Professional development occurred virtually during Year 3 of the Learning Technology Grant program for teachers and administrators. The programs we used included CoderZ, which allowed students to engage in Lego engineering virtually and for the establishment of a virtual classrooms where teachers, students and administrators could interact.

Once the LTG educators received training, the CoderZ program was provided to each school for weekly sessions with facilitators from Computer Adventures. Students learned advanced coding and engaged in both science and math lessons in order to program their virtual robots. The robots were programmed by students to create designs by utilizing a variety of tools and through movements controlled by the students. At the conclusion of this program, the students held a virtual showcase in which they showed their projects and demonstrated how they developed them and what they learned.

Additional professional development during the year included using the Microsoft Suite of programs, a goal of the original grant application. These trainings were facilitated by Microsoft trainers and included: Teams, PPT, Sway, OneDrive and the Immersive Reader functions. Nearpod was another instructional technology platform in which professional development on how to use the platform and distinct programs occurred at different intervals during the year. On June 9, 2021, a webinar called “Engaging students in all learning environments” was facilitated by Dawn Bartz, Yonkers Public Schools LTG manager and Nearpod District Strategy Consultant Jess Sangiorgo. The webinar was open to educators throughout New York.