Linda Laidlaw is a Professor working in the area of early literacy in Language and Literacy Education at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Alberta. She teaches courses at the graduate and undergraduate level in early literacy, drama education, writing, literacy for the elementary years, and research methods. Formerly a classroom teacher, her research focuses on digital and mobile technologies in primary education, diversity, and the relationships between children's digital practices at home and their experiences at school. Her research takes up case study, auto-ethnographic and microethnographic methods and is informed by complexity thinking and frames from literacy theory. Her latest projects are two international collaborative studies: Reimagining Literacy Education: Being Literate in the Twenty First Century, which aims to develop new frames and strategies for literacy education in a changing world; and Making Literacy Through Maker Literacies: Building Learning Opportunities in Early Childhood, which investigates 'making' strategies and pedagogical frames through working with teachers, parents and children. Joanne O'Mara is an Associate Professor of Language and Literature Education and Chair of English teaching method at Deakin University. An experienced secondary English and Drama teacher, she has continued to work with young people and schools through her university research. She particularly values the opportunity to work with students to develop their confidence and self-belief. She considers herself extremely lucky to have the opportunity to work with wonderful colleagues on a series of projects that are valuable. This research includes reading for pleasure, literacies and new textual practices; digital play and games; literacy pedagogies and gratitude and secondary English and drama pedagogy. Suzanna So Har Wong has two primary research areas. One is understanding young children's home digital literacy practices. The other is the connections between literacy learning and makerspaces in elementary classrooms. In addition, she is interested in studying children's engagement with critical literacy, equity, and social justice in- and out-of-school settings. She has worked with researchers in Canada, Australia and United Kingdom during her Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Alberta from 2017 to 2019.Currently, she is an adjunct professor and assistant lecturer in Elementary Education,Language and Literacy, at the University of Alberta.
