Tech problems mar 1st day of distance learning in Minnesota

Technology problems marred the first day of distance learning for thousands of students across Minnesota.

Monday marked the first official day of distance learning since school buildings were closed down by Gov. Tim Walz earlier this month because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

And with students in most other states doing the same, the sheer volume of traffic heading to the online teaching programs led to some tech problems.

Users of one of these services, Schoology, reported crashes and being booted out of the system, as well as problems logging in and loading programs.

Schoology tweeted on Monday that it was aware that some users were "experiencing degraded service," and that its engineers were working on a fix.

Among the school districts reporting problems was Faribault Schools, which said schools and Minnesota and beyond was experiencing errors in not only Schoology, but other educational software applications including SeeSaw and Flipgrid.

St. Cloud Schools reported the same issues, tweeting: "Our Distance Learning platform, Schoology, is currently experiencing delays in service.

"The company is aware of the problem and working to resolve the issues as quickly as possible. Please have your student attempt to log in to Schoology periodically throughout the day."

Distance learning will continue for Minnesota schools until at least May 4, and depending on how the efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 are progressing, could be extended further.