Edsby Reviews

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

I like the ability to be able to copy an assignment to multiple classes rather than creating it multiple times. I also like the ability to create assignments student can complete online with auto grading. That is a huge time saver.

Cons

There were quite a few things that could be improved. The reporting of progress alerts was not the best and the presentation of a line graph as the first view for students as opposed to actually seeing the list of assessments with scores was always problematic. Many students never figure out to click on the next tab and never had a good grasp on their scores. Also, there were some features that were really handy that I NEVER knew about in 3 years of using this product, until all the e-learning took place and there became a sea of information to sort through. Although overall a decent product, I could continue...

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Edsby

Pros

-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

Cons

-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

Pros

Really like the electronic reporting system that allows parents and students to see students' cumulative learning via Edsby accounts. Communication with all stakeholders occurs very easily and reliably through Edsby, by way of class posts to share assignments, messaging, and sharing of results of assessments. Edsby has an unmistakable and positive influence on learning climate in school culture.

Cons

Messaging allows user to see current feed. It would be helpful to be able to search for particular information in feed sent previously.
Locating and linking to curriculum expectations in Edsby's Planner requires a fair amount of scrolling. I found this feature easier to use prior to August, 2019.

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Pros

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

Cons

There are frequent problems with sending attachments to students.

Pros

Access from anywhere but the teacher app needs more functionality.

Cons

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

Pros

I loved the pedagogical documentation features.I can take a picture or a video of my student and all their hands on work. This is work that when my students would finish, it would be lost, the manipulatives would be placed in bins and their thinking would not be documented unless I would go around and had enough time to take anecdotal notes for all students on that project. Edsby saves me time, helps me organise my students work, values students voice and participation, helps record all of the assessment as learning done in the classroom.

Cons

I feel that the planner feature needs a lot of improvements. I would love to do all my planning online and then have a potential supply have direct access to them before coming to my classroom. It would also be a great tool to creating equitable working environments where all teachers use the same planners and are not "judged" on their technological literacy.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

Edsby is very handy for grading and communicating with teachers, students and parents. It is essentially a social media platform that has been designed for a school community. I really like how functional the grade book is and how students can see their grades in realtime. The messaging and search features are also excellent and help keep everyone up to speed.

Cons

There are some bugs in some of the newer features like quizzes and polls.

Pros

The program is visual and easy to use.
There is an APP so students have easy access to information AND less paper is required eg. homework handouts, timetables. etc.
The parents can easily access their child's school information (attendance, marks, etc.)

Cons

One can't do a search within the posts in a group
Information doesn't always sync correctly from our main database.

Pros

Good features, mostly intuitive and easy to use. Mostly timely and responsive customer service. -- although they may have set the bar pretty high. :-)

Cons

I would like a bit more flexibility to customize to meet a specific community need.

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Pros

The ease of use and ability to create numerous pages and groups. In addition, the report card and assessment tracking system is all we could ask for. Finally, the privacy settings and ability to invite and block certain groups is seamless which is very important for a school

Cons

As many areas in education constantly evolve, so does the need for shifting the way we do things online. Edsby doesn't always have stock items already built into the software; so, occasionally we need to ask them to create it for us. However, they are always responsive and get this done in a timely manner

Pros

Edsby is a fantastic tool for educators. Unlike other Learning Management Systems (LMS), Edsby is easy to use and does a great job of integrating teachers, students, and parents into the ecosystem.

Cons

Sometimes Edsby pushes out incremental upgrades without warning and the results are often buggy.

Pros

It's so easy to use when monitoring a school of 650 students and thousands of parents. It's also easy to explain to parents, some of whom do not have a lot of computer experience. It's user-friendly and effective.

Cons

I sometimes have a hard time searching student names. I'll type in a name that I know is there, but it won't pop up. Mostly it works great.

Pros

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

Cons

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).

Pros

Helping kids organize their assignments and work schedules.

Cons

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