The inaugural Digital Learning Annual Conference (DLAC) took place on April 1-3, 2019, and one of the highlights of the event for me was the prominent and focused conversation around research and evidence. In fact, DLAC kicked off with a research community meeting, which attracted almost 50 attendees representing roles from across the digital learning sector. Teachers, administrators, policy makers, service providers, developers, and, of course, researchers attended the meeting to learn more about the existing evidence, as well as how to better connect research and practice.

In her keynote speech at Edgenuity’s 2019 Partner Summit, CEO Sari Factor remarked that other industries have seen dramatic changes in the day-to-day of how they do business based on their innovative uses of technology. Across the country, there are promising school models that are breaking down the traditional structures of our learning system and creating high-quality effective personalized learning programs to better meet student needs, but unfortunately, this shift remains the exception rather than the norm. The transformational promise of online, blended, and digital learning is far from realized in the vast majority of our classrooms, schools, and districts - and consequently, for our students as well. So what is holding us back from truly revolutionizing teaching and learning across our country?

We are excited to share that, as mentioned at the inaugural Digital Learning Annual Conference last week, we have published two new reports - the first of which is the new Keeping Pace report called Snapshot 2019. Snapshot 2019 presents research on policy and practice in K-12 digital learning.

As a child, did you ever play the game telephone? It starts when one person whispers something into another person’s ear and then the message is passed on from person to person. At the end, the message is completely different from what was first whispered. We see this a lot in real life. Unless a person experiences something for themselves, they typically align themselves with what they’ve heard from others!

Major advances in technology over the last three decades have significantly changed how we communicate with each other, especially through the Internet. Today, children are surrounded by technology. From a young age, most learn about how to use the Internet and end up more tech-savvy than many of the adults in their lives. However, being tech-savvy and knowing how to use the Internet doesn’t always mean that children understand how to stay safe online.

Blended learning is helping to unshackle schools from the one-teacher one-classroom model and usher in more creative and diverse instructional approaches. Beyond just restructuring the classroom, blended-learning models are starting to open up new connections and diversify students’ networks. This has huge potential to address not just achievement gaps, but opportunity gaps.

Many of today’s veteran teachers are a part of the generations that grew up without smartphones or Wi-Fi. We learned in classrooms where the overhead projector was cutting-edge technology.

Online learning has come a long way since its early champions saw it as a supplement to classroom learning.

We’ve all heard the saying, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” but recent research by the Institute for Teaching and Leading into educational programs across the country demonstrates that this saying may be even more true than we think when it comes to the digital learning landscape.

As online learning and digital applications expand into almost every aspect of a student’s education and as fully online, blended, and supplemental online course programs continue to expand, state departments and school districts must consider how implementation of this wide range of digital options impacts equity in educational opportunities for families and students with disabilities.