Smithsonian Latino Center Educator Training at National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)

The National Girls Collaborative Project will be offering a training to informal educators and teachers to participate in the Smithsonian Latino Center's (SLC) Transmedia Project. The training will take place at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington D.C.

SLC provides bilingual Transmedia resources such as 2D and 3D collections, online games, simulations, and virtual worlds and programs in real-time. The resources highlight the Smithsonian art and science collections as they relate to Latinos. These online resources were created to enhance visitor's knowledge, understanding and appreciation of Latino Cultural Heritage through innovative and engaging online experiences.

SLC has developed two Bilingual Educator's Training Toolkits to support educators with integrating this robust collection of transmedia and virtual exhibits into their existing STEM +Arts programs. The toolkits include virtual exhibitions and animation shorts of Smithsonian projects, e-publications, immersion games, virtual worlds, and digital objects that apply 3-D augmented-reality technologies and Virtual Reality (VR) experiences.

The toolkit includes 13 bilingual lesson plans that explore three themes:

• The American Experience
• Sustaining a Bio Diverse Planet
• Exploring World Cultures

The training will include:

• In-depth review of SLC Educators Toolkit and overview of the 13 bilingual lessons and interactive tools available
• Step-by-step Training of the Day of the Dead and Latino Art Now lesson plans

Criteria and commitment to participate:

• Have access to computers and internet to fully utilize the transmedia resources
• Are able to implement at least one SLC toolkit modules into their classroom or program curriculum in Fall 2016 or Spring 2017 that has Latino students
• Provide feedback and share implementation (curriculum, photos, lessons learned, etc.) of SLC educational transmedia resources into their classroom/program with us
• Complete brief onsite evaluation

There is no cost for this training or access to all SLC materials, including the Educators Toolkits. 

Participants will have exclusive pass to experience two SLC hands-on Day of the Dead VR experiences featured at NMAI's Dia de los Muertos Family Festival October 29-30th.  

Generous support for this program provided by Target, an Education Sponsor of the Smithsonian Latino Center.