Michael Sharples (born 14 December 1952 in Sale, England) is a British academic working in

educational technology Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as edutech, or edtech) is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. When referred to with its abbreviation, edtech, it often refer ...

. He is an Emeritus Professor of Educational Technology at The Open University.

Background

Sharples graduated from

St. Andrews University (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

in 1976 with a BSc. Hons in Computational Science, then moved to the Dept of Artificial Intelligence at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

as a post graduate student. His PhD thesis was on the topic of Cognition, Computers and Creative Writing.

Career

Sharples held various academic appointments before becoming director for the Centre for Educational Technology and Distance Learning at the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

and later professor of learning sciences and Director of Learning Sciences Research Institute at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

Research

Sharples' research focus is on adapting and developing new technology and socio-technical systems to facilitate learning, such as the use of mobile devices. In 2022 he published the book ''Story Machines'' with Rafael Pérez y Pérez. The book is about the history of story-generating machines. A review of the book in

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

described it as "a readable, engaging, and instructive introduction to the mechanisms according to which computers have been made to produce “stories".

Books

* Sharples, M. (1985) Cognition, Computers and Creative Writing, Chichester: Ellis Horwood. * Sharples, M., Hogg, D., Hutchison, C., Torrance, S., Young, D. (1989) Computers and Thought: a Practical Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. MIT Press. 406 pp. * Sharples, M. (ed.)(1993) Computer Supported Collaborative Writing. Springer-Verlag. * Sharples, M. & van der Geest, T. (eds.)(1996) The New Writing Environment: Writers at Work in a World of Technology. Springer-Verlag. * Sharples, M. (1999) How We Write: Writing as Creative Design. London: Routledge. * Littleton, K., Scanlon, E. & Sharples, M. (eds.)(2012) Orchestrating Inquiry Learning. Routledge. .

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sharples, Mike Living people People in educational technology People from Sale, Greater Manchester Alumni of the University of St Andrews Academics of the Open University 1952 births