The Latino Center will expand its Latino Virtual Museum in 2014 with support from Target Corp. This expansion will include an increase of its virtual products and expansion of its current pilot sites.
The museum’s virtual products include a bilingual educator tool kit that highlights Smithsonian digital collections and is available online to teachers across the country. The tool kit will include animation shorts of Smithsonian projects, teacher training e-publications, immersion games, Web books and digital objects that apply 3-D and augmented-reality technologies. These resources will assist educators when teaching STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) subjects and will be available through iTunes University.
In 2014, the Latino Center will also expand its pilot sites for its virtual museum. Currently it partners with the University of Texas El Paso and its Cyber-Share Center for Excellence and Academic Technologies department; the Immersive Education Initiative, an international non-profit consortium; and the National Girls Collaborative. These partnerships have enhanced teacher preparedness in STEAM and aided in improving outreach and mentoring opportunities for Latinos.
More information at: http://latino.si.edu/education/LVM_Main.htm