Dean and Professor Jessica Pandya’s current research investigates the ways teachers use digital programs to teach, connect with parents, and manage student behaviour in their classrooms. A former San Francisco kindergarten teacher, Jessica was trained as a researcher of language, literacy, and culture at UC Berkeley. Her early work focused on children’s identity work in diverse urban classrooms. Jessica’s unique perspectives will inform the Connected Child program, where she hopes to connect US researchers investigating children’s digital literacy practices in and out of school with their Australian colleagues.

Jessica has published in journals such as Research in the Teaching of English, Language Arts, Teachers College Record, and Review of Research in Education. Her book Exploring Critical Digital Literacy Practices: Everyday Video in a Dual Language Context (Expanding Literacies in Education) won the 2020 Book Award for Excellence in 21^st Century Literacies. Jessica is the Past Chair of the American Educational Research Association Writing and Literacies Special Interest Group. She and the other members of the Writing & Literacies SIG edited the Handbook of Writing, Literacies, and Education in Digital Cultures (Routledge, 2017). She is co-founder of the Transnational Critical Literacy Network, and first editor of the forthcoming Critical Literacies Handbook (Routledge, 2021).

Earliest digital memory
Writing long stories on an old Apple computer and saving them on 5×5 floppy disks.