Contact Info: Dara Feldman dara_feldman@mac.com 301-529-1302

Dara Feldman is a National Board Certified Teacher in Early Childhood. She was named Outstanding Elementary School Teacher at the annual Disney Teacher Awards in July of 2005.  In April of 2006, Dara became a certified Virtues Project Facilitator.  Her mission is to put the heart back into the art of education by sharing the Language and Strategies of The Virtues Project to facilitate the transformation of individuals, families, organizations and society as a whole.  Check out www.virtuesproject.com for more information about this incredible project!

Prior to Dara's work on The Virtues Project, she was a kindergarten teacher at Garrett Park Elementary School. In addition to being a  classroom teacher, she was an early childhood instructional technology consultant. Dara provided professional development opportunities for educators around the country helping them utilize technology as a tool for early learning. She also worked with digital content developers and hardware companies guiding them to create developmentally appropriate quality products for young children.

Before returning to the classroom, Dara was the Director of Curriculum Development for PowerUP, which is a non profit organization whose mission is to help bridge the Digital Divide by ensuring that America's underserved young people acquire the skills, experiences, and resources they need to succeed in the digital age. www.powerup.org

Prior to her work at PowerUP, Dara was an expert consultant with the USDE's Web-based Education Commission, which was responsible for writing the report, The Promise of the Internet for Learning. www.webcommission.org

In June of 2000, Dara received the Computerworld Smithsonian Award in Education and Academia for the Early Childhood Technology Literacy Project which she co-created. The project, funded by the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund, focused on ways technology enhances balanced literacy. www.ectlp.org

Dara is past president of the National Association for the Education of Young Children's  Technology Special Interest Forum, a member of the National Education Technology Standards Writing Team for Teachers, an Apple Distinguished Educator, and a master teacher for the National Teacher Training Institute. Dara has wanted to be a teacher since she was in 3rd grade and began her career in education 20 years ago in  Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland where she spent 4 years as an instructional technology specialist and 16 as a classroom teacher, teaching grades PreK-4. She is married and has 2 wonderful children.