Edsby

It is exactly what I've been looking for.

Pros:

The ease and familiarity of a social media platform with the security and transparency of educational software. I can respond to my students questions from anywhere in the world at anytime and I know that our interaction is transparent for their security and mine.

Cons:

The gradebook takes some getting used to and doesn't have all of the functionality of a dedicated platform.

K-12 Social Networking Based LMS

Comments: Overall, the Edsby platform excels at social communication and K-12 school management. I wouldn't necessarily call it a proper LMS just yet because it only recently added the functionality to build asynchronous courses and import SCORM based learning modules.

Pros:

The company is based in Ontario, Canada and focuses on K-12 education which is exactly where my school lands. As a result, many of the changes and customization are geared towards my school. Most the major LMS companies are based in the US so their focus is naturally there.

Cons:

It seems like the number of customer service staff has not grown at a rate that can accommodate the number of clients that Edsby is accumulating. This has resulted in excruciatingly slow response times, especially around September and October.

Good in single classes, too labyrinthine for a whole courseload.

Comments: I've taught and learned via a host of LMSs, and as currently configured Edsby just isn't up to scratch for complete online learning. It works well enough as an adjunct to in-person learning, especially at the elementary level. Parent contacts works well, although my own classes are missing emails and I'm unsure why that is. I haven't used the gradebook yet so I can't comment.
If I was to ask the dev team for 2 things they would be:
1) Make courses pinnable, and possibly even mutable. Allowing user customization will go long way.
2) Separate tasks and discussion. Student comments should never bury teacher announcements.

Pros:

Generally intuitive and clear. Student and parent contact info is easy to find. Posts are easy to make.

Cons:

It is remarkably easy to get lost or miss important items as a user of any type (teacher, student or parent). There is no ability to prioritise certain classes or threads, and the only way to post items is in the rolling general chat thread. The pinned item space is a limited area in the left margin, so to find anything you have to (1) go into the correct class/course and (2) scroll down past all other posts (including student chatter) to hopefully find the right thing in the timeline. If students or teachers are registered for multiple classes, there is no way to pin, prioritize or re-organize the order of classes, either for yourself or for your students. This means that 'Homeroom' is buried under a mountain of inactive classes or classes I'm no longer teaching.

Excellent LMS that organizes learning in one place

Comments: Overall, I have had an excellent experience with Edsby because of how it organizes all of the important educational resources into one place. I also appreciate how many different features it offers, including courses and groups, and look forward to trying them all out in greater depth.

Pros:

Edsby is a one-stop shop for educators. It combines all the basic everyday functions, like taking attendance, updating daybooks/lesson plans (journal), and assessing learning, into one convenient place. The journal feature is especially useful as it allows students to follow along with a course if they are absent, saving teachers from needing a "what you missed" folder. In the journal entry, teachers can type up the class agenda, include links to resources, and attach any necessary documents. For evaluation, the Edsby Gradebook allows teachers to set up course breakdowns at the beginning of the year (easily copy from one section to another) and then create a wide variety of assessments that directly get entered into the Gradebook or formative assessments that allow educators and students to track learning over time without impacting a grade. Edsby also allows users to select various methods of assessing learning, such as letter grades, percentages, learning skills, creating rubrics, or simply entering a "mark out of". Then a variety of reporting formats are available, including generating a report of incomplete assignments or filling in report card comments. Edsby also allows for creating whole courses that can be shared between teachers, a feature I am still exploring. Outside of courses, Edsby's groups allow for collaboration between teachers and students. Professional Learning Communities are especially useful and allow teachers to share resources.

Cons:

Though Edsby's messaging feature is convenient for communicating with students and parents, the interface is not as well organized or sophisticated as other messaging platforms. Not being able to sort chats, rename a group message, or thread messages makes it difficult to organize messages. The Edsby phone app is also difficult to use. The interface is clunky, making it difficult to navigate to the pages one is looking for.

Best K-12 LMS I've Seen

Comments: We run a school of nearly 900 boys. We communicate with parents and students. We run online courses and we managed to remain fully active throughout the COVID 19 pandemic without missing a day of class.

Pros:

The set up is very easy, the functionality is incredible, and the end user experience is great. Whenever I show new teachers how to use Edsby, they are amazed at how simple it is and just how many features they can use to enhance their classroom experience.

Cons:

There are a few customizations that would be helpful - the messaging feature could be improved with the storing of messages in folders for easier access for example.