15 Digital Learning

Challenges & How to

Overcome Them
An eBook Crowdsourced from the
Schoology Community

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 Digital Learning: Easier Said than Done?

The age of digital learning, along with all the interesting and innovative tools that support it has arrived. But
without a sound strategy and a laser focus on learning outcomes, all the technology in the world won’t make
digital learning work for you.

The good news—everyone’s still learning in the same boat. Those challenges you’re facing right now (or will face
in the future), are virtually identical to the ones other educators and administrators face in their own school or
district.

That’s why we created this ebook, sourcing some of the top digital learning challenges and how to overcome
them right from the front lines. This ebook is for beginner and veteran digital educators. It touches on challenges
and solutions for:

• Overcoming a lack of devices for students

• Letting students learn at their own pace

• Moving educators from digitally illiterate to digitally proficient

• And more

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 Teacher Challenges in K-12

Before jumping right into the challenges and solutions, let’s set the stage by looking at some data from our
2017 Global State of Digital Learning research study. In early 2017 we surveyed nearly 3,000 K-12 educators and
administrators. One question asked to both educators and administrators was around their top challenges faced
during the 2016-17 school year.

Shown below are the challenges faced by teachers (admin challenges shown on the following page). As you’ll
see, the top two challenges teachers faced by far are their students’ access to technology and a lack of time
during the day.

Teachers: What were your top challenges for digital learning in 2016-17?
(respondents could choose multiple answers - top 5 shown below)

Students’ access to technology 39.86%

Lack of time during normal

business hours 36.41%

Multiple digital tools being used for

teaching/learning 30.28%

Lack of digitized curriculum 29.45%

Lack of parent/guardian
involvement/understanding 28.89%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

n = 1,942

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 Admin Challenges in K-12

Administrators, as you would guess, have much broader concerns than their faculty. Defined in our survey
as anyone who is not a classroom instructor for simplicity, the #1 challenge of admin was providing effective
professional development. The challenges of tech infrastructure, lack of collaboration, device management, and
assessing and reporting on instructional effectiveness weren’t far behind.

Administrators: What were your top challenges for digital learning in 2016-17?
(respondents could choose multiple answers - top 5 shown below)

Providing relevant and effective

professional development 41.81%

Technological infrastructure (wifi,

security, etc.) 32.41%

Lack of faculty/staff collaboration 29.98%

Device management 28.21%

Assessing and reporting on

teaching strategy and effectiveness 26.22%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

n = 904

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 Digital Learning
Challenges & Solutions
Note: In the following section, each page was contributed by a member
of the Schoology community—either by a Schoology Ambassador or a
member of Schoology’s staff.

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 Effectively
Gauging Student
Understanding
The Challenge: As an elementary teacher of a
diverse group of fourth graders, I often found it hard to
know if my students understood what I was teaching.
In my classroom, I worked with English Language
Learners, special education students, children with
behavior plans, and 504 plans, and the list of needs
goes on and on. Often times, it was difficult to assess
all of these different students, with all of their different
learning needs, on all of their different levels. It
became time consuming and hard to manage every
end-of-lesson exit ticket and formative assessment.

The Solution: Thanks to Schoology’s LMS paired with Explain Everything, my students were able to
communicate their understanding of what was taught. Instead of writing, students utilized the microphone and
webcam on Schoology to tell about what they learned. They could read aloud books so that I could assess their
oral reading fluency too. Using Explain Everything, students drew on the screen’s whiteboard while explaining
their understanding. This came in handy when assessing math concepts. To top it off, students were then able
to upload their Explain Everything videos to a media album in Schoology where they could help to teach one
another.

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 Moving Educators
from Digitally
Illiterate to Digitally
Proficient
The Challenge: Often called digital natives, our
current students have been born into a digitally
connected world. Recent research indicates there is no
relationship between a person’s age and their ability
to achieve as a digital learner. Teachers recognize the
need to impart today’s students with technological
skills, digital literacies, to enhance opportunities to
contribute in a modern, technologically driven world.

What about teachers? How, when, and where are they developing digital literacies? One proven strategy helping
modern educators improve their digital literacy is the inclusion of technology standards, such as the recently
updated ISTE Standards for Educators, in their professional learning plan.

The Solution: Better described as learning dispositions, the ISTE Standards for Educators provide pathways for
teachers and students to become empowered, digital learners. In my experience as a technology coach, many
teachers are looking for a safe place to practice their use of technology tools, interact with other learners, and
create digital artifacts of their learning. An LMS, such as Schoology, provides just such a place. When learning
objectives are mapped against Schoology features, it becomes apparent educators can enhance digital literacy
by learning effective ways to use Updates, Discussions, Portfolios, Pages, and Blogs in their practice. Developing
comfort, confidence, and competence using these digital tools helps students to become better digital learners.
Teachers can show students that one can be an effective digital learner regardless of age.

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 Ramping Up
Students on
New Digital
Learning Tools
The Challenge: Using new technology in the
classroom is part of being a modern day teacher.
Students love new tools! New tools keep instruction
fun and exciting, but there isn’t much time in the day
to teach students the ins and outs of each new tool.
When you are the only teacher in the room, student
questions can keep you on the run and they take up
too much time. Students need basic knowledge of
tools prior to using them for effective instruction. One
digital challenge is efficiently helping students learn new tools so they can be used to support teaching
and learning.

The Solution: A teacher could use student tech instructors when introducing new tools. Select a small group of
students to be tech instructors. Show the tech instructors the top five features of the tool. These students then
teach their peers.

“Ask three before me” is another strategy. Students must ask three students around them their question before
asking the teacher.

Finally, teachers can give students five minutes of discovery time prior to using the software for instruction. After
discovery time, students share their discoveries. Record the tips and student name on a collaborative document.
During the project, peers consult the document to access feature experts.

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 Inspiring and
Managing
Change at the
Institutional Level
The Challenge: Four years ago I was hired to create
institutional change by having faculty use our LMS as
more than just a place to house a syllabus. Brand new
to the institution, I had to figure out how to “move
people forward on the train” without overwhelming
them (actually, without freaking them out). More
importantly, I had to learn how to use Schoology’s LMS
(luckily, it’s quite intuitive). At Hebrew College, there
were over 1,500 students and close to 100 faculty across the departments. They’d had the LMS for three years
prior to my arrival but never used it deeply, and I was hired to work with faculty after they’d established a
base-level of comfort with the system. My challenge then was figuring out how to create change on an
institutional level.

The Solution: It all comes down to people. What I mean by that is that I tried the large target approach (sending
weekly newsletters about features, offering group classes). I received two types of responses for my newsletter:
the first was the nuanced grammatical issues that would bug a linguistics professor and the second came from
a Dean who wrote, “Send these out quarterly. They are taking up room on my email.” When I offered in-person
group trainings, I was met with ... silence and tumbleweeds. No one showed. I regrouped and tried the one-
on-one method. Lo and behold, it worked. I was able to work with individuals and move them along in their
understanding of how to use the LMS. It is a SLOW process and I am aching for more advice. But, working one-
on-one was a good start.

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 Enabling Educators
to Understand
and Leverage
Technology
Integration
The Challenge: One challenge faced by many
educators is meeting learners at their point of need
when it comes to technology integration. Often times,
educators have not been trained in thoughtfully
integrating technology. Some may be intimidated by
it, others may not see the need for it in their practice,
and others may want to explore every new thing they read or hear about. As educational leaders, we need to
provide our teachers with as much support and as many resources as we can to encourage them to incorporate
technology into their practice and use it to enhance instruction and student learning.

The Solution: To overcome this challenge, it is important to survey teachers’ needs and areas of interest.
Professional learning opportunities should be differentiated to provide the type of support teachers are
looking for, whether that be online or face-to-face. Similarly, it is necessary to keep teachers grounded in strong
pedagogy when integrating technology. One way to accomplish this is to tie tech integration to the 4 C’s. By
having teachers choose a specific student outcome tied to communication, collaboration, creativity, or critical
thinking, technology can truly be viewed as a tool to enhance quality instruction instead of as the end goal itself.

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 Keeping All
Stakeholders Up
to Speed on New
Technology and
Other Changes
The Challenge: As a former school administrator
one of the challenges to embracing digital learning
was creating an internal “new to us” program. When
students come in January, it’s important to ensure
them and their families understand and have access
to our online tools. Teaching is not always a lifelong
job—what do you do with long term substitutes or
mid-year hires? Once you board the cyber bus, can you slow down at times to allow others to board? Who is
responsible? When, where, and how do you train, when everyone is already juggling so much?

The Solution: Our solution was to attach digital training on to typical “new to us” tasks for registrations. Our
counselor met with student arrivals, managing sign-ons and covering Digital Citizenship. Our secretary assigned
families “new school guides.” Cyber-savvy parent volunteers would reach out and invite parents to join our
monthly “Digital Learning” forum and follow up. New teachers were a challenge—they have no availability during
the day to train. Alas, money was the answer. Within the first month of hire, we paid for substitute coverage, to
train “newbies.” Maintaining digital literacy was an afterthought, but it became a purposeful piece of our culture.

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 Getting Past
Geographical
Boundaries to
Connect with
Other Educators
The Challenge: Being the only world language
teacher in a rural school for the past fourteen years
I was isolated in my profession. This caused me to
stagnate in my growth as a teacher and innovator
which in turn directly affected student learning in
my courses.

The Solution: Five years ago I was introduced to using Twitter as not only a professional development tool
but as a way to connect with other educators and experts. The connections I have made and the growth of
my professional learning network have directly impacted my teaching career. Being a connected educator will
benefit your students and inspire you to continue to grow as a professional.

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 Building Your
PLN When One
Isn’t Immediately
Available to You
The Challenge: I work in a rather small school
district. I am the team leader for my English
department for grades 7–12. This team consists of four
core curriculum teachers and two veteran teachers,
who have moved on to other duties, but still teach ELA
elective courses. While I have an amazing team, it is
easy to feel that I am sometimes my own island, being
the only person in the entire district who teaches my
particular courses. I often find myself looking for perspectives and resources, especially in regards to technology,
from outside sources that I can bring back to my team and utilize myself.

The Solution: My online PLN has served as an amazing source of professional development, communication,
and collaboration with other educators. I have used Twitter to connect with administrators, teachers, technology
coordinators, and educational coaches. I’ve gained advice, ideas, and even collaborated with others via email
and Google Docs. Additionally, educational Twitter chats have allowed great opportunities to connect with
others. Closed educational-related Facebook groups have proven to be a great source for sharing ideas and
lesson plans. Finally, the various groups available via Schoology, such as the Schoology educators group and the
Language Arts group, have been continuously helpful.

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 Consistently
Communicating
With Parents
The Challenge: Communicating with parents can be
a tricky road to walk down. Do you send home a paper
newsletter, use email, utilize a teacher webpage, or
post updates via an LMS or education-based app? So
many options. And with all of those options, parents
can quickly become confused. They don’t know where
to check for the information they need, they become
overwhelmed and give up. This is the worst possible
scenario because now the parent isn’t using any of the
communication options!

The Solution: Even though it sounds great, too many options can be too much for parents. Think about
the parent that has more than one student, it truly becomes communication overload. The way to solve this
problem is to streamline. Pick a couple of ways to send out info and stick with them. You might even be able to
combine a couple of the options. Are you using an LMS? Post an update AND attach the newsletter, no need to
also send the newsletter via email. What about the calendar? Maintain your calendar inside your LMS, everything
is in one spot. Let your parents know when to expect updates from you. Every Monday morning send out
“What to expect this week.” Consistency can become your ally, parents will learn when to expect your update,
eliminating that question in their minds of what is happening and what is going on at school. Your ultimate goal
is to make sure the parents receive the information—use technology to your advantage.

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 Overwhelming
When Rolling Out
New Technology
and Tools
The Challenge: One of the digital learning
challenges that I have faced is actually in my current
role as an ITC. Our district decided to go 1:1 and
adopt an LMS in the same year. For our tech-resistant
teachers this was really overwhelming. In fact a lot
of them shut down completely and wouldn’t let
the devices be used in their classrooms at all. The
challenge we were faced with was slowly opening
these teachers up to using technology. What was our best path and how do we bring the teachers along, in
positive and productive manner?

The Solution: The process we have embraced was breaking things down.
1. Talk to the teachers and find out why they are so resistant. A lot of times it was fear of the unknown. It was also
fear because of a lack of experience.

2. We employed a “coaching” model. We went into the classroom, modeled lessons, helped develop lessons, and
we would be there for the implementation of the lesson.

3. Small steps. We only worked one tool at a time and took a very slow pace. One tool at a time. Overall, this was
really successful and we have seen big changes.

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 Gauging Student
Understanding
Beyond Just Tests
& Quizzes
The Challenge: After students asked for the “packet”
that went along with our novel, I realized students
were good at “doing school.” They were trained
to read and answer the questions at the end (or
“borrow” their neighbor’s and copy). I wanted to
deepen students’ interaction with content and give
them an avenue to showcase their strengths and
add to a collective discussion. I began exploring the
question, How can I get students to creatively show their thinking about a reading or other content delivery and
contribute to an authentic understanding and response?

The Solution: This roadblock of “doing school” can be overcome by giving students voice and choice to show
their thinking and understanding. I developed the “CAR” assignment, which stands for “Choose a Response.” By
focusing on learning goals but giving students options about how they achieve those goals, teachers and admin
can increase engagement and creativity. Using an online discussion board like the one in Schoology gave my
students an avenue to share their responses with peers, creating more authentic and motivated students.

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 Providing Relevant
and Effective
Professional
Development for
Teachers
The Challenge: There is a multitude of educational
research and survey data available that reveals a
high percentage of teachers believe their professional
development offerings are not effective, relevant, or
applicable to their professional practice. Are you part
of the group of educators that feel this way? The Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation published an interesting report called Teachers Know Best: Teachers’ Views on
Professional Development that you could dig into if you’re interested in some more information about this. The
Global State of Digital Learning survey that was recently conducted by Schoology revealed similar findings from
administrators who participated in the survey. The #1 challenge reported from administrators in the survey was
providing relevant and effective professional development for their teachers.

The Solution: If you’re part of the group of teachers who feel this way, then I want to challenge you to take your
professional learning into your own hands and become a connected educator. If you’re not embracing the power
of the free digital tools to connect with an expert, author, or educator across the globe within minutes, then
you’re missing out. Below are three quick tips to help you get started building your PLN:

1. Sign-up for a Twitter account and start following and collaborating with educators who have the same
interests as you.

2. Read the book What Connected Educators Do Differently by Todd Whitaker, Jimmy Casas and Jefferey Zoul.
The book will help you build your PLN and help you become a Connected Educator. I use this book with my
graduate students and it changes their entire perspective on professional learning. Be prepared to step outside
of your comfort zone!

3. Find and attend an EdCamp in your area. An EdCamp, commonly referred to as an unconference, is a
participant driven learning event that gives you control over your learning.

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 Finding a “Home”
for Digital Learning
The Challenge: Your district has recently given
every student a device to learn with 24/7 and you
are the excited teacher tasked to transform each
student’s learning. Help! Where do I start? How do I
create and organize content, focus on the 4 C’s and
personalize learning? These are common questions
that invade most teachers’ minds when moving to 1:1
learning environments. In the early stages of 1:1 it is
quite common for teachers to seek a “home” for all
digital content. Not having a “home” is unsettling and
causes a feeling of chaos and disconnected learning.

The Solution: Schoology’s LMS has become the “home” for digital learning in our district. It’s where many
students start and end their day. Teacher’s post daily agendas and let students make learning choices. Students
collaborate, communicate, share their creativity, think critically, and publish their work by participating in online
discussions, assignments, media albums, and assessments. Teachers use GAFE, online tools, etc. that they link
or embed in our LMS, making everything easy for students to access by simply going “home.” The calendar,
grades, and mastery dashboard areas of our LMS assist students in taking ownership of their learning so each
student feels “right at home.”

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 Letting Students
Learn at their
Own Pace
The Challenge: As a Computer teacher in an
elementary school, I would see my students once a
week for forty minutes. Having an average class size
of 20-25, at times I would struggle with how to reach
all learners. While teaching students word processing,
some knew everything about the application, while
others were seeing it for the first time walking into my
classroom. Whether it was computer or science class,
I knew every teacher may face this challenge at some
point. I wanted to figure out a way to educationally
stimulate all digital learners and challenge them at their own pace.

The Solution: Educators can overcome this challenge by creating self-paced units. Using Game Theory and
Schoology, students accepted the mission to complete all challenges in a unit to earn badges. After the required
challenges were successfully completed, I provided the students with BONUS challenges that unlocked top
secret badges. Educationally, this allowed students who were experts to take a more advanced learning path
and provided me the opportunity to spend more time with the students who were seeing the applications for
the first time. Once students completed their challenges, I gave them the chance to be coaches to their peers.
Teamwork!

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 Overcoming a
Lack of Devices
for Students
The Challenge: Not having access to one device
for each student creates a major obstacle to using
technology in the classroom. With a large class of
students, there are often not enough devices to go
around: laptops don’t get charged, another teacher
checked out the laptop cart already, a grant only
bought 10 tablets. This means not every student in the
class can be doing the same digital work at the same
time which requires lateral thinking to plan a lesson
where learners are completing different activities.

The Solution: Station Work! Organizing station rotation lessons can be daunting. The idea of having one group
of students doing something entirely different to the rest of the class means relinquishing some control and
trusting the learners will stay on task with less supervision. An LMS can be a great tool to facilitate this: even with
only a few devices, teachers can organize a small group to use those available and create a folder of content for
students to work through individually. Some LMSs even provide options for pacing students individually, so that
they progress at their own rates and keep them engaged.

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 Final Thoughts

Capitalizing on digital learning means taking advantage of the resources and knowledge at hand, while also
finding new, better ways to advance what’s possible. The educators featured in this ebook identified a challenge
and then—on their own or with a group—made the effort to overcome it.

When multitudes of educators at your institution are working together, that’s when real change starts to happen.
So don’t just wait around for someone else to take digital learning to the next level. Now’s the time to be the
catalyst that inspires change and make a lasting impact.

Want to see an LMS with everything you need

to meet your educational goals? Explore our
platform in a fun, self-guided tour.

SHOW ME

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