She received her B.A. in English from Loyola University Chicago and her Ph.D. in English / Writing Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research and teaching interests include mediated activity theory, histories of Rhetoric and Composition, multimodal discourses, digital rhetorics, and play theory. Shipka is the author of Toward A Composition Made Whole and the Editor of Play! A Collection of Toy Camera Photographs. Her work has appeared in College Composition and Communication, Computers and Composition, Enculturation, Kairos, Text and Talk and Writing Selves / Writing Societies, as well as other edited collections.