| Mike Sharples | |
| Birth Date: | 14 December 1952 |
| Birth Place: | Sale, England |
| Occupation: | Technologist |
| Known For: | human-centred design, evaluation of technologies of learning, application of studies of human cognition and social interaction to the design of novel interactive systems |
Michael Sharples (born 14 December 1952 in Sale, England) is a British academic working in educational technology. He is an Emeritus Professor of Educational Technology at The Open University.[1]
Sharples graduated from St. Andrews University in 1976 with a BSc. Hons in Computational Science, then moved to the Dept of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh as a post graduate student. His PhD thesis was on the topic of Cognition, Computers and Creative Writing.[2]
Sharples held various academic appointments before becoming director for the Centre for Educational Technology and Distance Learning at the University of Birmingham[3] and later professor of learning sciences and Director of Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Nottingham.[4]
Sharples' research focus is on adapting and developing new technology and socio-technical systems to facilitate learning, such as the use of mobile devices.
In 2022 he published the book Story Machines with Rafael Pérez y Pérez.[5] The book is about the history of story-generating machines. A review of the book in Science described it as "a readable, engaging, and instructive introduction to the mechanisms according to which computers have been made to produce “stories".[6]