Privacy Policy

Data Privacy Day warning: Organizations that succeed take privacy seriously  | IT World Canada News
https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/data-privacy-day-warning-organizations-that-succeed-take-privacy-seriously/426506

The one thing that I am guilty of is just clicking agree to privacy policies and terms of use before even reading them. Taking the time to learn about Edsby’s Privacy Policy was an important step to my growth. I was mostly curious with what information was collected and who they share it with.

What Personal Information Do They Store?

It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that they store some pretty private information but it is mainly the students private information that has the most at stake.

Students: “name, date of birth, gender, grade level, school, student number, Ministry ID, address information, email address, photos for student profiles, certain health information kept in student records, course information, individual education program (IEP), indigenous status, and community service hours.” https://edsby.com/privacy-policy/

Teachers and Staff: name, salutation, email address, school, staff number, title, and role.

Parents: name, address, email, relationship to students, and flags about their access rights to information.

Personal Information They Collect:

  • Student Progress- attendance, assessment scores & comments by the teacher, pictures of a student’s work along & teacher comments, and report card information.
  • User Generated Digital Content- text, images, audio, video, files and web links
  • Usage Information- how many students and/or parents use the program

Who Do They Share Your Information With?

  • Your Educational Organization
  • Third parties at the request of the Education Organization
  • Microsoft and Google
  • Cloud service providers
  • Legal authorities, as required by law
  • Business transaction

Student Support on Edsby

Transparent Cartoon Headphones Png - Edsby, Png Download , Transparent Png  Image - PNGitem
Edsby

Say whaaaaat? Students have access to support on Edsby too? Here some of more advanced students can look up some of their own questions. This helpful student guide would be useful for teachers and parents alike, so we know how to support the students from their end of things.

Frequently asked Questions Section:

Learn About Section:

How To Videos:

Parent Support on Edsby

Edsby for Parents - How Edsby helps parents
Edsby

Oh man this would have been so helpful to share with parents when we first began and I think is going to be vital in getting some of a parents logged on. A Parent Support Guide

Here parents can find answers to frequently asked questions like:

There is a parent learn about sections:

And even how to videos:

As a teacher it would have been great to have been told about Edsby having this, it would have maybe saved me hours and hours explaining and answering some of parents questions. Now I know…

Teacher QuickStart

What parents see when they log into Edsby | Edsby
Edsby

Throughout my research into Edsby website I came across this helpful guide for teachers. It is a comprehensive how to for teachers. It starts with a Getting Started Section, then learning about the home screen, classes, assessing student performance, Edsby messaging, and Edsby Groups. It also includes a nice video that shows you Edsby as well.

Teacher View- Part 2 Uploading & Creating Student Assignments

Big Data Invades the Classroom | ParentMap
https://www.parentmap.com/article/student-data

To be honest, I thought this was going to be more teacher intimidating then it turned out to be. Maybe because I have been using Edsby for a while now and have learned some of the features already that I found this to be not as cumbersome. Something I learned is that I have almost been creating assignments this whole time but thought I was just creating my gradebook assessment; turns out that if I added instructions in the student section and uploaded any files I would have been creating an assignment. Who knew? Not me but I do now and I don’t think I hate it as much as I thought I would.

Anyways check out my video!

Student View

Edsby | Empowering K-12 student learning environments
https://edsby.com/

I need to give so much thanks to my daughter allowing me to use her Edsby account to share with you what it looks like from a student view even with her indiscretions of overdue assignments she was happy to share (even if it makes my eyes twitch…how does a teachers kid have overdue assignments?).

As a teacher and a parent we have the brain capacities to navigate more complex websites, older students can also complete with such tasks. However, you are going to notice that so much of the parent view is exactly identical to the student view but the students get a few more features then the parents. This platform is visually the exact same from kindergarten to grade 12; this is a vast difference in cognitive abilities and what can be accomplished. If there is one big recommendation or advice that I have to give Edsby it is this: You need to have different student views separating the early elementary from the upper grades.

When you get views of this:

Edsby - EdTech Digest
https://www.edtechdigest.com/2021/08/25/edsby-2/

and then this is what you actually get:

Edsby Software - 2022 Reviews, Pricing & Demo
https://www.softwareadvice.co.uk/software/18436/edsby

There is a serious disconnect and not a real great understanding of what students levels of abilities are. The munchkins in grade one still do not know their letters let alone know how to log onto computers using their names and if they do it takes them way too long to get on and then they miss out on the super fun activities.

Watch my video below and see how students can navigate through the student view and how it can be used very similar to google classroom when it comes to handing in assignments or viewing assignments teachers have given you!

A Teacher Perspective- Part 1

I wish I could have done a video to show you this side of things but due to privacy I cannot do it that way so please bear with my pictures as I try to give you a good picture. If you have not done so please check out the parent exploration first and watch the video, it will help you understand things a bit more. This post will focus on the meat and potatoes of the teacher section; well what I use it for. If I taught higher grade levels I would use other features Edsby offers which I will showcase in Part 2.

Main Screen

Similar to the parent page you are going to notice a lot of similarities in its appearance with minor additions. As a teacher I am part of the HTTA group where as a parent there was none at this time, also I have a bit more information on the right under Sacred Heart.

Messaging Area:

This feature allows parents and students to message me or vise versa in a secure environment and was a place for where our administration assistant set up our conferencing manager. Overall I have not had many parents use this function.

Attendance Feature:

Exploring A Class: The Main Page of a Subject

Gradebook Features: Assessing & Inputting Marks & Creating Your Marks

Options for Status Flags

Overall inputting marks is an easy task at this stage and Edsby offers a drag option so you can quickly input marks if all your students had the same mark; I go back and then change the select few who score higher or lower. I also really like the share feature; when I am ready to share I can. We all know that sometimes stuff comes in slowly or we only are able to mark a few during our prep so this allows us to have a bit more control. The one feature that needs improvement in this area and that is a big deal to me would be when I include other curriculum outcomes and I have to provide a mark it does not appear in the other gradebook and I feel that it should appear there as well. Example: Students do a social presentation in class; I go to the social gradebook, create the assignment, include the social outcome along with the ELA outcomes for creating a poster and also the speaking pieces, it will not appear in the ELA gradebook. I feel it should be posted there as well without me having to do anymore work.

Creating/Adding Assessment:

First you need to decide what kind of assessment you are going to be adding:

There are other options for teachers here such as including instructions and files for students or for themselves as the teacher but I do not use this feature.

The Learning Story- Students Online Portfolios

This is a big piece to Edsby and has many different ways to access and upload information; as amazing as it is, it doesn’t come without its struggles or uphill battles from a teachers perspective. One big thing to keep in mind when it comes to students learning stories is teachers in my division have a minimum of what they are required to post and some teachers do just that, while others do a lot more so there can be some struggles just with that online presence and parent expectations.

Some of my struggles:

  • There are so many different ways to get to the same place, it becomes difficult to remember how to get somewhere; streamlining my time
  • The teacher app on the iPads is not reliable, glitches, kicks you out, takes a long time to load
  • There is no option to “Select All” students when posting, you have to select each individual student
  • When creating a post for everyone I cannot create it and then go add a evidence to each one’s post, I have to either do one of two things, 1. create individual posts (which is not time efficient) or 2. Go into each child’s learning story click on the large post I made and then add a reply and upload individual pictures or documents that way and then make an additional comment because you cannot leave a picture or document without it. There is much work that needs to be done here to make this easier for teachers and much less time consuming!
  • The student QR codes can be helpful but again it comes with its issues.
  • It takes a lot of my time to upload things onto Edsby and I am one of those teachers who uploads lots but my frustration lies with the amount of work it takes when I know many parents do not even go on it, and I can tell specifically what parents have not even accepted the invitation from 2 years ago or have not checked it in months.

Benefits of the Learning Story:

  • Captures learning throughout the year, and is cumulative from previous years.
  • Teachers can share what is going on in the classroom and share student successes
  • Upload videos, audio, documents (computer or from google and onedrive) , add links, and record videos
  • Students can upload their own work once I have created the post
  • Share Option: when I am ready to share with parents and students I can
  • Add outcomes and create custom tags for easy organizing
  • Write observations of evidence
Creating Evidence
Student went in and uploaded their work and then they can add in their reflection pieces. I then also have the ability to comment on their post at any time.

There is a lot more to the basics of adding to their learning story but those were the meat and potatoes of it and it makes it more difficult to share, especially with respecting students privacy, a video would have been much much easier!

A Parent Perspective

Prior the most recent update to have the best access your child’s learning features on Edsby you needed a computer. Which was a huge problem for many clientele involved and created a significant problem for families. It became who had access to a computer and could see their child’s Edsby accounts and who had a limited version because they only had access to looking at it on a phone. It created a divide that was highly unfair and unrealistic for the creators to think people had both a computer and a phone at their immediate disposal regardless of economic status and created disinterest with parents engaging with the platform. Since the update I am much happier with the platform both online and on my iPhone. Not only can I access similar things but the ease of use on the computer and on the phone has improved sustainably. Check out my video below for a view from a parents perspective!

https://vimeo.com/692807044

Significant Improvements to the Mobile App

No description available.

I did not have a lot of positive comments to say about Edsby as a parent when it first was introduced to our division. There were many, many glitches, the overall ease of use was not user friendly and the layout was not ideal. More importantly there was information that I could only access if I had a computer and it was some of the more important information that a parent should have ease of access too. Lucky for me I work at a school where I have access to a computer and I am taking my Masters so I purchased a Surface Pro for my own use; prior to taking my master I did not have a home computer; I didn’t need one, my phone did all I needed. It was a huge disadvantage for parents who did not own a computer and I think completely unfair of Edsby and our division to assume anything differently.

The new and improved app:

No description available.
It is more visually appealing and the ease of use has improved tenfold. Similar to the video posted of accessing Edsby through the computer you will see similar pictures below:

Parents can easily book an interview, plan an absence or log an absence, can easily look at their children’s learning stories, bounce between different children’s edsby accounts, view multiple pictures in one post with more ease, comment on children’s posts on the learning story, and stay up to date with children’s marks and overdue assignments! Having access to the overdue and marks at any given time has been a game changer for me as a parent and keeping on top of my daughter who has taken on her dad’s traits of procrastination!

What is Edsby?

Edsby is an educational platform that is a single place for educators, parents, and stakeholders to gather, provide, and manage the many diverse needs required for schools that is student learning focused.

Edsby offers:

Learning Management

Assessment & Reporting

Analytics

Student Well-Being

Click here to see the multitude of comparison charts of the platforms features

Edsby Platform Features:

Community Features of Edsby:

  • Social Classrooms
  • Groups
  • Knowledge Bases
  • File Libraries
  • News
  • Confidential Messages
  • Launchpad
  • Timetables & Calendar
  • Teacher Collaboration

Classroom Management Features:

  • Seating Plans & Rosters
  • Content Builder
  • Import Curriculum
  • Social Emotional Check ins
  • Polls
  • Attendance
  • Upload Safety
  • Visualizations
  • Realtime Videos, Whiteboarding
  • Learning Object Repositories
  • Models

Assessment & Reporting

  • Feature Rich Gradebook
  • Online Testing
  • Standards Based Grading
  • Report Cards
  • Learning Evidence
  • Weighting
  • Question Banks
  • Grade Override
  • Portfolios
  • Observations
  • Subjective Performance Indicators
  • Badges
  • Charts & Graphs
  • Dynamic Insight
  • Access Management
  • Integrated Actions

Parent Engagement

  • Parent Support by Design
  • Flexible Account Setup
  • No Email Addresses
  • Parent Teacher Conference Booking
  • Full or Partial Visability
  • Voice & Video Comments
  • Planned Absences
  • Permission Forms

Check out Edsby Platform Features for more detailed information

Check out what their customers had to say about Edsby

Common Sense Edsby Privacy Evaluation

Common Sense has provided a privacy evaluation on Edsby where it evaluates the safety, privacy, security, and compliance of the platform. Edsby passed with 87% which means it met their minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.

According to Edsby, “Edsby’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use have been assessed by Common Sense Media’s privacy program, which gave Edsby one of the highest scores of any digital learning platform for its responsible student data handling practices.”

Check out what Common Sense said about Edsby.