The integration of technology in the classroom as a tool for promoting diversity and addressing education inequality will be the focus of the College of Education's 2011 New Literacies Conference, "Teaching and Learning in the Decades Ahead."

The conference explores how teachers and faculty can integrate technology and social media into curricula in a way that positively tackles education inequalities, highlights the value of diversity and provides ideas to improve public education.

"It is imperative that educators bring new skills and literacies to their tasks in this time of changing demographics, declining budgets and an increasingly polarized political climate," Shields said. "In order to engage and challenge all learners and to prepare them to fully and successfully participate in our democratic society, issues of educational equity must be at the forefront of our thinking."

Elliot Soloway, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan, and Alexandra Tracy, Michigan program director for the Young People's Project, will deliver the keynote addresses. Soloway, who will discuss mobile technology's impact on education, is one of the founders of the Center for Highly Interactive Classrooms, Curricula and Computing in Education, where he works to develop technology-embedded curricula for school-based programs.

The New Literacies Conference is sponsored by the Office of Field Experiences in Wayne State's College of Education. Registration is $15 before July 31 and $20 thereafter. All sessions will be held in the College of Education and Student Center buildings.

Scholarships are available for current college or high school students. For more information or to register, visit http://coe.wayne.edu/ted/directed/conference.php.

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Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution offering more than 400 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 32,000 students.