Delaware’s Department of Education announced Monday that it has signed a contract with New York City-based Schoology to implement a new learning management system in more First State schools.
The Schoology LMS will allow teachers to distribute documents and assignments, provide feedback to students and post grades more efficiently online. The LMS will also help teachers align their curricula more closely with the national Common Core standards.
Michael Watson, chief academic officer for the state DOE, says the new system is more in line with how students in the digital age approach learning.
“It’s the adults who I think need to change,” he said. “Our kids are already mobile, they’re interactive and collaborative in the way they’re approaching learning. This system fits in with the world that our students live in today and the way in which they think.”
Watson says a function of the LMS will let teachers access Common Core strategies that have worked with other educators.
“We are now working on building an app in Schoology so all of our Delaware teachers can click on that application and immediately teachers have at their resource a whole host of lessons that have been vetted by Delaware teachers and built by Delaware teachers,” he said. “And of course they have additional lessons that have been built by educators from around the country.”
Eight Delaware school districts already use the LMS. The Department of Education says it expects districts serving an additional 40,000 students will sign up to use the system through the 2015-2016 school year, with more signing up in subsequent years.
