Press releases Archives| Edsby

Edsby and Kids Help Phone partner to enhance mental health support for K-12 students across Canada

Dallas Kachan — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 11:00:50 +0000

Initiative to present 24/7 access to critical mental health resources directly inside platform used by many K-12 students in Canada

RICHMOND HILL, ONTARIO (October 17, 2024) – Kids Help Phone (KHP), Canada’s only 24/7 e-mental health service for youth, and Edsby, an innovative K-12 education software company, have formed a strategic partnership aimed at integrating KHP’s extensive mental health resources into Edsby’s platform when used by Canadian education organizations. The collaboration will provide vital support to school-age students, educators, and parents, enhancing mental health awareness and assistance within educational communities.

Kids Help Phone is the only free, 24/7 national, multi-lingual, e-mental health service for all youth in Canada. Since 1989 KHP has been a cornerstone of youth mental health, giving millions of youth a safe, trusted space to Feel Out Loud over the phone, through text, or in self-directed supports for any moment of crisis or need.

Edsby’s innovative social-style communication and collaboration system is used by hundreds of thousands of students, parents and educators daily across Canada. By making KHP’s resources available inside Edsby, these users will be able to easily access and implement crucial mental health support tools.

“At KHP we innovate and evolve at the pace of youth.” said Katherine Hay, President & CEO of Kids Help Phone. “We offer a space that’s judgment free, and for any young person – however they identify – anywhere in Canada to let their feelings out. This partnership with Edsby will make it easier for schools to integrate mental health support into their everyday environments, ensuring that young people have the help they need readily available in the spaces where they may need it most.”

“At Edsby, we are committed to enhancing the educational experience by providing tools that support both learning and well-being,” said John Myers, CEO of Edsby. “Partnering with Kids Help Phone enables us to extend our platform’s value even further, making vital mental health resources easily available that can make a significant difference in the lives of students and educators in the platform they use every day.”

The partnership will provide Canadian territories, provinces, school districts and individual schools using Edsby with access to a variety of KHP resources and 24/7 services. The partnership will deliver KHP resources through Edsby news posts, launchpad links, internal staff support groups with KHP Counsellors as optional moderators, and live learning sessions for organizations’ staff.

Organizations interested in these offerings can contact their Edsby representative to enroll in the program at no charge.

About Kids Help Phone
Kids Help Phone is Canada’s only 24/7 national, e-mental health service offering free, confidential, multi-lingual support to young people. As the country’s virtual care expert for 35 years, we give millions of youth a safe, trusted space to Feel Out Loud over the phone, through text, or in self-directed supports for any moment of crisis or need. The Feel Out Loud campaign is the largest movement for youth mental health in Canada’s history – it will raise $300 million to unlock hope for young people to thrive in their worlds. Kids Help Phone gratefully relies on the generosity of donors, volunteers, stakeholder partners, corporate partners and governments to fuel and fund our programs. Learn more at KidsHelpPhone.ca.

About Edsby
The unique needs of K-12 education are hard to meet with conventional technologies. Edsby’s innovative software systems have been putting the connections between people, not just documents, at the center of K-12 worldwide since 2010. Edsby fosters rich communication and data exchanges between students, teachers, families and other education stakeholders to drive K-12 student success. Edsby has received more than 80 industry awards and distinctions. Learn more at www.edsby.com

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Edsby selected by Georgian Ministry of Education for national learning platform initiative

Dallas Kachan — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 08:45:29 +0000

Country at intersection of Eastern Europe and West Asia is introducing a national learning management system for its 600,000 K-12 learners

RICHMOND HILL, ONTARIO (October 15, 2024) – Edsby ®, an innovative vendor of K-12 education software, has been selected by the Ministry of Education, Science and Youth of the country of Georgia as the winning vendor for a national learning management system (LMS) initiative. The project seeks to transform education across the country through the implementation of advanced digital learning.

The contract for Learning Systems Solutions and Support is part of Georgia’s I2Q initiative, a six-year, multifaceted education reform supported in part by the World Bank.

Edsby’s selection follows a rigorous international Quality-Based Selection (QBS) process. Edsby was awarded the contract with local Georgia technology integrator partner Orient Logic.

Edsby, a leading K-12 social learning platform, is to be piloted beginning next year across Georgian public schools to support localized, flexible curriculum, interactive teaching methodologies, and active learning pedagogies. The platform is ultimately to provide a national system for teachers, students, and parents to engage in blended learning, with support for synchronous, asynchronous, and activity-based learning paths.

“We are pleased to collaborate with the Georgian Ministry of Education, Science, and Youth and Orient Logic on this high impact project,” said John Myers, CEO of Edsby. “The I2Q initiative aligns perfectly with Edsby’s mission to empower educators, students and parents with cutting-edge learning technologies. Our platform will enhance Georgia’s educational landscape by providing a flexible, scalable, and engaging system that fosters a culture of lifelong learning.”

“This project represents an exciting step forward in transforming education in our country. In partnering with Edsby, we are equipping our students, parents and teachers with world class tools to thrive in the 21st century,” said Alexander Bagratia, CEO of Orient Logic. “This new national LMS is to enable personalized learning pathways and provide robust support for educators and families. We look forward to the positive impact on our students’ education.”

Georgia’s I2Q project focuses on improving educational outcomes, promoting inclusion, and fostering innovation. I2Q aims to foster quality teaching and learning in Georgian schools and includes a focus on localized, student-centered curricula. The implementation of the Edsby LMS will support Georgia’s strategic objectives of raising educational standards, creating equitable access to quality education, and preparing students for future success.

When fully deployed, the national Georgian learning management system will be comparable in size to Edsby’s contract with the New Zealand Ministry of Education, another national deployment of Edsby to 800,000 K-12 learners and their parents, and the country’s educators.

About Orient Logic
Orient Logic is a leading IT company operating in the Georgian market since 1995. Its mission is to create better IT ecosystems by providing technical and business consulting services. Core markets include banking and government. It has successfully implemented 10,000 projects for 1,600 customers, and with world-class vendors, introduces innovations and high-tech products nationwide in Georgia every year. Learn more at www.ol.ge.

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Edsby and Mayet Information Systems forge partnership

Dallas Kachan — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 13:00:05 +0000

– Companies to target public sector education organizations in Manitoba, Canada –

Richmond Hill, ON – February 26^th, 2024 – Edsby®, an innovative K-12 education software company, and Mayet Information Systems, developers of a leading student information system in the Canadian province of Manitoba, are pleased to announce a strategic partnership aimed at enhancing the education software experience for public education organizations including school divisions and First Nations schools.

The partnership is aimed at enabling the contemporary assessment & reporting, learning management, classroom management, parent communication and other features of Edsby at Mayet sites in Manitoba that have not had access to such features in the past.

“We are excited to be deepening our relationship with Mayet,” said John Myers, CEO of Edsby. “Together we provide a modern web/mobile/cloud user experience that is tightly aligned with the specific needs of Manitoba learning organizations.”

“Mayet, together with Edsby, form a comprehensive digital data and learning platform that builds on Mayet’s years of experience in Manitoba. The Mayet-Edsby integration provides client stakeholders the ability to take responsibility for their learning and provides a framework for shared accountability and success,” said Chris Adamopoulos, CEO of Mayet Information Systems.

The new partnership will also strengthen the technical integration between the two companies’ products, which have already integrated for years at the 14,000-student Pembina Trails School Division in the provincial capital, Winnipeg

“Edsby has been providing our schools, parents and students with essential tools ranging from attendance to report cards, along with important and need-to-know communication. Partnering with Mayet will help solidify the integration between student information and the classroom, allowing our teachers an even more effective tool to help our learners grow and ‘Accomplish Anything’,” said Jean St. Godard, Director of Learning and Information Technology at Pembina Trails.

About Edsby
The unique needs of K-12 education are hard to meet with conventional technologies. Edsby’s innovative software systems have been putting the connections between people, not just documents, at the center of K-12 worldwide since 2010. Edsby fosters rich communication and data exchanges between students, teachers, families and other education stakeholders to drive K-12 student success. Edsby has received more than 70 industry awards and distinctions. Learn more at www.edsby.com.

About Mayet Information Systems
Mayet Information Systems was founded in 1998 by principal partners Shane Petroff and Chris Adamopoulos. Mayet was designed, developed and has evolved as a direct response to the diverse set of challenges managing public education data in Manitoba. Mayet as a system is the product of responsive engagement to its client needs as well as a commitment to providing comprehensive support to its user community. Learn more at www.mayet.ca.

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Edsby partners with Common Good Learning Tools to streamline academic standards management

Dallas Kachan — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 17:07:03 +0000

Companies join forces to leverage 1EdTech CASE for K-12 academic standards

Andover, MI – December 21^st, 2023 – Edsby®, an innovative K-12 education software company, has signed an agreement to license and resell the Satchel standards management software from Common Good Learning Tools (CGLT) to enable learning organizations to manage their unique academic standards, expectations, outcomes, or competencies (ESOCs) more easily.

The move enables private schools, school districts and departments/ministries of education to more efficiently manage their ESOCs in the 1EdTech Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange (CASE)® format newly supported by Edsby. Doing so in Satchel will enable Edsby schools, districts and regions to easily push updates to their educators whenever they seek to make changes, eliminating the need for manual intervention.

The partnership between Edsby and Common Good Learning Tools is the latest in a series of enhancements by Edsby aimed at giving educators more hands-on administrative control of their Edsby systems.

Key benefits of the Edsby and Common Good Learning Tools agreement include:

Administrative Empowerment & Efficiency – Support of Satchel through the CASE standard enables Edsby users to manage their academic standards in the 1EdTech standard CASE format without the need for manual intervention, eliminating the time-consuming process of requesting an import and edit of their ESOCs every time changes occur.
More Frequent Updates – With the new integration, ESOCs can be updated as often as desired, so educators are always basing their curriculum, assessments and reporting on up-to-date requirements, promoting a more agile educational environment.
Compatibility With Other Systems – Basing the interoperability between the systems on the 1EdTech standard CASE format provides an open solution, allowing easy reuse of ESOCs by other educational systems, including those for publishing or other distribution.

“Common Good Learning Tools’ Satchel will save time and effort for K-12 learning organizations for which standards, expectations, outcomes, or competencies are key,” said John Myers, CEO of Edsby. “Satchel’s purpose-built content management system aligns with our commitment to innovative solutions that enhance the educational experience for K-12 organizations.”

“Common Good Learning Tools is excited to collaborate with Edsby to bring our Satchel software to a wider audience,” said Pepper Williams, CEO of Common Good Learning Tools. “By simplifying the management of academic standards, we aim to empower educators to focus on what they do best: educating the next generation. This partnership reflects our shared dedication to advancing education technology.”

About Edsby
The unique needs of K-12 are hard to meet with conventional technologies. Edsby has been putting the connections between people, not just documents, at the center of K-12 education worldwide for more than 10 years. Edsby’s innovative software systems foster rich communication and data exchanges between students, teachers, families and other education stakeholders to drive K-12 student success. Edsby has received more than 70 industry awards and distinctions. Learn more at www.edsby.com.

About Common Good Learning Tools
Common Good Learning Tools builds learning tools for the common good, improving education through the thoughtful application of known learning principles and innovative programming to create effective digital teaching and learning experiences.

Edsby is a registered trademark of CoreFour Inc. Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange (CASE)® is a registered trademark of the 1EdTech Consortium, Inc. (1edtech.org)

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Veracross and Edsby announce integration delivering standards-based grading and a modern learning experience for K-12 independent schools

Dallas Kachan — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 13:00:22 +0000

Combines Edsby social learning environment with the Veracross Student Information System (SIS) platform

WAKEFIELD, MASS. and ANDOVER, MASS. (March 7, 2023) – Veracross and Edsby today announced an integration that gives K-12 independent schools a modern, full-featured learning experience combining Edsby’s K-12 award-winning social learning system seamlessly with Veracross’ industry-leading SIS platform.

Veracross schools can now benefit from Edsby’s capabilities such as standards-based learning, fully integrated private messaging, group conversation and resource areas for clubs and teams, and many other features that enhance student learning and connectedness. Edsby customers will, in turn, receive special access to the only one-record-for-life SIS available for K-12 independent schools.

Warren Apel, Director of Technology for The American School in Japan, which has used Edsby and Veracross together since 2018, said, “We knew we wanted to move away from averaging and point-based grades. Most LMS products only offer traditional letter grades, percentage scores, and averages. Edsby gave our teachers a gradebook that can do qualitative standards-based feedback. Edsby is much more than a simple LMS. It solves other problems we have, such as making information more accessible, making office tasks more efficient, and helps overcome student belonging and connectedness issues.”

Jessica Wallis, SVP of Product Management for Veracross, said, “Having access to contemporary assessment capabilities such as standard-based grading and other modern LMS functionality is critical for K-12 independent schools. We are pleased to provide this tight integration with Edsby’s modern learning platform.”

“Edsby leverages Veracross’ strengths as a school’s system of record, and is now an ideal complement for Veracross sites to enable modern community engagement, learning management, assessment, and student well-being capabilities,” said Chris Besse, Chief Commercial Officer for Edsby.

For more information, visit https://www.edsby.com/edsby-and-veracross.

About Veracross
Veracross is a leading provider of SaaS-based School Information Systems (SIS). Designed specifically to meet the unique needs of independent schools, Veracross combines the power of a one-record-for-life database, personalized communication tools, and an elegant architecture unique in our industry. Veracross serves more than 1,500 private and independent schools in more than 30 countries, helping to unify school communities and enhance learning. For more information visit www.veracross.com.

About Edsby
The unique needs of K-12 are hard to meet with conventional technologies. Edsby has been putting the connections between people, not just documents, at the center of K-12 education worldwide for more than 10 years. Edsby’s products enable in-class, hybrid and online learning, fostering rich communication and data exchanges between students, teachers, families and other education stakeholders to drive K-12 student success. Edsby has received more than 70 industry awards and distinctions. Learn more at www.edsby.com.

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Media Contacts

Edsby:

Dallas Kachan
VP Marketing
dallas@edsby.com
+1 416-800-7574 x741

Veracross:

Dave Grip
Communications
dave.grip@veracross.com
+1 508-243-2989

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Edsby Unison™ addresses the biggest challenges of education data: interoperability, privacy and security

Dallas Kachan — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 15:55:38 +0000

New education data platform and managed service standardizes current and past education data, making it available anywhere and in whatever form it’s needed, safely and securely

ANDOVER, MASS. (June 27, 2022) – Edsby ®, an innovative vendor of K-12 education software, today introduced a system for helping learning organizations and governments eliminate silos between education data to ensure the right data about learners is always available to optimize their learning journeys.

Edsby’s Unison education data platform and managed service is designed to ensure better education data quality and actionability across states, provinces, and countries securely. Unison aggregates and standardizes current and past educational data and makes it interoperable while carefully managing the security critical with education data.

Customers use Unison for electronic student records that follow students through their education journeys. They also use it to transform education data from one type to another for application interoperability, or for region-wide learner analytics—all with strong roles-based access control to ensure only those authorized to access extremely sensitive data can do so.

National electronic student records in New Zealand
Unison forms the core of the New Zealand Ministry of Education’s national learner repository and data exchange, termed Te Rito locally. Educators and government agencies in New Zealand found it hard to access valuable information about learners when they moved between the country’s 2,536 schools. Information stayed locked in each school’s systems or took a long time to obtain. Sometimes children didn’t get the right support when they needed it. In 2018, the Ministry of Education selected what has become the Unison education data platform and began to work with Edsby to incorporate it.

“We heard needless stories of kids missing out on learning support like reading recovery, because by the time it was identified that they’d already been assessed for it, they were too old,” said Lisa Cheney, Business Design Lead in a New Zealand Ministry of Education Te Rito video.

“Unison revolutionizes educator access to what used to be far-flung learner data,” said Michael Middlemiss, former New Zealand Parliament CIO and Edsby Vice President, Unison. “The Ministry is now also deploying other secure applications based on Unison, including a national standardized Learner Support Registry (sLSR) to ensure children with learning needs get the support they’re entitled to.”

Unison interfaces with outdated and modern systems and uses a mix of secure open and proprietary standards to connect to data as needed.

Unlike bespoke approaches to converging a region’s data, Unison cost-effectively enables a way to enforce security and data governance policies while also solving the problem of education software interoperability with bi-directional connections to data sources. Unison’s core technology has safely managed the data of millions of students for more than 10 years. It has been certified to highest standards of data management and has been aligned to leading privacy and data protection standards such as ISO 27001 and GDPR.

“Unison provides educators and policymakers a more accurate picture of student learning. It accelerates innovation in teaching and learning, lets regions ready their education data systems for the future and protects student data with industry-leading safeguards,” said John Myers, CEO of Edsby. “Data always remains owned by the customer; it is only ever transformed and transported. It is never mined or otherwise monetized.”

Unison is now generally available. Learn more about Unison here.

About Edsby
Edsby has been building award-winning software for education for over thirty years. Company founders include the original architects of FirstClass, a messaging and collaboration system used by millions of students and teachers around the world and credited as the original learning management system, or LMS. The company’s close relationships with education customers over three decades have given it insights into problems faced by teachers, students, parents, and administrators. This gave the team inspiration in 2010 to create a completely new digital learning and data foundation for K-12 districts, regional and national governments using latest software technology.

The unique needs of K-12 are hard to meet with conventional technologies and standards. Since 2010, Edsby has been on a mission to support K-12 teaching and learning with the next generation social technologies of its Edsby social learning platform and iron-clad student data stewardship in the company’s underlying Unison education data system. Learn more at https://www.edsby.com.

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Questions & Answers

Who would adopt Unison and why?

Unison is an enterprise-grade middleware software system and service intended for:

Local and state education agencies
State and provincial ministries/departments of education
Federal governments
System integrators and other solution providers

Business drivers include:

Region wide analytics aimed at identifying students at risk, underperforming curriculum, gaps in instruction, facilities or staff benefiting from professional development
Faster and more accurate state, provincial or federal education data collection and reporting
National and regional electronic student records of life-long learning
Enforcing data governance policies around who can access what type of education data, including individuals, facilities, agencies or roles in the region with proper rights to them
Transformation from one type of data to another for exchange between edtech applications

What differentiates Unison?

Other education data management systems are primarily aimed at aggregating data for analysis. Region-wide analytics are one driver of Unison adoption, but Unison’s unique two-way communication with education data sources enables applications such as those above requiring real time data transformation. An off-the-shelf software product with connections to 58+ systems and standards, and a proven ability to add new ones quickly, Unison is also faster and much less expensive to implement than custom solutions developed from the ground up.

How can Unison improve a region’s edtech data security?

Unison’s role-based architecture ensures stakeholders can access data they’re entitled to, but only the data they’re entitled to. Row-level database security and encryption protects stored data, and data in transit is always encrypted.

Edsby has a 10-year legacy of safely managing millions of student records. Company founders have built systems that have managed enterprise data for hundreds of millions of people without mishap over 30 years. Edsby’s data handling practices are certified to international ISO 27001 standards, providing assurance that customer data is securely managed, with annual re-certification.

Unison is subjected to regular penetration testing by third parties.

How expensive is Unison?

Integration, customization, training, and other costs are unique to every customer implementation. Contact Edsby for a Unison quote.

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Edsby introduces ‘Perspective Analyze’ to help teachers make evidence-based instructional decisions

Dallas Kachan — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 14:12:31 +0000

Now available within the Edsby platform, the new view helps teachers pinpoint performance trends and patterns when evaluating both formative and summative assessment data

ANDOVER, MASS (June 1, 2022) – Edsby^®, the award-winning social learning environment designed for K–12 education, today introduced Perspective Analyze, helping teachers make informed decisions based on multi-dimensional assessment data. The new tool offers teachers visibility into several types of student assessments, integrating both learning evidence and gradebook scores within one place in the Edsby platform.

Edsby’s new Analyze view enables teachers to visualize student performance through a new lens to spot trends, patterns and areas of concern—helping teachers act on instructional decisions for individual students or groups of students. This new extension within Edsby classes gives teachers broader access to classroom-level analytics at no additional cost.

“I’m excited about this new feature as it will help teachers visualize data in new and powerful ways,” said Joe McRae, Math and Computer Science Program Area Leader at Lakefield College School. “It will help me assess students against course learning goals throughout the year and identify opportunities where students can improve. I look forward to building my assessments with this in mind next year.”

Teachers can analyze their students’ data by standards, evidence tags, assessment types, units, weeks, months and more. The results can be summarized by a variety of methods and the teacher can choose what to include in the data.

“A good teacher learns their students well and responds to their needs in a timely manner. The new Edsby Analyze feature helps me do just that. It helps me see the evidence I have collected for a kindergarten student in each of four frames,” said Angela O’Neill, Teacher at Durham Catholic District School Board. “I can determine which frames need my attention and see each student’s strengths and needs. This helps me to be responsive, and I know I can effectively communicate with parents using Edsby during reporting times.”

“As schools and districts continue to address unfinished learning in reading, math and other core subjects, data play a critical role,” said John Myers, CEO of Edsby. “With this new Analyze view that harmonizes summative and formative learning assessments, no other similar platform provides a more complete view to teachers of students’ academic progress and growth.”

Edsby teachers can access Analyze now for free within the Perspective view of their Edsby classes.

Learn more about Perspective Analyze and view examples of its classroom applications here.

About Edsby
The Edsby social learning environment has been putting the connections between people, not just documents, at the center of K–12 education around the world for more than 10 years. Edsby enables in-class, hybrid and online learning, and rich communication between students, teachers and families—all aimed at driving K–12 student success. School districts, states, provinces and countries adopt Edsby for community engagement, learning management, assessment & reporting, analytics and student well-being. Edsby has received more than 70 industry awards and distinctions. More information at https://www.edsby.com/.

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Edsby introduces social emotional check-ins for K-12 school districts and regions

Dallas Kachan — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 12:00:23 +0000

First education industry LMS to enable students to share their emotional states so teachers can watch for patterns and take actions to improve students’ well-being

ANDOVER, MASS (August 23, 2021) – Edsby^®, a multi award-winning, next generation K–12 learning management system (LMS), today introduced a new system enabling teachers to understand their students’ emotional states in and out of the classroom by giving students a systematic way to share how they’re feeling. The new feature augments a series of capabilities in Edsby focused on student well-being.

Students choose from animated icons representing emotions, color-coded for their intensity level and how pleasant the emotion is, either once per day or even per class, based on educator preference. Emotion options are tailored to students’ grade levels, along with developmentally appropriate definitions. Age-appropriate regulation strategies curated by experts are also presented for each emotion.

Teachers see the emotions their students are experiencing, and can monitor patterns and trends over time, which can help draw attention to students who may need additional support. Teachers see which emotional regulation strategies have been presented to each student and receive their own professionally curated strategies based on what their students are feeling. They can engage students in conversations and are able to take actions consistent with the district or region’s existing protocols to ensure student well-being, ranging from the ability to loop in a school guidance counselor or other professionals as required.

“We feel strongly that established LMS platforms like Edsby should play an important role in student well-being,” said John Myers, Edsby CEO. “With the social and emotional health of students now a prime focus of educators, it makes sense—especially in hybrid classrooms—that features polling students’ emotional states should be directly integrated in the same system millions of K-12 students and teachers are already using.”

The Edsby Social Emotional Check-In system and related content was designed with input of a team of social emotional academic advisors and an exclusive relationship with MindUP—an evidence-based non-profit program designed to improve children’s emotional well-being and founded by actress Goldie Hawn. MindUP is aligned with current SEL research and is accredited by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL.

“Research shows, especially during times of crisis, that we need to bolster the strategies and competencies of students to manage stress,” said Dr. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, NoVo Foundation Endowed Chair in Social and Emotional Learning in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, CASEL board member and Edsby Social Emotional Advisory Board chair. “Being able to have explicit and intentional opportunities to check in, name how they’re feeling and learn specific strategies to manage their stress and how to get along with others is critical for students’ school and life success.”

Learn more about the new Edsby Social Emotional Check-Ins capability here.

About Edsby
Edsby is a next generation K-12 learning management system (LMS) with the broadest set of capabilities available in a single application made just for the specific needs of K-12. It goes beyond other LMSes, enabling improved teaching effectiveness and student success in and out of the classroom. Edsby features modern assessment and reporting, timesaving tools for teachers, analytics and more for the full spectrum of K-6 and 7-12 within a familiar, social-style user experience. Edsby has received more than 60 industry awards and distinctions. More information at https://www.edsby.com/.

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Poll finds high level of dissatisfaction with many LMS platforms in K-12 education

Dallas Kachan — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 12:00:59 +0000

Over one-third of respondents to a recent survey conducted by Edsby said they’re dissatisfied or unsure about their district’s official LMS platform

ANDOVER, MASS. (July 27, 2021) – Edsby^®, a multi award-winning, next generation K–12 learning management system (LMS), today released results of a new, recent “Grade Your LMS” poll. The research effort sought to better understand educators’ opinions about how well their current LMS platforms serve them. Satisfaction ratings indicate that educators expect more from conventional LMS platforms.

Key poll findings include:

While 85 percent of respondents reported their district has a single, official LMS platform, more than one-third (36 percent) said they’re unsatisfied or unsure about how well their current platform meets their needs.
No single capability of conventional K–12 LMS platforms received a “most satisfied” rating above 33 percent among poll respondents.
Of all capabilities, parent engagement received the highest “most satisfied” rating. It’s one of the bright spots for LMS platforms over the last two years as families became more involved in their students’ coursework.

“As schools and districts plan for a mix of remote and in-person learning this fall, it’s important that educators know and trust their LMS platforms,” said John Myers, Edsby CEO. “A strong LMS platform makes all the difference. We’re honored that Edsby users who took the poll indicated a satisfaction rating that is 22 percentage points higher than users of other systems.”

Conducted during May 2021 by Edsby and C. Blohm & Associates (CB&A), the poll includes insights from education professionals, administrators, technology directors, principals and teachers. Respondents were asked to grade their LMS platforms on seven key capabilities, with 1 being least satisfied and 5 being most satisfied. Poll respondents named Canvas, Schoology, Google Classroom, Desire2Learn, Blackboard, Edsby and others as their district’s LMS of record.

A free, downloadable report with complete poll results is available here.

About Edsby

Edsby is a next generation K-12 learning management system (LMS) with the broadest set of capabilities available in a single application made just for the specific needs of K-12. It goes beyond other LMSes, enabling improved teaching effectiveness and student success in and out of the classroom. Edsby features modern assessment and reporting, timesaving tools for teachers, analytics and more for the full spectrum of K-6 and 7-12 within a familiar, social-style user experience. Edsby has received more than 60 industry awards and distinctions. More information at https://www.edsby.com/.
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Edsby K-12 LMS incorporates Microsoft Teams and Zoom real-time video, chat and whiteboarding

Dallas Kachan — Thu, 06 May 2021 12:00:27 +0000

New EdsbyLive capability makes synchronous learning easier and safer for K-12 students and educators

ONTARIO, Canada (May 6th, 2021) – Edsby^®, a multi award-winning, next generation K-12 learning management system (LMS), has introduced new built-in support for popular platforms to enable simpler and more secure real time synchronous learning in hybrid or online-only environments. A new EdsbyLive feature now programmatically connects Edsby classes to popular real-time online meeting services.

EdsbyLive initially supports Microsoft Teams and Zoom, and all of the rich, real-time video, chat, whiteboarding and other capabilities they offer. EdsbyLive has been built to be platform-agnostic, and support for other systems is planned in the future.

Once configured to use a school district or region’s official platform, teachers receive new “Go Live Now” buttons in their Edsby classes. These buttons launch online meetings and make them available only at the time a teacher has requested it, and only to students in the class. If configured by the district, only authenticated users may participate in meetings, and only with their real names, minimizing the chance of unauthorized intrusions.

“Educators no longer need to create and share links to video calls themselves, saving time and making synchronous sessions easy, even for non-technical teachers and students,” said John Myers, Edsby CEO. “And when video links aren’t exposed, abuse opportunities are minimized, which helps improve online learning for teachers and students.”

“Edsby took the time to build a strong integration that enables the many advantages of Microsoft Teams for Education,” said Tamer Erzurumlu, Microsoft Director of Partner Strategy, Education. “This is an easy and secure way for the many school districts and regions around the world that have standardized on Edsby to experience the power of Teams.”

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Questions & Answers about EdsbyLive

Can EdsbyLive be enabled school-by-school at a district?

Yes. EdsbyLive can be enabled for all schools in a district or region or for selected schools only.

Which classes can use EdsbyLive?

EdsbyLive is available in all classes if the feature is enabled in a school. It can be used in homeroom classes and subject classes. Elementary teachers with split classes can use the homeroom class if they wish to include all students in their combined class, or use a grade specific subject class if they only want that subset of students in an EdsbyLive session.

Which teachers can use EdsbyLive?

Any teacher or co-teacher in an Edsby class can launch EdsbyLive session from their classes once district administrators have configured Edsby to work with their district’s official meeting system. Teachers do not need to do any setup or config work themselves. Details about how EdsbyLive works for teachers here.

Does the teacher have access to setup options for calls?

Yes. The teacher has full access to the setup options of the call via the usual setup options in the meeting platform. Note that students are initially put in the lobby until the teacher opens the call, so options can be adjusted by the teacher before students join.

Do our Microsoft or Zoom environments need to be configured to know about class rosters for EdsbyLive to work?

No, they do not, and that is a major benefit of the EdsbyLive approach. It enables districts to have the benefit of managing class-based Teams or Zoom calls without worrying about synchronizing class rosters into the Microsoft or Zoom infrastructure.

How do notifications work for EdsbyLive?

Currently students are notified about a live session via Edsby notifications. This shows up within Edsby under the “bell” icon. In the future we will likely extend this to include email and mobile push notification options. The link to the session is available in the notification via the “Go Live” button.

Can parents participate in these sessions from their Edsby accounts?

Parents are not permitted to join EdsbyLive sessions. EdsbyLive sessions are only available to students.

The post Edsby K-12 LMS incorporates Microsoft Teams and Zoom real-time video, chat and whiteboarding appeared first on Edsby.

Edsby K-12 digital learning platform completes $5.3 million Series A investment

Dallas Kachan — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 09:00:07 +0000

Lead investor Chris Besse joins company in an executive role

ONTARIO, Canada (September 16th, 2020) – Edsby®, the most comprehensive unified digital learning and data platform for K-12 education, has completed a Series A financing round to propel its continued growth worldwide. The investment was led by education technology executive Chris Besse with participation from existing investors.

In conjunction with the investment, investor Chris Besse, former CEO of FreshGrade and EdgeMakers and Managing Director, K-12, Nelson Education, has joined Edsby as a member of the Board and Chief Commercial Officer.

All seed investors also participated in the round. They include MindAngler Capital, headed by Nigel Stokes, co-founder and former Chairman and CEO of DataMirror Corp.; and XDL Capital Group, led by Dennis Bennie, co-founder and former Chairman and CEO of Delrina Corporation.

Edsby is used by millions of students, parents, teachers and school districts worldwide. It combines learning management system (LMS) features with advanced assessment, reporting and parent communication—all tailored specifically to the needs of districts, regions and countries. Edsby has seen wide adoption by school districts across North America and elsewhere in the world, including a country-wide rollout in New Zealand.

“The more I looked at Edsby, the more I realized the company’s vast market potential,” said Chris Besse. “The Edsby platform’s unique and comprehensive breadth of features provides K-12 education with the best cloud-based, enterprise solution for managing learning.”

“The four co-founders of Edsby are delighted to welcome such a successful industry veteran who shares our vision of how modern technology can enhance student learning and achievement,” said CEO John Myers. “Edsby stands to benefit tremendously from Chris’ deep experience in the K-12 education sector.”

Edsby announced a seed round in 2014.

About Edsby
Edsby is an award-winning SaaS-based digital learning and data platform that engages students, parents and teachers on all of their devices. It gives school districts, states and provinces or national governments powerful new ways to facilitate their digital transformations. The Edsby team has been building scalable, reliable software systems for education organizations around the world for 30 years using latest technology and standards. More information at https://www.edsby.com/.

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Q&A With New Edsby CCO Chris Besse

Why Edsby? And why now?

Having worked in and led edtech companies for over 30 years, I’m close to the needs of K-12 school districts. And I was astounded to discover just how superior a service Edsby was when I got under the hood. Edsby does more, and does it better, with a set of services unmatched by other solutions.

I started down the path with Edsby as an investor, but the more I learned, the more value I realized I could bring. And the more compelled I felt to help be part of the company’s success, beyond just investing.

How does Edsby distinguish itself from other companies in this space?

Edsby was specifically designed for the unique needs of K-12 education and casts a wider net of functionality for students, teachers, administrators and parents. It’s truly intended to be the single application a district or region would need for everything from hybrid blended/distance learning to parent communication to official district report cards. Edsby also has remarkable propositions for district, regional or country-wide learning analytics… a way to help educators and policymakers make data-driven decisions to improve learning outcomes.

Competition for digital learning systems in education is heated. What makes you confident in Edsby’s prospects?

I’ve spoken to large school district customers that have adopted Edsby as their official platform for every teacher, student and parent. And customers rave about it.

Because Edsby has been focused on the singular needs of K-12, it’s been able to “go deep” in the 10 years the company has been developing the product. Edsby has done a masterful job developing features critical to K-12 educator, student and parent stakeholders.

Yes, there has been wide adoption of free solutions like Google Classroom and other edtech point solutions. But districts and regions, particularly in these challenging times of online learning, have been hitting the limits of what lightweight systems can do.

What areas will you focus on at Edsby?

Edsby has a remarkable product. The core system is a modern, born-in-the-cloud architecture also built for the advent of big data, mobile and social media. It’s proven itself to be the right technology for the market.

The company has had good traction in its native Canada and select regions worldwide. It’s also been architected from day one to be customizable for the wide range of local terminologies, assessment and reporting schemes in K-12 and languages worldwide. It’s now time to scale sales and marketing and welcome even more customers around the planet into the fold.

The post Edsby K-12 digital learning platform completes $5.3 million Series A investment appeared first on Edsby.

Edsby now available from SIS Global

Dallas Kachan — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 18:51:16 +0000

Systems integrator expands its education portfolio and announces strategic partnership with Edsby

ONTARIO, Canada (December 2nd, 2019) – Edsby®, the most comprehensive digital learning and data platform available for K-12 education, is now available from South Africa-based system integrator SIS Global.

“This appointment marks a significant step in the evolution of SIS Global Education’s plan to continue developing and investing in growing its portfolio of Microsoft aligned products to deliver value to the global education sector. This partnership will enable SIS Global to build on successes achieved in higher education for K-12 institutions, school districts and regional governments,” said Ian Bayley, Executive Head Education, SIS Global.

SIS Global demonstrates industry knowledge and expertise, as well as consistent, high-quality, service and solutions to its education customers. With Microsoft’s announcement of SIS Global Education as a finalist in the ‘South African Partner of the Year Awards’ and Edsby as the awarded winner of ‘Global Education Partner of the Year, 2019’ this evolving partnership will drive further success through strong growth in the recruitment of new customer additions and increased revenues, and leverage latest Microsoft technology.

Edsby is an award-winning digital learning and data platform for K-12 that gives school districts and regional or national governments powerful new ways to facilitate their digital transformations. The Edsby team has been building scalable, reliable software systems for education organisations around the world for 30 years using latest technology and standards.

“We welcome SIS Global to our growing list of partners around the world,” said Edsby CEO John Myers. “The company’s reach across Africa, the Middle East and Europe and deep experience in education make this a good fit as Edsby continues to expand outside of North America.”

“It excites us to continue strengthening our education portfolio and we look forward to demonstrating the power of our new partnership. Combined with our Microsoft Gold partnership, technology excellence and education expertise our customers can look forward to finding new ways to facilitate their digital transformations,” said Robert Hawley, CEO, SIS Global.

About SIS Global
SIS Global specializes in empowering organizations to unleash their full potential. The company helps customers break down data silos to connect customers, products, people and operations. It specializes in the education sector, helping schools and institutions attract more students, improve results and accelerate business growth, enabling next-generation student experiences and optimizing the entire student lifecycle. SIS Global has the technological expertise to realize customers’ digital transformations. More information at https://sisglobal.com/.

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