Disadvantages of online learning and how to overcome them

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It’s 10:00 a.m. on a Tuesday. Your district’s educators are in the middle of a digital lesson, but do you know what their learners are actually doing? Are they engaged in the math problem on the screen? Or are they in a YouTube Shorts rabbit hole or chatting with friends in a Google Doc?

As a district or school leader, you’ve likely spent the last few years navigating the ups and downs of digital learning. We know that technology has created incredible opportunities for interactive lessons, access to information and preparation for life beyond school. But it has also introduced a unique set of challenges. 

In this article, we’ll break down common disadvantages of online learning and share strategies to easily overcome them so learners can succeed.

Lack of visibility into activity across the class

Why it’s an issue

When learners are not on devices, educators can quickly scan the room to see who’s involved in the class activity and who’s not on task. Learners may be working independently with a notebook and textbook, or they may be collaborating in groups on a project. It’s not difficult to see who is participating fully and who is struggling and needs extra support.

On the other hand, one of the major challenges in online education is that educators can’t see every learners’ screen. They have to walk around the room and peer across learners’ shoulders, which is not an efficient way to manage the classroom. Plus, when students are at home during a remote learning day, educators can’t see any screens, leaving them in the dark as to who is on task.

Often, learners use Google Docs to chat with their friends and disguise their document titles as an assignment. Educators then don’t realize that learners are using class time to chat.

How to overcome it

Educators need a new kind of classroom management solution that gives them direct visibility into learners’ screens. Hāpara Classroom Management is the best way for educators to gain real-time visibility into learners’ online browser activity. 

Hāpara’s monitoring tool for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge allows educators to see learners’ browser activity. From one dashboard, educators can see a real-time screenshot of learners’ browser activity across the class. Or they can see a list of learners’ currently opened URLs. 

Hāpara Teacher Dashboard makes Hāpara’s classroom management solution truly unique by giving educators direct visibility into learners’ Google Drive files and pulls their recent activity into one dashboard. No other solution has this kind of Google Workspace for Education integration. 

This visibility across the class during digital learning makes it easy for educators to check on progress and give formative feedback. It also helps educators see when learners are chatting in Google Docs rather than engaging their assignment.

How educators are using Hāpara to for learning visibility

Educators at Tāmaki College in New Zealand also use Hāpara for visibility into digital learning. For instance, Deputy Principal Russel Dunn explained that Hāpara Teacher Dashboard helps them check learners’ real-time progress in Google Drive files. “We’ve seen a shift in student results and the engagement with their learning because we can go through the Teacher Dashboard and have a look at documents.” 

Digital distractions and tab switching

Why it’s an issue

Educators often say that the issue of student focus is one of the main challenges of online learning. Learners get easily distracted on their devices, and will often quickly switch tabs when their teacher walks by to make it look like they’re on task.

Dr. Dave LaPoma, Assistant Principal at Middle School 74 in NYC, explained that when learners are on devices and have access to the internet, it’s difficult for them to stay focused. He said, “Developmentally [students] have trouble with self-control. When they have all of this at their fingertips, and they know how to access everything, it makes it even harder for them to focus.”

Education Week also reported that a 2022 survey found that “About two-thirds of U.S. students reported that they get distracted by using digital devices, and about 54 percent said they get distracted by other students who are using those resources.” 

Mike DeLeon, an instructional technology specialist in Valley View Community School District 365-U said, “When we transitioned to one-to-one devices, we quickly noticed that it was harder to keep kids on task and focused. We had various ideas on classroom management, but you can only go so far when there’s only one teacher with 25+ kids in the classroom, each absorbed in the electronic device that’s in front of them.”

How to overcome it

Not only does Hāpara give educators real-time visibility into learners’ browsing activity, it allows educators to manage digital distractions and keep learning on track. 

Educators can close a distracting tab for a learner or the class, keeping it off-limits for the remainder of the class period. When educators close a tab, they can also select a reason for closing it, giving the learner digital citizenship feedback.

Hāpara’s philosophy isn’t to police learners. When educators don’t incorporate digital citizenship, learners aren’t likely to learn from mistakes. Plus, it’s exhausting for educators to constantly stay on top of off-task tabs. Instead, Hāpara makes it easy for educators to embed digital citizenship into day to day learning and guide students’ browsing. 

Educators can guide browsing by filtering out websites that are particularly distracting and set the guided browsing sessions to repeat throughout the week or month. 

How educators are using Hāpara to manage distractions

Veronica Prado is an elementary educator in Joliet Public School District 86. She uses the Current Screens view in Hāpara the most to see exactly what learners are viewing in real time on their Chromebooks. If a learner is on YouTube Shorts, for instance, she closes the learner’s tab instantly. 

She then follows up by sending the learner a message with Hāpara’s Announce feature to remind the learner to stay focused. By following up with a message to the learner, it creates another opportunity for digital citizenship reflection. 

In Pasadena Unified School District, educator Lisa Prado uses the Pause Screens feature in Hāpara. She explains, “I’ll use it as ‘I need your attention,’ and I’ll give directions.” This feature allows educators to pause all student browsing activity at once if learners are unfocused. That way the educator can give instructions, have a digital citizenship conversation, relay a school announcement or re-teach a concept.

Phil Ledford is an instructional technology coordinator for Elizabethton City Schools, who adopted Hapara district-wide. He said, “Before Hāpara things were just so difficult in terms of managing student focus.” 

Executive functioning challenges during online learning 

Why it’s an issue

What are executive functioning skills? Brown University states, “Executive functioning is an umbrella term that includes a set of brain functions that help us regulate behavior and meet goals. For children, this could look like being able to stay seated at a desk for a specific amount of time or following multi-step directions to complete a task.” 

Learners at every age are still developing their executive functioning skills. These skills are important to their success at school, ability to graduate and future employment. K-12 Dive wrote, “developing social and emotional skills like executive functioning underpin academic success.”

One of the drawbacks of online learning is that it can be more difficult for students to regulate their behavior, manage tasks and stay organized. That’s because there’s more information and more stimuli pulling their focus on a digital device. Additionally, learners with ADHD face even more challenges with executive functioning in the digital environment.

How to overcome it

Hāpara helps educators offer digital learning experiences that engage students, while also helping them with their developing executive functioning skills. 

Hāpara is the best classroom management solution because it offers several ways for educators to support learners as they build their executive functioning skills. For example, many learners, especially those in elementary school, struggle to type the correct URL and need help getting to a website. Hāpara’s Share Links solves this issue. It allows educators to instantly share a link to learners’ screens, opening the website for them.

How educators are using Hāpara to support executive function

Erica Peters, an instructional coach in Pasadena Unified School District says. “I really think that a lot of our students, especially my school that’s 25% Special Ed, haven’t developed self-control yet, so [Hāpara] is helpful.

Lana Neuman, an educator at Middle School 74 in New York City, uses Hāpara’s Guide Browsing feature to focus learners on specific websites. She can create a Focus Session so that her learners can only visit a specific set of websites during the lesson. 

She also uses the Freeze Tabs feature to focus them on the tabs they have open so they stay focused on their science activity.

Digital learning safety concerns

Why it’s an issue

The internet provides many opportunities for engaging and meaningful learning experiences, but it also creates safety issues for our students. This could include cyberbullying, malicious content, scams or identity theft. 

How to overcome it

Hāpara gives educators the visibility and control they need to ensure that learners are browsing safely. As mentioned, educators can close unsafe websites immediately and block them for the class. They can also create guided browsing sessions that filter out unsafe websites or focus learners on a set of safe websites for their lesson. 

Hāpara’s unique Google Drive integration gives educators direct access to learners’ Google Drives files. They can monitor their usage and check that they are using and sharing documents safely. 

Hāpara is also proud to partner with Gaggle to offer their dynamic AI web filter to keep digital learners safe across the district.

How educators are using Hāpara to keep digital learners safe

Kim Kim Knigge is the Coordinator of Instructional Technology at Joliet Public School District 86. She says that Hāpara “helps assure parents that the district is prioritizing online safety. It’s a great thing to be able to tell parents that we have this in place to make sure their students are staying safe.”

Educators stuck behind their computer screen

Why it’s an issue

During digital learning, educators don’t want to be tied to their computer one hundred percent of the time. Good teaching means that educators walk around the room, help individual learners or groups, answer questions and gather formative feedback. 

This is not only important for positive relationship-building, but it’s also essential to support learning growth. Walking around the classroom, though, makes it challenging to monitor what all learners are doing on their devices.

How to overcome it

Hāpara offers a feature that allows educators to keep track of learners’ browsing activity without needing to be tied to their computer during class. The “Record” feature gives them the option of recording the websites learners visit through the class period. 

They can then later review the browsing history and make note of off-task behavior and on-task behavior, and follow with learners who need extra support. This allows educators to engage directly with their learners while gathering data on digital learning.

How educators are using Hāpara to manage their classroom

Another way educators can manage their digital classroom without being stuck behind their device is by projecting their Hāpara monitoring screen to encourage transparency. 

Bobbie Jo Sorenson, an educator in Appleton Area School District, uses Hāpara to keep learning on track without staying behind her computer so she can freely move around her classroom to support learners. She said, “It gives a level of accountability to students. I oftentimes will put Hāpara up on my interactive teacher screen. If we’re doing a test, I’ll have it up on the board.”

Reliance on AI

Why it’s an issue

AI is here, and learners know how to access it and use it. Educators need to include AI usage in digital citizenship lessons and conversations so that learners understand when it is appropriate to use it and when it’s not. Otherwise, learners may rely on AI to do all the work for them.

How to overcome it

Hāpara helps educators manage appropriate AI usage during digital learning. For example, an educator can use Share Links to open the site for an online assessment directly onto learners’ screens. Then they can use Freeze Tabs to restrict learners from opening another tab such as a link to an AI tool. 

Hāpara Teacher Dashboard also makes it easy for educators to quickly view learners’ Google Drive files from one dashboard. They can click on a file and then view the version history to review any suspicious activity, such as copying and pasting large sections of essays, which could indicate inappropriate AI usage.

Overall, is online learning better or worse than traditional classrooms?

Online learning has many benefits, creating an engaging and interactive experience for students. But it requires a different support system than traditional learning. If you put students in a digital environment without browsing guidelines or safety parameters and don’t give educators visibility into their learning, students will struggle. However, if you give educators the tools they need like Hāpara Classroom Management, it makes it easy to set learners up for success.

Mike DeLeon of Valley View Community School District 365-U emphasizes that with Hāpara, “Educators get to carry out their lessons the way they need them to be, and they’re gaining back instructional time because they don’t have to meet with kids about digital behavior or redirect them the old-fashioned way.”

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is the biggest disadvantage of online learning, and what is the solution?
The main disadvantage is that educators can’t see online activity across the class, so it’s easy for learners to get distracted and lose focus. Tools like Hāpara help solve this by helping educators monitor student activity in real time and reduce distractions.

Why do students face executive functioning issues during digital learning?
Online learning requires students to have strong focus and self-control, but it’s difficult for kids and teens to resist distractions. Hāpara’s Guide Browsing feature helps by allowing educators to focus learners on specific websites, keeping them on track. Educators can also open websites directly onto student screens to help learners who struggle with typing or finding their way to the correct website.

How can educators help learners overcome digital distractions?
Educators can use Hāpara’s classroom management tools to address distractions. With features like Announce and Chat, educators can send personalized messages to learners who need reminders to focus. The Freeze Tabs feature locks learners onto specific tabs, preventing them from accessing unrelated websites. Educators can also see what learners are doing online in real time and close distracting tabs, helping everyone stay on task.

What makes online learning successful for learners and educators?
Online learning works best when schools offer solutions that make it easy for educators to address the challenges. Tools like Hāpara Classroom Management give educators real-time visibility to help learners stay focused and safe online.