Industry K-12 education Registration Required Founded April 2010 Users Undisclosed | Website edsby.com Current status Active Type of business Private | |
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Type of site Learning management system Key people Steve Asbury, Jon Asbury, Scott Welch, John Myers | ||
Edsby is a cloud-based software application that blends social networking with class and student management. It is a learning management system with data aggregation features and analytics intended to promote engagement between K-12 students, teachers and parents, and provide simplified workflow and insight for school and district administrators.
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Edsby, originally named CoreFour, was founded in April 2010 by the three original founders and architects of the FirstClass software application–used widely in education and often identified as the first modern learning management system–along with a longtime co-worker. It offers K-12 school districts an array of online social learning tools connected to their existing legacy systems, including gradebooks, attendance-taking, parent-teacher communication features, content management and social classroom interaction.
In March, 2010, the company announced educational researcher Dr. Michael Fullan had joined its board of directors.
Business model
Edsby is privately held. The company has had one funding round so far; it has collected around two million US dollars.
While most learning management systems are sold to higher education and/or for corporate training, Edsby is sold only to K-12 school districts. Many education software companies pursue a freemium revenue model, giving away some functionality in a bid for wide adoption by end-users teachers and students, while planning to charge for other capabilities in the future. Edsby does not give away a free version. It sells its system directly to school districts and private schools and charges a traditional per-user fee annually. Also unconventionally, while other social learning tools rely on teachers to enter student and class data, Edsby synchronizes bi-directionally with school districts' legacy student information systems and other systems and creates and manages classes, students, teachers and schedules by leveraging districts' existing databases, speeding deployment and district-wide adoption.
Edsby has partnered with Microsoft and plans to make its service available on the Microsoft Azure cloud service worldwide.
Customers
One significant Edsby site is the school district of Hillsborough County Public Schools. Edsby is deployed to all of the 194,000 students and 15,000 teachers at 260 schools in the district. Edsby replaced a more expensive system, Edline, in September 2013 for grade books and parent engagement. The company claims the 20 million daily requests it serves every day "nearly instantaneously" at Hillsborough make it one of the "most significant learning management systems in K-12." District educator reaction has been positive, with some end-user grousing.
Edsby is emerging as popular among large-sized K-12 school districts. District-wide deployments with other school systems include 34,000 students and 3,450 staff at Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board and 60,000 public school students at Halton District School Board. The Greater Essex County District School Board has adopted Edsby for its 35,000 students and their parents, as has the District School Board of Niagara for its 36,000 students and their parents.
Press
Former New York City Department of Education Instructional Technology Director Mark Gura, writing in EdTech Digest, said "[the] smart people ... behind Edsby have developed a truly sophisticated and wonderfully capable LMS … My half hour sit down with this company showed me that they know what they are doing, thoroughly understanding the needs of schools." Educational trade publication eSchool News recognized Edsby as an LMS that "goes way beyond the basics." According to education analysts Getting Smart, "Edsby is aiming at the EdTech holy grail–a great learning platform for K-12 schools that is popular with students and parents, yet lets districts enforce policies and regional educational standards." Tech publication TechFaster wrote, "we’ve already seen a bunch of awesome education companies, but our favorite so far has to be Edsby. Edsby is an incredibly useful tool for educators, administrators, students, and parents ... Edsby is truly the best school management software."
Awards
In November 2016, District Administration magazine designated Edsby a Top 100 product of 2016. In October 2016, THE Journal awarded Edsby in two categories of its annual Reader's Choice awards: Most Valuable In Your Schools & Top 10 Favorite Technologies Currently Used. In October 2016, Tech & Learning magazine granted Edsby an award of excellence in its 34th annual awards. In July, 2016, the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) designated Edsby a Trendsetter with Traction at its annual education industry symposium. In May, 2016, Microsoft identified Edsby as a finalist for its global Education Partner of the Year. Edsby won the 2016 SIIA CODiE Award for Best Classroom Management Solution. Edsby was a finalist in the 2016 EdTech Digest Annual Awards categories of Best Learning Management System and Best Parent/Student Solution. In December, 2015, the Edsby learning management system was named one of the top products of 2015 by District Administration magazine. It also appeared on the 2015 Getting Smart 28 Learning Platforms Smart List. Edsby was named a 2015-2016 Top 10 Next Generation Learning Management System by E-Learning 24/7. Edsby was named the top LMS of 2015 by EdTech Digest, winning the company's "cool tool" award. In March 2015, Edsby was awarded the Best Medium Sized Company in Richmond Hill, Ontario, where the company is based. Edsby was among District Administration's Readers’ Choice Top 100 Products for 2014. In 2014, CIO Review called Edsby one of the 20 Most Promising Education Tech Service Providers. Edsby won a 2014-2015 Readers’ Choice Award from eSchool News. Edsby was the top winner of the 2013 Backbone Magazine Start Me up Innovation Campaign. Edsby was voted company with the most potential to become a $1B company at the 2013 Mindshare Learning/MaRS EdTech Summit. The company was also awarded Startup of the Year at the 2012 TechConnex Technology Leadership Awards on May 24, 2012.