BIOS

Chris Corsbie

Christopher Lance Corsbie received his M.A. in Foreign Language Education at the University of Texas at Austin, December, 1999. The focus of his academic research has been on investigating the possibilities for using Avatar worlds for foreign language teaching and linguistic and cultural exchange programs.Corsbie is now embarking on doing exploratory case studies bringing together Paraguayan students of English and students of Spanish from other parts of the world. In 1999 he helped design and participate in an international language exchange between his students of Spanish in Austin, Texas, USA, a fellow researcher, Adriana Vilela, M.S., and her students of English as a Foreign Language in Argentina in Worldschat.com. Corsbie is currently looking for research partners and worlds that would be useful for teaching languages in simulator type environments. Permanent Address: 3708 Clawson Road Austin, Texas 78704, United States of America Permanent E-Mail Address: corsbie@tenet.edu

Daphne Economou

Daphne Economou is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Computing & Mathematics at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is studying the role of Virtual Actors in CVEs for Learning in order to improve interaction, communication and collaboration issues. The work is supervised by Dr W.L. Mitchell and Dr Tom Boyle.

Judi Fusco

Judi Fusco is a researcher at SRI International in the Center for Technology in Learning where she is one of the developers of TAPPED IN (www.tappedin.org) an online community for education professionals. Her current research includes the impact of online community in teacher professional development, new methodologies for understanding online interactions, and what it takes to create and maintain a sustainable online community. Prior to working at SRI she worked at Apple Computer and developed an online community for kids who are sick or have a disability.

David Gill

David Gill is an assistant professor of the Watson School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he teaches both traditional and online courses in English education and young adult literature.

Maria Beatrice Ligorio

Maria Beatrice Ligorio received here PhD in the 1999 in Psychology of Communication with a dissertation about problem solving in computer mediated communication environments such as MOOs and Newsgroups. Ligorio is currently researcher at the University of Salerno (IT) and Visiting Scholar at the University of Nijemgen (NL). In the 1999-2000 she had an EC grant (DG XII-G) (TMR) for developing virtual environments for computer supported collaborative learning based on the AW technology. She has also received other European grants to inquire usability of mediated technology in cross-natinal contexts, as as the "CL-Net: Computer-supported Collaborative learning networks in primary and secondary education" and the "TeleScopia - TransEuropean Learning for Crossborder OPen and Interactive Applications".

Vernon Reed

Vernon Reed was a pioneer of the wearable computer revolution, creating cybernetic jewels in the mid 1980s. Later he joined the Advanced Communication Technologies Laboratory (ACTLab) at the U of Texas, where he produced ground-breaking work on "multiple" avatars for 3D virtual worlds. He now works for the Learning Technologies division of Sapient Inc.

Chad Rooney

Chad Rooney is finishing up his fourth year studying art, media theory/production, and community studies at UCSC. As a student builder, he helped to plan and build the V-UCSC campuses in Activeworlds throughout 1998 and 1999. In the Winter of 2000, working closely with Patrick Mckercher and a team of student web designers, he worked to develop and curate the virtual world setting for the Ecollege world in in Eduverse - an experiment in using virtual spaces for outreach to high school students through collaborative work in environmental studies. He is currently on a six-month field study at The Center for Electronic Art in San Francisco in which he is: observing the interaction/unrest between SF's new media industry and local urban communities; experimenting in art and new media; and observing the process of running a non-profit organization dedicated to technolgy training and community involvment.

Kevin Ruess

Kevin Ruess is an assistant research professor at George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia) where he is project director of the Museum-Related Multimedia and Virtual Environments for Teaching and Learning Science, a research effort funded by the National Science Foundation. He earned his Ph.D. in Education from George Mason University, running a cultural role-play simulation in a MOO (MUVESIM) for his dissertation experiment.