Opiniones de Edsby

It is exactly what I've been looking for.

Puntos a favor:

The ease and familiarity of a social media platform with the security and transparency of educational software. I can respond to my students questions from anywhere in the world at anytime and I know that our interaction is transparent for their security and mine.

Puntos en contra:

The gradebook takes some getting used to and doesn't have all of the functionality of a dedicated platform.

K-12 Social Networking Based LMS

Comentarios: Overall, the Edsby platform excels at social communication and K-12 school management. I wouldn't necessarily call it a proper LMS just yet because it only recently added the functionality to build asynchronous courses and import SCORM based learning modules.

Puntos a favor:

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.

Puntos en contra:

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.

Good in single classes, too labyrinthine for a whole courseload.

Comentarios: I've taught and learned via a host of LMSs, and as currently configured Edsby just isn't up to scratch for complete online learning. It works well enough as an adjunct to in-person learning, especially at the elementary level. Parent contacts works well, although my own classes are missing emails and I'm unsure why that is. I haven't used the gradebook yet so I can't comment.
If I was to ask the dev team for 2 things they would be:
1) Make courses pinnable, and possibly even mutable. Allowing user customization will go long way.
2) Separate tasks and discussion. Student comments should never bury teacher announcements.

Puntos a favor:

Generally intuitive and clear. Student and parent contact info is easy to find. Posts are easy to make.

Puntos en contra:

It is remarkably easy to get lost or miss important items as a user of any type (teacher, student or parent). There is no ability to prioritise certain classes or threads, and the only way to post items is in the rolling general chat thread. The pinned item space is a limited area in the left margin, so to find anything you have to (1) go into the correct class/course and (2) scroll down past all other posts (including student chatter) to hopefully find the right thing in the timeline. If students or teachers are registered for multiple classes, there is no way to pin, prioritize or re-organize the order of classes, either for yourself or for your students. This means that 'Homeroom' is buried under a mountain of inactive classes or classes I'm no longer teaching.

Best K-12 LMS I've Seen

Comentarios: We run a school of nearly 900 boys. We communicate with parents and students. We run online courses and we managed to remain fully active throughout the COVID 19 pandemic without missing a day of class.

Puntos a favor:

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.

Puntos en contra:

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.

The Best Educational Management Tool Solution

Comentarios: I find Edsby is the ideal all in one classroom management tool. Edsby allows me to present lessons with a variety of image and video formats, evaluate, post results with comments in a way that resonates with students and is accessible to parents.

Puntos a favor:

1. Intuitive layout 2. Very user-friendly for both teachers and students 3. The ability to incorporate various attachment formats such as .jpeg hyperlinks and .wmv files

Puntos en contra:

I wish when accessing assignments for marking in the grade book the list on the right-hand side would show I have marked it and not require I click on the assignment on the list on the right in order to affect the number of unmarked assignments. I open the assignment and add comments by clicking on the assignment from the list on the grade book screen.

We have had Edsby since its inception. We are pleased with most of what it does and aspires to be.

Comentarios: It connects teachers, students, and administrators together in an effective way. It is a very good student management system and interface that has the potential to be great.

Puntos a favor:

The connections that it allows among families, students, teachers and administrators. The overall look makes sense with grades on one side, the feed in the centre and the courses and libraries on the other side. It is easy to read and fairly intuitive. As an administrator, I like that I can see most everything so with one piece of software, I can get a good sense of what is going on overall but I also can get granularity, as I need. I like the ability to Broadcast messages. I like the ability to get an overview of a student, current as well as past, and a peek into the future re: courses and grades. The Report Card feature works well.

Puntos en contra:

NUMBER 1 by far: There are no administrative master switches to do things such as turn off all grades or make them universally the same for all classes. There are certain times of the year that the look for parents and students should be the same. I either have to get each teacher to do it or give someone access to get it done for everyone. This is annoying. The inability for Edsby to change from day to day re: schedules - so attendance is often difficult to get correct. There is not enough flexibility to do so on our end. So the entire product looks shoddy to parents and students because times are rarely correct. It is tough for our attendance person to determine who is at school and who is not. The calendar is cumbersome. It takes too long to enter items and it is no easy to read. We have to use a separate calendar system. Messages are difficult to sort through (though the new sort feature is a great addition). Looking at past semesters is not easy. There are too many clicks. A single screen with all past grades and links from it would be much better.

Excellent LMS that organizes learning in one place

Comentarios: Overall, I have had an excellent experience with Edsby because of how it organizes all of the important educational resources into one place. I also appreciate how many different features it offers, including courses and groups, and look forward to trying them all out in greater depth.

Puntos a favor:

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.

Puntos en contra:

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.

Edsby for the Classroom

Comentarios: Overall, Edsby has become part of our daily routine at home and school. It is utilized by students, staff and families on a daily basis to keep us connected and organized while providing the opportunity to communicate with each other at a time that suits one's schedule.

Puntos a favor:

Edsby is an educator's dream tool for the classroom. It is an online system that provides the opportunity to plan, create, support and stay connected to each student and their family. Uploaded grades in the Edsby grade book are live as they are shared with a click so students have access to their overall grades at all times. Students have access to their results all semester long versus waiting for midterm and final reports. This enables students to access their learning outcomes and goals while gaining a better understanding of course weighting. As an educator, you can send a broadcast out to students and their parents to update them on upcoming field trips, projects and learning goals. A daily journal keeps students focused on what needs to be submitted as well as insight for students who may miss a day of classes. Edsby interconnects every aspect of learning in the classroom into one multifaceted online program to support the entire educational journey for both the student and the teacher.

Puntos en contra:

The learning curve was not that hard and it did not take long to integrate this into our school community Looking back it was worth the effort to get everyone on board.

Everything you need in one place

Comentarios: Edsby has been very easy to work with. They are responsive and work to find compromises where our district may do something different from the norm. The software has grown significantly over last 5 years and includes much more than we originally planned, making Edsby a powerful tool in our district for communicating with students and parents.

Puntos a favor:

As a parent, I want to be able to see everything my students are doing quickly and easily. Edsby allows easy access to all of my students (I have 4 at 4 different schools!) from one dashboard for any grade level. It doesn't matter if I'm on the mobile app or in the browser, the information is easy to access. I can also reach out directly to their teachers. Recent updates have also enabled push notifications about class updates and messaging. My students enjoy it too as it makes it easy for them to keep up to date on what's going on in their classes - NO MORE SURPRISES! As a district software administrator, Edsby is incredibly easy to manage. The super search feature allows me to quickly and easily access student or teacher information when assisting schools with troubleshooting questions. Granular permissions make sure that the correct people have access to the correct information and not more than they need. EdsbyLink ensures that data imports match our current Student Information System.

Puntos en contra:

New features come fast! Its hard to keep teachers informed of new features as they arrive and help them use the features to their fullest capabilities.

Edsby from a student's perspective

Comentarios: Having used Edsby for the past 3 1/2 years in high school, it is an incredibly useful tool for staying organizied and being successful. I would highly recommend this tool to other schools for its features and ease of use.

Puntos a favor:

-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

Puntos en contra:

-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

I use Edsby as my class website, to track student marks and as my complete daybook.

Comentarios: The best part for me is the Course Plan with the daily organization allowing me to include PPTs, videos, notes, etc...

Puntos a favor:

I like the organization of the Course plan as I appreciate the daily record of my notes and resources. I appreciate the interactive aspect of the wall for classroom participation. It's helpful that handouts can be posted to reduce photocopy waste especially since students often interact comfortably with online text.

Puntos en contra:

The online platform that I used to use for my class website was a lot more visually appealing. The Grade book aspect is a little not-userfriendly and has less functionality that the previous program I used. I would REALLY appreciate the ability to separate formative assessment from summative. For example, I like to use the online multiple choice questions the gauge their thinking as we go; however, when I am looking at their marks, I do not want them to be included. It is significant enough that I will either stop using the online quizzes or I will choose another software for keeping track of marks.

Edsby - best of breed and most comprehensive LMS

Comentarios: Overall: Excellent!
The support is not always as good as it should be, but that is really the only weakness.
The product is second to none.

Puntos a favor:

Comprehensive - it does it all. See https://www.edsby.com/comparisons/?locale=en SO easy to use. The least number of "clicks" of any LMS for a given task. I actually had 2 teachers hug me in the halls after implementing Edsby - it is so much better than muddling along with "freeware" or the many other partial options out there.

Puntos en contra:

There is a constant development of new features, which is great, but is one more thing to keep track of!

Mostly positive--I like being able to do my planning and documentation and gradebook in one place

Comentarios: Better communication with parents and students and more timely feedback. Helps me build a better portfolio on each student so I can look at the whole picture during reporting.

Puntos a favor:

User friendly and intuitive. It's a great communication tool to connect with parents, too, as they can see feedback. I like that I can make observations about students and record anecdotal notes.

Puntos en contra:

Uploading documents to attach to lesson plans rarely works--I often type a whole lesson and then when I try to attach resources it doesn't work and I have to eventually close and then my lesson isn't saved. I don't like that I can't print my lessons, either. I've asked several times for this to be an option.

Default Sort By First/Last Name

Comentarios: Over all I believe Edsby has a TON of wonderful features and could only be improved with some minor tweaks.

Puntos a favor:

I like that I can change the Sort order of the students to sort the list by First Name instead of Last Name.

Puntos en contra:

I don't like that I have to set the SORT order EVERY time I go into my student gradebook - it should be either defaulted to the last setting or let me set my preference globally and have it stay that setting. I also think if I set it to sort by First Name the list should show the names as First Last - instead even though I select to sort by First Name it displays the names in Last First order. :(

Review of Edsby

Comentarios: We got in with Edsby when they were new and very small. They have grown tremendously but still stay connected and grow from interaction with their member schools.

Puntos a favor:

Edsby gives us the ability to connect learners, parents and teachers so that all parties can rally behind the learning and experience of students. It is easy to use and yet has depth which allows our savvy teachers to continue to discover and share features.

Puntos en contra:

There are always ways in which Edsby needs to adjust to new circumstances, but they are quite adept at responding to these new challenges.

Teacher's Point of View Review

Comentarios: Very good. Simple way to communicate with staff and parents and it is a record of that communication that can be easily sought out and reviewed.

Puntos a favor:

I like preparing exams on the site that can be graded automatically and sent to the grade book. I like that they can be timed or not. The fact that a teacher could build a huge library of tests that simply are dropped in to the right spot at the right time is very efficient.

Puntos en contra:

There are a lot of steps and boxes to tick when using the exam bank capability.

Incredible way to efficiently communicate what is happening in the class with students and parents

Puntos a favor:

Students can get assignments and information from the class. Parents can view when assignments and tests are due. Parents and students can follow their progression in the class, which prevents surprises at the end of the semester. Easy messaging system for staff, students and parents.

Puntos en contra:

Sometimes students rely on the information on Edsby too much and don't take responsibility for their own keeping track of assignments. As an administrator, it seems like I can't get rid of old groups which then clutters the management page of groups

The program works, but is not intuitive. You don't naturally figure it out.

Puntos a favor:

There is a chance for technological support. They will try to answer your questions and solve your problems. They do not always come up with a solution right away.

Puntos en contra:

I find that I have to scroll down to do anything because the boxes you need to fill out for the journal entries are too big to fit on a screen. When you make an entry in the journal the first time you need to reopen it to add a unit title...a strange waste of time. When you print off marks, seating plans etc they are WAY too small for most people to see. A seating plan with pictures needs to be big enough to see the faces! Seating plans for split courses cannot be blended together...so they are useless.

Edsby for Gradebook

Comentarios: Overall, Edsby does have some features that are really great. The gradebook and report card are the easiest I have ever used. I would recommend if those features are important to you.

Puntos a favor:

I mainly use Edsby for it's gradebook and report card features. I find it very easy to work with and like to it auto-saves information that is input.

Puntos en contra:

It is not as user friendly for students and parents as it is for teachers and administration. It freezes and locks students out often.

Makes it possible to manage your course and communicate with students and parents easily.

Comentarios: It would be nice to be able to send messages to selected groups of students within a class. Currently I can only post a message to the entire class on the home page, or send individual email messages to students or families.

Puntos a favor:

Available online and as an app - very portable. Prompt customer support. Email notification when someone has sent a message.

Puntos en contra:

Grade calculations are sometimes wonky, particularly at the beginning of the marking period. Messages are forwarded to email, but cannot be answered from there.

Edsby Gradebook Gets an A

Comentarios: I really like that the platform is available on desktop, tablet, and iOS/Android. I have had many parents tell me how easy it is to keep track of student grades.

Puntos a favor:

I like that there were options for students to have digital assignments. I like the “poll” options. I like that it is easy to communicate with my students and other teachers.

Puntos en contra:

I would have liked to make a way to transfer grades when a student transfers classes.

Excellent tool for communicating in one location

Comentarios: No more logging into different applications for different things. News, coursework, attendance, school events and important dates - all right here in one place. And no excuses that information was lost or couldn't be accessed.

Puntos a favor:

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!

Puntos en contra:

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

Great investment and a robust tool. Easy to use for the social media savvy.

Comentarios: Significant increase in parental communications and, consequently, engagement. Happier teachers and academic staff re. attendance, gradebook, and report cards.

Puntos a favor:

Easy navigation and addresses most pressing needs a school has regarding communications and tracking. Plays nice with Maplewood!

Puntos en contra:

Customer support is almost always excellent...but there are times when responses have been slow or problems lingered.

It does some cool extras but has lost some basic necessities.

Puntos a favor:

Communication capabilities within the program that allow for greater communication of various sizes and groups within the school.

Puntos en contra:

some missing basic necessities like easy printing of student database lists (I do alot of out of class events & having access to printing lists based on grades or gender etc) & grades (switching between percent/levels/out of).

A great tool if you buy into it

Comentarios: Although there are always some kinks to work out Edsby is a useful tool for both educators and students, however, it needs a full adoption in order for the true benefits to take effect. I look forward to the continued improvements.

Puntos a favor:

Helping kids organize their assignments and work schedules.

Puntos en contra:

The app is in need of upgrades and certain glitches are left for too long at times making it difficult to sell people on.