SYRACUSE — Wawasee Community School Corp. was one of 32 school districts statewide to be awarded a 2017 digital learning grant by the Indiana Department of Education’s Office of eLearning. This grant supports school corporations in providing professional development, developing content and expectations, creating avenues for parent and student communication, as well as purchasing devices.

Sixty-four districts applied for this year’s grants, but only 32 were successful in making their pitches for grants. Wawasee was awarded the $72,200 it applied for said Joy Goshert, assistant superintendent.

She noted the funds from the grant will be used in three components. One is to send two more technology coaches to the Apple Academy in the summer to learn more about the iPads used by kindergarten through third grade students in the Wawasee school corporation. The technology coaches will then be able to share what they have learned with other teachers. There is at least one technology coach in each school building in the district and they are also teachers.

A second component will be to continue the partnership with Five-Star Technology Solutions. Five-Star came to the school district in the fall for an assessment and the information they shared has been used as professional development and will continue to be shared during the 2017-18 school year.

And the third component will be to provide for some training for administrators on project-based learning. Wawasee is in a partnership with Project Based Learning Ohio. A Dekko grant has already been used to provide project-based learning training for teachers in grades kindergarten through fifth.

The application process for this year’s grants began Jan. 10 and closed Feb. 3. Those who were successful with the first round participated in the second step of the process, a proposal pitch, March 2 and 3. Final notifications were made to the grant recipients Tuesday, March 7.

Wawasee began using electronic devices at the start of the present school year.