Edsby

Avantages

The company is based in Ontario, Canada and focuses on K-12 education which is exactly where my school lands. As a result, many of the changes and customization are geared towards my school. Most the major LMS companies are based in the US so their focus is naturally there.

Inconvénients

It seems like the number of customer service staff has not grown at a rate that can accommodate the number of clients that Edsby is accumulating. This has resulted in excruciatingly slow response times, especially around September and October.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Edsby 

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Pourquoi passer à Edsby

Avantages

The set up is very easy, the functionality is incredible, and the end user experience is great. Whenever I show new teachers how to use Edsby, they are amazed at how simple it is and just how many features they can use to enhance their classroom experience.

Inconvénients

There are a few customizations that would be helpful - the messaging feature could be improved with the storing of messages in folders for easier access for example.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Edsby 

Pourquoi passer à Edsby

Avantages

-Edsby effectively aggregates all my school-related info in one place - the class page is the most useful in showing lesson content, unit plans, daily journals, and upcoming assessments on one page
-I can (obsessively) check my current grades for any class at any time
-It's easy to keep up with school news and extracurriculars in different groups
-Office Online integration enables me to view Word/PowerPoint/Excel documents without having the desktop apps installed

Inconvénients

-Certain features from the August 2018 update are undeveloped, such as the Emoji confidence indicator and document preview in the Content library
-The iOS app feels slow and buggy; it can take several seconds to load some class pages or groups

Avantages

It helps parents and teachers communicate.

Inconvénients

There is no customer service to deal with issues that come up.

Avantages

Edsby is a one-stop shop for educators. It combines all the basic everyday functions, like taking attendance, updating daybooks/lesson plans (journal), and assessing learning, into one convenient place. The journal feature is especially useful as it allows students to follow along with a course if they are absent, saving teachers from needing a "what you missed" folder. In the journal entry, teachers can type up the class agenda, include links to resources, and attach any necessary documents. For evaluation, the Edsby Gradebook allows teachers to set up course breakdowns at the beginning of the year (easily copy from one section to another) and then create a wide variety of assessments that directly get entered into the Gradebook or formative assessments that allow educators and students to track learning over time without impacting a grade. Edsby also allows users to select various methods of assessing learning, such as letter grades, percentages, learning skills, creating rubrics, or simply entering a "mark out of". Then a variety of reporting formats are available, including generating a report of incomplete assignments or filling in report card comments. Edsby also allows for creating whole courses that can be shared between teachers, a feature I am still exploring. Outside of courses, Edsby's groups allow for collaboration between teachers and students. Professional Learning Communities are especially useful and allow teachers to share resources.

Inconvénients

Though Edsby's messaging feature is convenient for communicating with students and parents, the interface is not as well organized or sophisticated as other messaging platforms. Not being able to sort chats, rename a group message, or thread messages makes it difficult to organize messages.
The Edsby phone app is also difficult to use. The interface is clunky, making it difficult to navigate to the pages one is looking for.

Avantages

I like the ability to be able to copy an assignment to multiple classes rather than creating it multiple times. I also like the ability to create assignments student can complete online with auto grading. That is a huge time saver.

Inconvénients

There were quite a few things that could be improved. The reporting of progress alerts was not the best and the presentation of a line graph as the first view for students as opposed to actually seeing the list of assessments with scores was always problematic. Many students never figure out to click on the next tab and never had a good grasp on their scores. Also, there were some features that were really handy that I NEVER knew about in 3 years of using this product, until all the e-learning took place and there became a sea of information to sort through. Although overall a decent product, I could continue...

Avantages

The ability to make online quizzes/tests that auto-grade and enter into the gradebook

Inconvénients

Where to begin...
I'm amazed that any LMS software does not have an import/export feature for it's test bank.
I've had numerous times that multiple choice test questions had blank answers when the students took the test - although this should be 'impossible' since when MANUALLY typing in each question and answr choices, it will not let you save a blank answer.
When cross-posting assignments, some propagate when edited and some do not. But nothing on the entry screen tells which ones.
There is no way to enter in a test/quiz grade manually for students that require alternative testing methods - unless you change the online submission type to 'none' - which then deletes the info for all of the students that took the online test.
and there are NO UNDO options.
On many screens where an information bubble pops up - it remains there no matter what is clicked on and you have to reload the page to make it go away.
For assignments with a letter grade - there is no option to give a ZERO - and a U does not calculate in as a zero.
New pinned items go at the bottom when they should show at the top - or at least give an option without having to manually drag it.
Anytime I have opened a ticket with support - I either get no answer, an answer that is later contradicted when I ask for more detail, or a "working as designed" with absolutely no offer to consider that ALL of our teachers would logistically prefer a feature to function differently

Avantages

Layout is standard across the board for every subjects for students.

Inconvénients

Every time, when you move a unit, the assignments due date within the unit change to a default time due at 12:00 am. Best if the assignments due time default to at the end of the school date (3:45 pm or 4 pm) make more sense.

When updating entries in "Planner" the screen does not stay at the date that was updated. Instead, it moves to the beginning of the school year. Very annoying that I have to scroll back down.

Avantages

Meets our government regulatory compliance requirements. Awesome gradebook. Solid report cards. Pulls parent contact information, student contact information, teacher contact information, rooms and schedules from our SIS nightly. Changes are not updated in real time, but are updated within one day.

Inconvénients

New features and updates are rolled out seemingly at the last minute. (ie 7pm notification of an overnight upgrade). Does not match the school year. Pull integration only with our SIS. Rigid roles. Parent account creation for parents that we want to authenticate with AD is problematic. Support department is only 2 people. Attendance is difficult. Does not allow users with multiple roles, ie teacher who is also a parent. Developments don't necessarily match school year. Lacks a threaded discussion board. Planning does not support backwards design. Calendars do not at this point have iCal feeds. No internal auditing of planned absences, so if a planned absence exists for a group or a class, if there is a change in the enrollment of the group or class, the planned absence is not modified for the user who changed enrollment. No list of known issues.

Avantages

I like that 'everything" is in one place.
I like that communication with parents (theoretically) is streamlined.

Inconvénients

I hate the gradebook. It is inflexible and does not give me the information I want.
I don't like that every change is communicated so precisely to parents (for example if I change a grade, it adds a comment - isn't changing the grade enough? I can add a comment if I want to.)
I don't like that each item gives parents the percent it is worth out of the total. It takes away from my professional judgement and allows parents and students to calculate their overall percent which is something our board has opted NOT to tell parent.s

Avantages

Collaboration and having all tools in one package are very important to me.

Inconvénients

Moving between different aspects is a bit clumsy. E.G. from planner to gradebook to report card. Allowing separate windows is helpful.

Avantages

The all-in-one functionality of Edsby is most helpful. Grade book, attendance, announcements, calendar, parent and student records/communication, seating plans, library of course material and bulletins for overarching course goals.

Inconvénients

The Library does not serve me. I have to reupload my course material every time I teach the course, even if I'm teaching the same course twice in the same semester. I have to delete auto-posted files from the feed that end up in the library otherwise it will become quickly over-run, confusing and ineffective as a communicative tool.

Avantages

It helps a lot and helps keep up with grades and is very useful. I would consider it because it doesn't stop working it is fast just remember your user name and password and your grades will pop up

Inconvénients

My only complaint is it works only in portrait mode which is tedious but aggravating. I wish this could be fixed

Avantages

Gradebook
Messages
Posting of Class content for reference
Parent accounts

Inconvénients

Unexpected changes - I know they get announced to us, and this is part of development
How cumbersome it can be for parents to create an account and link to their students
The mobile apps need upgraded in view and performance

Avantages

VERY Student Friendly. Kids can easily navigate and find work

Inconvénients

I wish the weighting of assignments and not just the points that could be scored.

Avantages

We like how the software really mimics conventional social media platforms. My kids are loving it because it feels similar to the accounts they are using on others sites. As a parent, the communication capabilities are really slick.

Inconvénients

Some teachers have complained about the way that other students are interacting with their instructors. It seems like students may have the tendency to be too casual while using this. My kids haven't had this problem, but I can understand how this issue frustrates some of the teachers.

Avantages

I love that teachers, students, parents, and school staff can easily get updates from school administration, check attendance, see grades and course material, all in one place. The user interface is very intuitive, and a great way to disseminate news. It's also a great place for teachers to upload assignments and course material - and the students can access it from anywhere!

Inconvénients

Students want to know how many community involvement hours they have, and Edsby has no means of tracking and communicating this.

Avantages

It's so easy to use when monitoring a school of 650 students and thousands of parents. It's also easy to explain to parents, some of whom do not have a lot of computer experience. It's user-friendly and effective.

Inconvénients

I sometimes have a hard time searching student names. I'll type in a name that I know is there, but it won't pop up. Mostly it works great.

Avantages

Platform, report cards, features, interactivity, customer service (BOB), notifications, groups, platform, security

Inconvénients

It is missing an important feature where teachers should be able to message students ONLY - That is a feature the company had and removed - promising to bring back and improve - has not happened yet.

Avantages

Easy to access all kids and staff and parents! When there is a message I need to send to students who I do not teach - I can find them and communicate with them easily!

Inconvénients

Things get 'lost' in rivers... they need to be 'bumped' to find them again... I have a hard time finding documents that were shared earlier - as they are pushed to the bottom..

Avantages

The communication aspect with home in that parents and students are made aware of the students' academic progress, and kept up to date with the students' daily life.

Inconvénients

The difficulty is that the integration between our current SAS and EDSBY has a daily lag in updating student information from one to other as well as the inability to migrate much information from EDSBY to our SAS.

Avantages

Ease of use.
Responsive customer service.

Inconvénients

The email should be more like email and not a chat.

Avantages

Edsby is awesome and is great for my daily workload. Would highly recommend!

Inconvénients

I have no qualms with Edsby that I can think of at present.

Avantages

I like the sense of community and transparency that comes with the steady stream of information on a daily basis.

Inconvénients

It's busy - there is a lot going on and it's not always fast to access what one needs to find. Results in a lot of clicking to get there.

Avantages

Edsby allows information to be available from one dashboard across various platforms (app, browser). Parents can message teachers directly. It keeps students and parents informed about what is going on in their classrooms. Gradebook and report card functions.

Inconvénients

Software can run slow at times, but that doesn't take away from the capabilities.