Edsby platform features
Community
Social Classrooms
Edsby creates social media-like spaces for every class in every school in a district. Then it adds the right students and teachers automatically. A safe, structured place for a class to interact & share. Ideal for flipped classrooms and blended learning.
Groups
Powerful ways for students, teachers and parents to collaborate. Convenient, secure & effective. Can be closed or open to an entire school, district or region. Open them to everyone or only make visible to specified roles (e.g. only teachers.) Ideal for teams, clubs, PD & more.
Knowledge Bases
Collate the results of conversations and save related files, links and collaborative text documents in wiki-like knowledge bases.
File Libraries
Files can be captured in class or group Libraries for students or even parents to access. Any recent document shared in a class or group can be preserved in its Library.
News
News unique to a school can be shared at the school level in a “river of news” for students & parents, in front of or behind the Edsby login. District, state/province or national-level streams can also be added.
Confidential Messages
Teachers can email students, parents or anyone else in the district. No email addresses or address book needed. Addresses sync from official systems.
Launchpad
The Edsby Launchpad can be configured by schools, districts and regions to link students, educators or parents to other approved resources.
Timetable & Calendar
Class, group and school calendars all roll up into each users’ personal calendars. Integrated with school’s databases & attendance, so parents also see if their kids have been marked present or late.
Teacher Collaboration
Special Edsby professional development groups allow teachers to collaborate on curriculum and work together, even across a district or region.
Google & M365
Tight integration with Google Workspace for Education and Microsoft 365. Students can log in with Google or Microsoft, upload documents and more.
Classroom Management
Seating Plans & Rosters
Each Edsby class shows where students are seated in the room. Ideal for beginning of term or substitute teachers. Teachers can print lists of their students in several handy formats.
Content Builder
Author courses in units, tag to standards and organize with lesson plans, journals, homework, online tests and more. Copy & paste from web content and Open Education Resources. Rearrange and re-use content. Import from IMS Common Cartridge, ePub, SCORM, or access via LTI.
Import Curriculum
Import from SCORM, Common Cartridge, ePub and Moodle format. Link to other content and applications through LTI.
Emotional Check-Ins
Enables students to share how they’re feeling with their teacher(s) and presents research-based strategies so educators can help them be as ready as possible to succeed.
Polls
Teachers can ask students to weigh in on subjects. Results can be shared with students or not.
Attendance
Comprehensive real-time online attendance. Integrates with official systems of record. Provides sophisticated late slip handling, management of planned absences with parents and works on mobile, too.
Upload Safety
All uploaded files are virus checked. Media files are transcoded so they can be opened by any device.
Visualizations
Class Perspective shows graphical representations of student achievement in classes. Teachers can easily spot outlying students or gaps in instruction.
Realtime video, whiteboarding
Tight integration with Microsoft Teams and Zoom allow classes to meet face-to-face online without outside security risks or impersonations or other system abuse by students.
Learning Object Repositories
Learning Object Repositories (LORs) enable curation of content so it can be easily searched and reused at district and/or school levels.
Models
Settings can be defined in course models so that, for example, all Grade 5 math gradebooks show strand averages so teachers don’t have to set them up. Curriculum and official resources like textbooks can also be defined.
Assessment & Reporting
Feature-Rich Gradebook
An advanced gradebook enables electronic submissions and easy sharing of results with students and parents. Supports summative & formative assessments, advanced schemes like rubrics & more.
Online Testing
Create and re-use online tests with a variety of question types, many with automatic grading. Grades appear in the gradebook. Manage questions in question banks.
Standards Based Grading
Tie assessments, observations, evidence of learning artifacts and more to state, provincial or federal expectations, outcomes or standards. Track standards coverage by class or individual student.
Document Markup
Grade and mark up popular electronic document types with rectangle, pen, text and highlighter tools. Teachers choose when to share annotations with students and parents.
Learning Evidence
Educators can record student learning with photos, videos or other documents to capture progress or demonstrate mastery. Can be mapped to standards, shared with parents and analyzed at reporting time.
Weighting
Assessments can reflect a teacher’s professional judgement about how much a test or essay etc. should be worth towards a final grade.
Grade Override
Teachers can exercise their professional judgment and override calculated grades in gradebooks and report cards.
Report Cards
Teachers can use Edsby to finalize report cards and submit them to the office. Official reporting schemes and report card layouts can be used. Comments can be freeform or from official comment sets.
Portfolios
Electronic portfolios of students’ best work are maintained by the student and can be viewed by parents. In earliest grades, teachers can place items into students’ portfolios on their behalf, adding first records of their learning journey.
Observations
Teacher observations on a student are recorded and visible to school or district staff having permission to see them, including the student’s other current teachers.
Subjective Performance Indicators
Color-coded symbols give teachers an easy way to informally communicate to students and parents how well a student is doing at something.
Badges
Confer badges for student achievement. Or use badges for teacher certifications or professional development.
Charts & Graphs
Data visualization courtesy of Microsoft Power BI embedded.
Dynamic Insights
Real time insight using live, up-to-date data.
Access Management
Comprehensive permissions system synchronized with district or region databases ensures teachers only see information on students they currently teach.
Integrated Actions
Message stakeholders or meet online in Edsby, assign at-risk students into groups and more.
Intervention
Monitor Groups
Manage students needing special attention so educators can collaborate on strategies for success.
Progress Reports
Progress Reports can be shared with students and parents and can also be accessed by guidance counsellors when setting up meetings with students and their parents.
Panorama
On one screen, educators can access everything relating to a child’s education, incl. current grades, parent info, attendance, discipline, progress reports, learning evidence, IEPs, report cards, portfolio, alerts, schedule, teacher observations & more.
Parent Engagement
Parent Support by Design
Great parent support was built into Edsby from day one. Parents aren’t an afterthought.
Flexible Account Setup
Parents can be imported from existing systems and lists. Or Edsby can be used to safely register and connect parent accounts to those of their children.
No Email Addresses
Parents and teachers don’t need to know each other’s email addresses to message each other. Teachers don’t need to manage parent email address books.
Parent Teacher Conference Booking
Schools and districts can use Edsby to manage parent teacher conference scheduling.
Full or Partial Visibility
Parents can see as much as, or as little as, a teacher chooses to show them about what’s happening in their class.
Voice and Video Comments
Parents can make encouraging voice and video comments on their children’s work, incl. Portfolio entries.
Planned Absences
Parents can use Edsby to schedule planned absences of their children from school.
Permission Forms
Teachers can send field trip permission and other requests to parents. Teachers receive a running list of parents who’ve responded. Permission slips are never lost.
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Two-Way Integration With Legacy Systems
Remarkable two-way sync with existing systems for student, teacher, class, daily schedule and other info. Connects with SISes/SMSes, HR databases, Excel files, CSVs and other structured data not normally available.
Single Sign-On
Use existing LDAP and/or Active Directory for user authentication. and perform Single Sign On (SSO) with Kerberos, oAuth, Google Workspace for Education or O365+Azure.
Data Consolidation
Data from many sources can be consolidated and normalized. Proprietary and open protocols can then share data selectively with other systems consistent with customers’ policies.
Safety & Access Control
Designed for the unique needs of K-12, where safety of students & their data is paramount. Manages access of students, parents, teachers and school and district staff to ensure the right people get access to the right info.
LRS
A learning record store (LRS) tracks student activity within the system. Also tracks history of changes made to content. Enables powerful analytics.
Data Sovereignty
A leading global Microsoft partner, Edsby is hosted in Microsoft Azure datacenters around the world. Customers’ sensitive student data stays in their region.
App Framework
Need something Edsby doesn’t do today? Custom apps can be built leveraging Edsby’s infrastructure. E.g. custom registrations, credit recovery, substitute teacher mgmt or more.
APIs
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are available for tight interoperability with other systems.