Articles

The US Department of Labor held its' (annual) Workforce Innovations 2008 Conference in New Orleans, LA., July 15-17, 2008. This year the overall theme was "Success Decoded". The conference was opened by Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao and co-hosted by Brent R. Orrell, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training (ETA) and Douglas F. Small, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Administration and National Activity (ETA). The Appalachian Ohio WIRED Initiative was represented at Workforce Innovations 2008 by Bill Sams, Gary Little, Bruce Madson and Tom Stead. The Appalachian Ohio WIRED Grant fiscal agent from WIA No.1, Rosie Picklesimer also attended through her organization. 

The Appalachian WIRED Initiative was asked to actively participate by hosting a booth in the Talent Plaza, a large display area set aside at the conference to highlight innovative programs and concepts. There we had two large plasma screens running simultaneously with information about our WIRED Initiative. One screen alternated between a digital slide presentation that outlined factual information about IDT and a live on-line interaction with our Virtual WIRED office and presentation area located in the Second Life (internet) virtual world space. We demonstrated (among other things) the conferencing ability of virtual world spaces. We had the Principal of a technical high school located in northeastern Ohio (930) air miles away make a "live" appearance through her avatar and give a short talk about why she saw virtual world spaces as an important part of the future curriculum. The other screen had a presentation of video clips of several Ohio University, VITAL Lab projects done in Second Life.  Thank you ETA for providing the booth and equipment for our use.