Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Chris Lehmann: The Pedagogical Visionary of School 2.0

Chris Lehmann is the principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the most visionary school administrators in the United States. Chris will be keynoting the “Leading the Change” strand in the FREE 2008 K-12 Online Conference in October, and shared a fantastic presentation today at NECC 2008 in San Antonio entitled, “School 2.0: Combining Progressive Pedagogy and 21st-Century Tools.” The official program description of his session was:

In our hurry to learn “What’s new,” we can’t lose sight of “What’s best?” Examine using the new tools in a school-wide, constructivist manner.

Chris was gracious to allow his session to be shared live over Ustream.tv and recorded. We had as many as 68 guests in the backchannel Ustream discussion as well as viewing the preso online live. This was a mix of both people attending face-to-face at NECC and viewing the presentation remotely. An archived version of the Ustream video is available, and I will later publish an audio-only recording of this great session.

Free .TV show from Ustream

Following Chris’ session, we recorded some audience feedback in the hallway, and Chris himself came out and shared some additional reflections and thoughts about both the presentation content as well as the challenges which lie ahead for him and his faculty at SLA. He also fielded several questions which came in from remote viewers over Ustream. Many, MANY thanks to Ginger Lumen for generously loaning me her Macbook Pro to stream and record this session over Ustream! (My Macbook has been having some Ustream hiccups lately which I’m going to get resolved when I return home to Oklahoma later this week.) This was a fun bit of citizen journalism at NECC 2008!

Webcast powered by Ustream.TV

Chris did a fantastic job articulating the pedagogical vision which guides SLA and defines it as an exemplary 21st century school using digital tools for collaboration, creation, and ongoing assessment.

For a bit more discussion about Chris as well as the other keynoters for the 2008 K-12 Online Conference, check out our latest conference convener’s podcast “Inside K12Online Episode03: Keynote Speakers and Committees for 2008.” Also, if you have not already, be sure to subscribe to Chris’ blog at practicaltheory.org and follow Chris on Twitter. You can also listen to Chris’ thoughts in the March 2008 COSN panel discussion, “Unleashing the Transformational Power of One-to-One Computing in K-12.”

If you’re interested in learning more about the 2008 K-12 Online Conference, be sure to attend the NECC session “The Magic of Digital: Collaborative Interaction in Teacher Professional Development” tomorrow (Wednesday, July 2) at 10:30 am US Central time either face-to-face here in San Antonio in HGCC 207A, or over Ustream.tv. (Bandwidth permitting, of course.) We’ll update the K-12 Online Twitter account with our Ustream broadcasting status before the actual preso begins.

Technorati Tags:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Posted

in

, ,

by

Tags:

Comments

2 responses to “Chris Lehmann: The Pedagogical Visionary of School 2.0”

  1. Kim Caise Avatar

    Chris’ session was fantasticly (sp?) informative and motivational. I can’t wait for K12 Online Conference – I know we won’t be disappointed.

    Wes, you did a great job moderating the session and interviewing people after the session. Hearing the feedback comments was the icing on top of a delicious cake!

    Thanks to all who helped stream the session and comments so that we can enjoy and learn from the session virtually!