National Parks & Digital Learning
Sponsored by the School of Information’s Parks and Technology Interest Group
Milton Chen will discuss work ongoing with the National Park System Advisory Board leading up to the National Parks Centennial in 2016, advancing learning of all ages and contributing to the redesign of our educational system. These programs include residential programs for students, Bioblitzes for citizen science, monitoring of species migration, and youth using digital media to tell the stories of WWII veterans.
Dr. Milton Chen is senior fellow and executive director, emeritus at The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF), a non-profit operating foundation in the San Francisco Bay Area that utilizes its multimedia website Edutopia.org and documentary films to communicate a new vision for 21st Century schools. Dr. Chen’s career has spanned four decades at the intersection of pre-K–12 education, media, and technology. Prior to joining GLEF in 1998, he served for 10 years as the founding director of the KQED Center for Education (PBS) in San Francisco. In the 1970s, he was director of research at Sesame Workshop in New York, helping develop Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and 3-2-1 Contact. Dr. Chen has been an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and, during 2007-08, was one of 35 Fulbright New Century Scholars conducting research on access and diversity issues in higher education and K-12.
His work has been honored by the Elmo Award from Sesame Workshop, the Fred Rogers Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Congressional Black Caucus, and by two science centers in the Bay Area, The Exploratorium and the Lawrence Hall of Science. His new book, Education Nation: Six Leading Edges of Innovation in our Schools, based on his work at Edutopia, was published by Jossey-Bass in July.
Dr. Chen lives in San Francisco. He received an A.B. in social studies from Harvard College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in communication research from Stanford University.
