About CDIE

Vision

Our vision is to advance equitable, responsive and meaningful technology-enhanced education for learners.

Mission

To enhance collaboration with community partners for the purposes of developing, researching and implementing educational and technological innovations to:

• Cultivate capacities for critical and creative engagement within societies.
• Foster equitable and experiential learning opportunities.
• Understand and respond to future complexities and novelties of our world.

Our accomplished Executive Committee brings together interdisciplinary perspectives in K-adult Education, STEAM Education, Critical Digital Literacies, Maker Education, AI Literacy, Educational Technology, and Online Learning. Members of the Executive Committee have a history of collaboration in both scholarship and service initiatives around equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility and social justice.

Dr. Janette Hughes, PhD

Director

Janette Hughes is Professor and Canada Research Chair, Technology and Pedagogy, in the Mitch and Leslie Frazer Faculty of Education at Ontario Tech. Dr. Hughes specializes in the transformation of literacy practices through making and new digital media. Her research and teaching interests include the development of global competencies (creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, self-directed learning, citizenship) through digital tools,  media literacy (including social media), critical digital making, critical digital literacies (including AI literacy), Futures Literacy and thriving during a polycrisis, adolescent literacies and identity, and global digital citizenship. She is particularly interested in how various digital tools and media enable users to teach, learn, connect, collaborate, communicate, critique, create, and promote social change. She is the recipient of the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation’s Early Researcher Award and the Ontario Research Fund—Research Excellence Award, the Ontario Tech University Graduate Supervision Award, the Tim McTiernan Mentorship Award, and the Ontario Tech University Teaching Excellence Award.

Research Areas

• Critical digital literacies
• Futures Literacy
• Language and literacy
• Maker pedagogies
• STEAM education
• Secondary school English pedagogy
• Women and non-dominant groups in STEM/STEAM education

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