4 steps to a useable LMS

Jon Butcher of St. Andrew’s College with students at the private boys school.

The educational publication Edudemic has published an article authored by Jon Butcher of prestigious private school St. Andrew’s College detailing keys to the organization’s use of its Edsby LMS.

Edsby adoption at St. Andrew’s is 100%; all students, teachers and parents use the system, according to school officials.

According to Butcher,

We implemented a full one-to-one laptop program in 2002, moving to pen-enabled tablet PCs in 2008, and implemented Edsby as our LMS in 2012. Instead of installing an LMS simply for the sake of having one, schools would be better off focusing on their unique pain points and on how an LMS can address them … Above all, students, teachers, administrators and parents all need to believe the system adds value. Without buy-in – most importantly from teachers, every LMS is doomed to be “shelfware.”

Butcher details four factors critical to Edsby’s widespread adoption:

1. Put teachers first

2. Focus on features that do the most good

3. Make the connection (with your SIS), and

4. Push for customization

Read the Edudemic article, with detail on all 4 of Butcher’s points, in its entirety here.

St. Andrew’s College has been using Edsby for three years. Read a detailed profile of how it uses Edsby here.

Dallas Kachan

Dallas Kachan is VP of Marketing at Edsby. He has led, worked with or consulted to dozens of technology firms in Silicon Valley and Canada over thirty years. He was the original vice president of sales and marketing for SoftArc, developers of FirstClass, credited as one of the first internet-based LMSes. Dallas was managing director and head of global marketing for the Cleantech Group, the organization that founded the cleantech investment theme, and served on the board of the U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business’ Cleantech Institute. He is the author of the travel and adventure novel, The Starship Diaries.