Professor

Biography

Bill Cope's R&D explores the pedagogical affordances of technology mediated learning environments. From 2010-2013 he was Chair of the Journals Publication Committee of the American Educational Research Association.

Research Interests

Bill Cope is a Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois. He is Principal Investigator in a series of major projects funded by the Institute of Educational Sciences in the US Department of Education, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Science Foundation, researching and developing educational technologies. He has co-authored or co-edited: New Learning: Elements of a Science of Education, Cambridge University Press, 2008 (2nd edition, 2012); Ubiquitous Learning, University of Illinois Press, 2009; Towards a Semantic Web: Connecting Knowledge in Academic Research, Elsevier, 2009; Literacies, Cambridge University Press 2012 (2nd edition, 2016); A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies, Palgrave, 2016; e-Learning Ecologies, Routledge, 2017; and a two volume grammar of multimodal meaning: Making Sense: Reference, Agency and Structure in a Grammar of Multimodal Meaning, and Adding Sense: Context and Interest in a Grammar of Multimodal Meaning, Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Courses Taught

Bill Cope is lead in the Learning Design and Leadership concentration in the Department of Educational Policy, Organization and Leadership, offering certificate, masters and doctoral degrees.

Additional Campus Affiliations

Professor, Education Policy, Organization and Leadership
Professor, Information Trust Institute
Professor, Health Care Engineering Systems Center, Coordinated Science Lab
Affiliate, Siebel Center for Design

Recent Publications

Gutiérrez, K. D., Luke, A., Kalantzis, M., Cope, B., Michaels, S., & Gee, J. P. (2026). Remembering Courtney Cazden, 1925–2025. Reading Research Quarterly, 61(2), Article e70100. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.70100

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2026). The multiliteracies framework. In A Research Agenda for Critical Literacies (pp. 49-58). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035341504.00014

Zapata, G. C., Tzirides, A. O., Cope, B., Kalantzis, M., & Searsmith, D. (2026). GenAI-by-Design: a theoretically grounded, research-informed pedagogical framework for classroom practice and assessment in higher education. Pedagogy, Culture and Society. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2026.2667388

Cope, B., & Feinberg, W. (2025). Arguments for Learning: An Intellectual History of the College of Education at the University of Illinois. University of Illinois Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jj.23212024

Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2025). Generative transpositions: The (Anti-)Grammar of text-semantic, CyberSocial intelligence. Multimodality & Society, 5(4), 480-494. https://doi.org/10.1177/26349795251387490

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