Edsby

Edsby is a learning management system for K-12 school districts. It provides administrators, parents, teachers, and students with all school-related information such as attendance, grades, upcoming assignments or school events, and academic material all in one place. Edsby is available at an annual rate.

APPROACH

All users start using Edsby by entering in their username and password.

From their home dashboard, students view their classes and respective grades, relative club or sports groups, upcoming assignments or school events, recent activities, class schedule and time table, and recent peer or teacher messages. Students select the ‘pinned items’ or ‘library’ dashboard to view teacher-posted files, pictures, videos, links, and course plans relative to their classes. Via the messaging tool, student users can message each other, their groups, leave comments on posts, or privately message their teacher.

Parents view school events, important parent information, student school work and coursework all from their home dashboard. They use the messaging tool to message teachers and other parents.

Teacher users view Edsby-organized, relevant, and recent conversations, upcoming class and school events, their class schedule, and an overview of student profiles, grades, and progress from their home dashboard. They post grades for students using the gradebook tool. They use the course plan template tool to create units, lessons, files, and assessments which are automatically uploaded to their respective students’ ‘Library.’ Using the messaging tool from their home dashboard they can message parents and students privately. Using drop down menus, teachers add homework and other assignments to the class calendar; Edsby automatically notifies students and places reminders on student dashboards. To view any student profile in more detail, teacher can search their name in the search bar at the top of their home dashboard interface, or hover over their picture in a comment or message feed to go directly to their student profile.

Administrators view all collected district student, parent, and teacher information from their ‘panorama’ dashboard. Similarly to teachers, they need only type in a student name in the search bar or click a student or teacher’s profile picture to be taken directly to their profile. From here they view calculated grade averages, student attendance records, and student class schedules. Using the calendar tool, administrators can schedule an absence for themselves or teachers, notifying the office and other administration staff ahead of time. From their home dashboard they can reset student usernames and passwords as needed, or contact parents and teachers via the messaging tool. From their ‘Zoom’ dashboard, administrators can also view administrative information for a particular school in the district such as the availability of maintenance workers, classes in session who have not submitted attendance records, or free teachers who can substitute for other teachers. They use ‘facet’ on the left of their dashboard interface to set metrics. Faculty, staff, and groups who meet these metrics will appear in the dashboard feed for administrators to contact. Administrators can export all information from Edsby to Excel or other external document systems. 

PRICING

Edsby is purchased by district administrators for all teachers and students in the district. The tool costs $5+/year/user; prices may change depending on the features implemented. Parent accounts are free.

WHO IS USING IT

Edsby does not disclose its total user figures, but as of October, 2014, more than 250,000 students and teachers in over 300 schools were using Edsby in a single district-wide implementation in Hillsborough County Public Schools in Florida.