Name Michael Thomas | ||
 | ||
Michael Thomas, (born 1969) in the northeast of England, is a university academic with research interests in online and distance education, digitally mediated communication and higher education policy.
Thomas attended Collingwood Junior School, Norham High School and Tynemouth Sixth Form College and holds degrees from Newcastle University, the University of Manchester, Lancaster University and the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. He holds a Ph.D. in Critical and Cultural Theory from Newcastle University focusing on the work of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, deconstructionism and post-modernism and a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Lancaster University which explored technology-mediated project-based learning. He was previously a Lecturer at the University of Heidelberg in Germany (1998), Associate Professor (2002) and then Professor (2009) in English Communication at Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, Japan, before moving to the University of Central Lancashire in 2010. He has also held visiting or affiliated positions at Stuttgart University and Mannheim University in Germany and Harvard University in the US.
Thomas has published over 20 authored and edited books in these fields and is founding and lead editor of two international book series, Digital Education and Learning (Palgrave) and Advances in Digital Language Learning and Teaching (Bloomsbury). He was the founding editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments and since 2014 has been a member of the journal's International Advisory Board.
He is currently a Reader and Associate Professor in Digital Education and Learning at the University of Central Lancashire and is active as a researcher within the areas of computer assisted learning. He is director of the Language, Literacy and Digital Education Research Group. He is also a member of the Research Unit for Speech and Language.
Thomas was project coordinator and principal investigator of the EU-funded CAMELOT Project on language learning with machinima, a two-year project consisting of nine EU partners that ran from December 2013 until November 2015; and a partner in the Erasums+ VITAL project on learning analytics and online learning.
Outside of academia he has published articles in The Times Higher Educational Supplement on the use of iPods and podcasting, and The Guardian as a contributor in a debate about massive open online courses and the future of higher education, and been interviewed by the French language publication Regards Sur Le Numerique on the subject of digital natives, among others. Thomas is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and the Royal Society of Arts.