Some 300 literacy professionals from around the world will be coming to Sheffield for the 55thUKLA International Conference between 12 and 14 July, which this year is focused on Literacy and Play for All:Improvisation, possibility and imagination.
The UK Literacy Association, which is hosting the event, is one of the UK’s leading education organisations. It works to improve literacy around the UK and is driven by a belief that excellent education is shaped by policy and underpinned by research.
Tracy Parvin, president of UKLA, says: “At a time when people are so focused on tests, exams and grades, it can be hard to make room for play, imagination and creativity in education. However, play has an important role in literacy education. It is through playing with ideas that we experiment, take risks, generate meanings and negotiate our relationships with others and the world around us. Therefore, we believe that the UK government is missing a trick by not building more play and creativity into the curriculum.
“Delegates to the conference will consider the many different ways in which play and playfulness can contribute to literacy education as well as how imagination and creativity, through play, can be developed in the classroom. The conference will also provide a space for them to improvise, imagine and play with new possibilities themselves.”
Keynote speakers at the UKLA’s International Conference include:
Chris Riddell, Writer and Illustrator
Chris, the 2015-2017 UK Children’s Laureate, is an accomplished artist and the political cartoonist for the Observer. He’ll be talking about how using illustration can create new readers.
Andrew Burn, University College London
Andrew is Professor of English, Media and Drama at the UCL Institute of Education, and director of the DARE (Digital Arts Research in Education) centre. He has researched and published work on many aspects of the media arts, including young people’s production of digital media such as computer games, digital video and animation.
Lalitha Vasudevan, Columbia University, USA
Her work examines literacy, communicative, and media practices of youth across a variety of settings and brings attention to the role of technology in their educational trajectories and wellbeing.
Anne Haas Dyson, University of Illinois, USA
Anne has spent over 35 years studying childhood cultures and their relationships to literacy learning of young schoolchildren, for which she has received numerous awards.
Panel discussion: Creativity, Play and Digital Media
With…
* Sharna Jackson, Artistic Director at Site Gallery, Sheffied
* Leigh Hodgkinson, the BAFTA-award winning animation director, illustrator and author.
* Chris Lindgren, UX Researcher and Play Designer in the field of digital children’s culture, including at award-winning play studio, Toca Boca
* Iain Simons, cultural director of the BGI and co-founder of Sheffield’s National Videogame Museum
(Panel to be chaired by Becky Parry and Fiona Scott from the Centre for the Study of Literacies at the University of Sheffield)
Tickets are on sale now. Visit the UK Literacy Association website for more information and to purchase.
