Edsby Reviews

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

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

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

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.

Edsby is an all in one solution. I use it for quizzes, rubrics, grade managing and reporting, sharing authentic online resources and scheduling. I love the fact that I can have students write a self-correcting quiz that automatically shows up in the Gradebook module. I have instant access to all my students' contact information, allowing me to easily contact them through messaging. Even though Edsby has a file management system, I can easily integrate Google Drive and other tools within it. It has made one step to closer to the paperless classroom easier. Edsby allows my students and I to stay organised and content and structure can easily be imported into the next school semester/year.

Some glitches are still present in the quiz maker where auto-saving sometimes corrupts the layout of the quiz. Attached files in quizzes get removed when transferring quizzes between folders. The end of unit/cycle names aren't visible in some-drop down menus if they are too long. Self-populating expectations no longer show up when you enter the expectation codes corresponding to them in the assessment creator.

All these are minor glitches that can be ironed out through the customer service ticket system.

Edsby offers a very successful communication tool to schools. Edsby links, Administrators, Teachers, Students and Parents with day to day knowledge of the academic and personal progress of students.

With COVID 19 is would be great if Edsby could integrate Edusafe Screening with their program.

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.

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.

I love how easy it is to enter grades for my students and categorize areas.
It is easy to communicate with students and parents using this platform.

Not being able to utilize Terms. I hate seeing data for the entire year.

Been using Esdby for years, on a daily base with classes, to share or collection information from my students/parents/staff. From the voting buttons, to notifying us when messages have been read and the classroom rosters sheets; Edsby is an Awesome classroom management tool - easy to use too! *****

I'm still waiting for them to put a time stamp feature - which would allow me to select when I want posts to appear to my students.

Clear and easy to use.
Accessible in mobile and regular format.
"One-stop shopping" for your educational communication: space for anecdotal and numerical grades, ability to communicate directly with students and or parents, attendance entry and communication with the office.
Edsby allows parents to monitor their child's completion of assignments, grades, and what has happened each day in class. Students who are away on family vacations or sports trips can keep track of what happens in class. Teachers can post handouts as well, giving students the ability to complete homework even if they forget a binder at school.
Simple and clear format.

I am generally pleased with how Edsby works. Any complaints I have are with small details. For example, the reportcard portion of Edsby lacks some of the features of a dedicated gradebook program. Also, I asked the customer service message board if there was a way to print out the curriculum expectations that we select for assignments (which are already in Edsby) at the end of semester, but have not received a response - customer service was much more responsive a few years ago.

Gradebook is a game changer. The fact that it self-populates at report card time is amazing.

There are frequent problems with sending attachments to students.

Access from anywhere but the teacher app needs more functionality.

The LMS feature could be more intuitive and the teacher app needs improvements for marking.

Easy to use and helps meet the needs of classroom teachers.

Messaging system should be more like email. Deleting and forwarding messages. Report card functions not reliable. Must have folders to store and retrieve comments.

I like the fact that I can communicate with students and parents in terms of due dates, test dates, missed work (I post what I do in class everyday and attach any assignments), as well as progress in the course (missing assignments, marked assignments, etc.).

I don't like how I can't enter multiple mark sets at time. I also wish there were attendance sheets with dates at the top (not the blank mark sheets). I also wish we could make our own names for what goes in the mark bucket (the drop-down list is good, but I wish I could choose the names of some of my items - example: "Fitness" for phys ed class). I wish there was a save function for report carding because I've had it happen where I've lost my internet connection and therefore, lost my recent comments for students.

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.

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.

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.

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

It's pretty easy to use. Similar layout to Facebook, which most parents are familiar with. Students can login pretty easily and get around.

Tech glitches: signing on via iphone app, parents being able to post replies to posts, parents getting personal messages sent, etc.

Edsby does an incredible job of making it easy to allow students and parents to see what is happening in class as access documents from class while away from school. It is a great place for teachers to be able to record grades, conversations and observations, which is required by the ministry. It is very user friendly and allows for most of the school needs to be in one place.

The grade book is wonderful to have, however many of my staff would love to be able to print out individual documents to share with parents or an easy way to print out the grade book.

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.

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.

VERY Student Friendly. Kids can easily navigate and find work

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

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.

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

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

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).

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.

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

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.

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.

It's easy to collaborate. I like that we have staff groups and can easily update each other. I also like the observation feature to keep up to date with behaviour concerns and issues.

No notifications is tough because I often miss messages or notifications for things when I am busy.