Virtue Foundation Hosts Digital Teaching Conference with University of California, Berkeley and the University of New Orleans on May 18, 2007 in New Orleans.

The conference is designed to provide state-of-the-art digital teaching skills to teachers and other educational stakeholders, who are participating in the Virtue Foundation Katrina Education Initiative, a technology-enabled educational pilot initiative that provides 21st Century learning opportunities for children in schools affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Since the initial launching of this initiative in 2005 at the “Louisiana: Rebuilding through Education” forum, the Virtue Foundation has shared a common commitment to helping provide the students of Louisiana with a 21st Century education. To this end, Virtue Foundation donated laptops and software licenses worth more than $1 million to schools in 9 school districts throughout Louisiana and spearheaded the development of a state-of-the-art technology-enabled educational model for all students throughout the state.

This digital teaching professional training conference will introduce teachers to tested software and online resources for online classroom activities developed by the University of California, Berkeley, School of Education, such as digital storytelling; poetry and short narrative exercises; the exploration of online resources relevant to various academic disciplines; virtual community tours; and online mentoring and tutoring through partnerships with universities and colleges.

These engaging, guided learning activities for K-12 are designed to build basic literacy knowledge and skills, information literacy, English fluency, and to bring students up to grade level or above in math, science, and English language arts. This interactive training conference will train teachers by actively engaging them in the activities and resources that they will later use in their classrooms or in after-school settings.

Working in collaboration with the State of Louisiana, the Office of the Governor, the Louisiana Department of Education, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Louisiana Board of Regents and other local and national institutions as well as its corporate partners, Apple and Microsoft, the Virtue Foundation is committed to the continued development of an innovative, technology-enabled educational paradigm that will assist in rebuilding Louisiana and spurring economic development by revitalizing the schools and providing Louisiana’s students with a 21st Century education.