A new software release is now available in the Edsby Sandbox. It is expected that this release will be going into production across all customer sites in the August 23 to September 2 timeframe.
New features in this release
Edsby Evidence and single QR codes
Students can submit learning evidence to any class their teachers choose. Items submitted are immediately visible in the student’s own Learning Story and the teacher’s Evidence page. Parents only see the items once they are shared to their child’s Learning Story by the teacher.
Students only need one QR to submit to any class with evidence capture enabled. Students no longer need to scan different QR codes for different classes.
For example, a homeroom teacher can enable evidence submission in English, French, and Visual Arts and then provide each student with a single unique QR code. The code can be printed from either the English, French, or Visual Arts classes. The student scans the QR code, takes a photo or video, and then is presented with a list of valid classes. If only one class is enabled, no list is presented, the item is simply upload to the class.
Students submitting evidence through Edsby Capture can scan the QR code found in their Learning Story. Students can also choose to submit evidence though Edsby by selecting from a list of classes.
Teachers will no longer see QR codes within the Student panel until the "Allow Student and Parents to capture Evidence" checkbox is enabled. Teachers can capture learning evidence from the Edsby app and do not require the Edsby Capture app. As noted above, any photos, videos, and student reflections submitted through Edsby Capture are visible to the student immediately.
Government ID visibility
When supplied, the unique government student ID is visible to all roles with access to the Panorama, Students and My Students Zoom.
Students can see their own government ID in the Personal Information section of the account settings.
Parents can see their own children's government IDs listed in the same location.
Idea Management System
An Idea Management System (IMS) called Frill has been incorporated into Edsby to allow teacher and district staff users, to submit, vote for, and discuss feature requests with other teacher and district staff users and the Edsby team. The goal is to create a collaborative environment where the needs and preferences of educators and administrators can be effectively communicated and considered.
Several important points should be noted regarding this new capability:
- Students and parents do not have access, ensuring that it remains a dedicated space for teachers and school district personnel.
- It is not intended for bug reporting, so any technical issues should continue to be addressed through existing channels.
- Names and email addresses will be shared with the third-party platform, but only the first name and last initial will be visible to other users.
- It is recommended to set notification preferences to stay updated on relevant discussions and developments.
Staff members can access the IMS from their personal menu in an Edsby browser login. Selecting “Suggest a new feature” will display a form to submit a new feature idea. The system is not yet available on mobile.
Edsby professional development courses
Edsby professional development courses have been developed to support school staff, including teachers, school administrators, and attendance office personnel, in enhancing their understanding and use of the Edsby platform. These courses self-paced, allowing participants to engage with the material as schedules allow. As part of ongoing efforts to expand learning opportunities and improve staff users' understanding of the many capabilities of Edsby, more courses will be developed over time.
Available courses will be made available in the Group Recommender, ensuring that they are visible and readily accessible to those who may benefit from them.
District IT Admin notes
The District IT Admin role has regained the ability to create and edit Symbolic Grade Scales and Grade Schemes.
The Symbolic Grades Scales and Grades Schemes are fundamental to gradebook calculations and report card functionality. Any changes should be carefully considered and thoroughly tested in the Sandbox environment before making changes to a Production environment.
Documentation can found here.
Changes to the Assistant Teacher role
This role has undergone significant changes in this release. Previously, the Teacher and Assistant Teacher roles were identical, but with this update, permissions have been adjusted to better suit school-based employees who work in the classroom but should not have access to personal or academic information about students at the school.
As of this release:
- The Assistant Teacher can be added to a Class but has a read-only view of the class. The names of Assistant Teachers do not appear in the Teachers panel of the class.
- The role can be added to groups and will see any groups open to All Staff. This role cannot create groups.
- The role does not have access to any Zooms.
- The role can view the School page, but cannot submit an article.
- The role can view the Profile page of any staff, student, or parent either through a search or by clicking on a name. The Profile page contains the user's name and photo.
The Assistant Teacher role is bundled in the Staff role that is seen in the Roles document and Group permissions. The Staff role includes all admin and staff roles and eliminates the need to list all the roles separately. Many customers will have a Roles document set up for the bundled Staff role. Customers have the option of creating a new Roles document for the Assistant Teacher role if they wish to provide a different search directory. For example, the directory can be limited to Staff at the school and this would enable people with this role to search only for people listed in the Staff Zoom. Limiting the directory to Staff would also limit who they can send a new message to. As with all roles, the Assistant Teacher would be able to reply to any message.
New class-based role added
We’ve introduced a new class-based role called Assistant, which provides read-only access to the class. If a Teacher assigned the class-based Assistant role, they can take attendance but will otherwise have read-only access. This can be useful for mentoring purposes.
For those with the Assistant Teacher user role, assigning the Assistant class-based role is a logical choice for School Admins or teachers when granting class access.
View of a class for the user role of Assistant Teacher
When assigned to a class, the Assistant Teacher can view a read-only version of the class feed, Planner, Content, and Seating Plan. The Assistant Teacher is not listed in the Teachers panel, and their mini profile is limited. The availability of the Send Message option depends on the Roles documents.
View of a class for the user role of Teacher and the class-based role of Assistant.
When assigned to a class, the Teacher can take attendance and view a read-only version of the class feed, Planner, Content, and Seating Plan. Those assigned the class-based role of Assistant are not listed in the Teachers panel. The mini profile is based on the Teacher role and remains unaffected by the class-based role.
Training implications and resources
The introduction of single QR codes for students using Edsby Capture has changed how teachers access QR codes. Teachers will no longer see QR codes in the Student panel until the 'Allow Student and Parents to capture Evidence' checkbox is enabled. While the Edsby Capture app is not required for teachers to collect learning evidence, some may be accustomed to using it. Teachers can either enable the 'Allow Student and Parents to capture Evidence' checkbox or continue using the Edsby app to collect evidence.
The Edsby Release Reviews for 2023-24 videos can be found here.
Quality improvements in this release
Attendance: Issue with creating a planned absences from Incident Zoom after sorting students by columns has been resolved.
Class: Removed search bar text from printed seating plan.
Evidence: Date of collection matches the date it was submitted.
Evidence: Likes no longer update the timestamp for posts and replies.
Evidence: Large collections of Evidence loads more efficiently
Gradebook: The Share button once again switches to gray Shared button.
Gradebook: Updated help text has been added to the Weighting form.
Grader: Issue with document comments has been resolved.
Mini-Profile: Formatting improvement to handle long names.
News River: Existing articles can be edited to include images.
Staff Zoom: Timestamp for manually added staff now uses local time.