Developing Inclusive Environments in Education

Dr. Kiyoji Koreeda is a professor at Toyo University in Japan. His work focuses on educational support for persons with various disabilities in Special Needs Education Schools and Social Welfare Facilities. Dr. Koreeda completed his doctoral course at the United Graduate School of Education, Tokyo Gakugei University, Japan. After seventeen years as a special needs education school teacher in Kanagawa Prefecture, he worked as a researcher at the National Institute of Special Needs Education for six years. He then moved to Toyo University, where he currently trains social workers. Masayoshi Tsuge is a professor of humanities at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. He belongs to the research field of intellectual disabilities, developmental disabilities, and behavioral disorders. He is also the leader of the Disability Science doctoral degree program. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Tsukuba. During this time, he is the head of the Department of Education for Mild Intellectual Disabilities at the National Institute of Special Education in Japan, a visiting researcher at the Mental Retardation Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, and a specialist in mildly developmental disabilities at the Special Needs Education Division of the Ministry of Education in Japan. And then, a professor at the Graduate School of Special Needs Education at Hyogo University of Education in Japan, and director of Educational Information Department at the National Institute for Special Needs Education. And now he is working at the University of Tsukuba. During this time, he served as an editorial committee member, director, and president of academic societies in Japan and overseas. etc. He also served as a member of the Cabinet Office's Policy Committee for Persons with Disabilities and a member of the Ministry of Education's Central Council for Education. Currently, he is working on pedagogical and psychological research on people with intellectual disabilities, developmental disabilities, and behavioral disorders at the University of Tsukuba with doctoral students from Japan and abroad. Shigeru Ikuta is a Senior Scholar (Special Researcher) at Institute of Human Culture Studies, Otsuma Women's University, Japan. He is Emeritus Professors of Tokyo Metropolitan University and Otsuma Women's University. He is awarded with 2011 SITE Outstanding Poster Award and 2020 SITE Outstanding Paper Award. He is an education technologist, teacher educator in science, and special educator with a focus on student learning and development based on communication aids. He completed his graduate work and earned a doctorate in science at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan. He had been working as a Professor of Computation Chemistry at Tokyo Metropolitan University for twenty-nine years. He moved to University of Tsukuba and has started collaborative works with schoolteachers, affiliated with the University. He has been creating original handmade teaching materials with dot codes, eBooks with Media Overlays, and Augmented Reality in supporting the students' learning. He (now in collaboration with Professor Kiyoji Koreeda, Toyo University) has been involved in organizing a worldwide collaborative learning community with more than 250 schoolteachers both at the schools for special needs and the ordinary public schools, to develop original self-made teaching materials using the newly developed information and communication technology (ICT), and has conducted school activities with the schoolteachers, in partnership with the Japanese company Gridmark Inc. Ikuta has provided the schoolteachers with necessary software and tools, developed by Gridmark Inc. and himself, to create their original self-made teaching materials and their know-hows for free. Now, schoolteachers and researchers not only from Japan but also from the USA, China, Egypt, Korea, United Arab Emirates and Oman also join his community. Dr. Elizabeth Dalton is senior consultant for Dalton Education Services International (DESI), and Director Emeritus of Development and Research for TechACCESS of RI, regional assistive technology center in Rhode Island, USA. Dr. Dalton has worked 45+ years in education, focused on developing curricula, teaching students at many levels, and preparing teachers in special education and assistive technology for K-12 and higher education settings. Most recently, Dr. Dalton focuses on Universal Design for Learning, which she studied in a post-doctoral fellowship with CAST and Boston College. She develops and delivers training and curricula in UDL principles and strategies, both online and f2f. A widely published author, her work includes a co-edited book, Universal Access Through Inclusive Instructional Design: International Perspectives on UDL (Routledge 2020). Dr. Dalton served as president of the Inclusive Learning Network of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), editor for JIASE, Journal of the International Association for Special Education (IASE), and co-chair of the UDL Special Interest Group of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE). Currently she serves on the Steering Committee of the International Collaboratory for Leadership in Universally Designed Education (INCLUDE), as well as co-leader for Professional Development and Training https://include.wp.worc.ac.uk/ . Dr. Dalton can be reached at Dalton.ed.services.intl@gmail.com. Dr. Linda Plantin Ewe is a university lecturer (Ph D) in special education at the Department of Special Education, Faculty of Education at Kristianstad University in Sweden. Linda works as a teacher trainer within the Special Needs Education Program. She is interested in inclusive education, accessibility, equity, and social justice. Her research focuses primarily on students with neurodevelopmental disorders. More specifically, it focuses on the relationship between teachers and students with neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr. Ewe is a co-leader in the Professional Development and Training Team in the International Collaboratory for Leadership in Universally Designed Education (INCLUDE).