Skip to main content
Educational Design & Technology

Leaders

Learning Technology Grant Program Overview: Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES Consortium

Award Years: 2018-2021

Target Populations:

The project will include high school students and teachers.  Specifically, secondary students in the 26 school districts in Wayne, Ontario, Seneca, Yates, Livingston, Genesee, and Wyoming counties.  These districts are in the EduTech Regional Information Center; part of Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES (WFL BOCES) and serve component districts of WFL BOCES and Genesee Valley Educational Partnership (GV Educational Partnership).  The secondary students will include students with disabilities, English language learners, students from rural school districts, and students from Focus Districts. The project will also serve each district’s Online Learning Coordinator(s) with professional development, coaching, and a professional learning community.  In addition, this project will also benefit teachers from each district with professional development on blended learning.

Description of the Consortium Member:

WFL BOCES will serve as the lead applicant and the consortium includes 26 school districts: Attica (Rural, 15% SWD), Avon, Byron-Bergen (Rural), Caledonia-Mumford, Clyde-Savannah (Focus District), Dansville (15% SWD), Gananda, Geneseo (15% SWD), Letchworth (Rural), Livonia, Lyons, Marion, Midlakes (Phelps-Clifton Springs) (15% SWD), North Rose-Wolcott (Focus District), Palmyra-Macedon, Pavilion (Rural), Perry (Rural), Red Creek (20% SWD), Red Jacket, Seneca Falls (Rural), Sodus ( Focus District, 5% ELL), Warsaw (Rural), and Wayland-Cohocton (Rural), and Wayne Central School Districts; and Batavia City School Districts. Many of these districts are transforming their instructional practice to personalized learning which has dramatically increased the need for blended learning.  The project will serve 9,580 students from these 26 districts and five private secondary schools, to include: eight rural districts, three focus districts, one districts with 5% or greater English Language Learners, and six districts with 15% or more students with disabilities. 

Description of Program:

The goal of this program is to offer online and blended courses to supplement districts’ personalized learning initiatives and provide high-quality, rigorous learning experiences to students of all abilities.

We will do this with three main activities:

  1. Develop and provide online courses to include Intro to Engineering, Engineering Design, Introduction to Manufacturing, Computer Science, Foundations of Programming, Computer Coding, Digital Information Technology, Basic Web Design, and C++ Programming.
  2. Develop and offer professional development, coaching, guided practice, and a professional learning community to school Online Learning Coordinators on facilitating blended and online learning, so that districts can build capacity to sustain and scale-up efforts to provide online/blended learning.
  3. Provide blended learning professional development to district teachers.

Challenges will include:

  • Helping students gain success in a new learning model. This will include time management skills, self-regulating skills, advocacy, and collaboration.
  • Modeling best practices for district staff who will act as online coordinators supporting online learners.
  • Teaching classroom teachers how to be a successful blended learning teacher.

Contact Information