EUGENE, Ore. -- (Oct. 14, 2011) -- Milton Chen, senior fellow and executive director emeritus at the George Lucas Educational Foundation, will give the first talk in a new annual lecture series at 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28, at the University of Oregon. The College of Education-sponsored lecture series will explore innovation in global and online learning.

Chen will discuss schools that have stepped out of traditional paradigms for teaching and learning by capturing what he calls the "leading edges of innovation" by their redefining educational and learning experiences. His book "Education Nation: Six Leading Edges of Innovation in our Schools" was listed as one of the 10 best books of 2010 by the American School Board Journal.

Chen's lecture -- titled after the book -- will be held in Woodruff Gymnasium, located on the second floor of Gerlinger Hall, 1468 University St. The lecture will cap a day of meetings with school administrators and government officials on a new online learning platform hosted by the College of Education's Institute for Global and Online Education.

Technologies have irrevocably altered the roles, opportunities and responsibilities of the learning environment, according to Chen. He likens today's students as digital natives and their teachers and parents as digital immigrants. That, he argues, means that today's youth have a lot to offer to their elders. In his talk, he will discuss how school systems should focus on the growing edges of innovation in districts, states and nations that are redefining what schools are. Those edges involve thinking, curriculum, technology, time and place, co-teaching and student responsibility.

Chen chairs the New Jersey-based Panasonic Foundation, which supports superintendent leadership and school improvement. He is on the board of directors for Sesame Workshop, the San Francisco School Alliance and ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career. He also is on advisory boards of the National Park Service, Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media at St. Vincent College.

"We established the Dean's Distinguished Lecture in Global Education with the aim of advancing K-21 global and online education," said Michael Bullis, dean of the College of Education. "By engaging the region's educational and administrative communities, along with related disciplines in higher education, STEM [educators involved in science, technology, engineering and mathematics] and cultural arts instruction, in a substantive discussion of teaching and learning for global educators, we can move instructional design and delivery forward together."

Also supporting the lecture series is Yong Zhao, the UO's presidential chair for academic extension and director of the Institute for Global Education.

Media Contact: Julie Brown, UO media relations, 541-346-3185, julbrown@uoregon.edu