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 May 13 to May 20 timeframe.
New features in this release
Parent home screen enhancements
Parents see their children listed in the upper left of the Edsby home on desktop browsers. Clicking the name switches the view to the child’s classes, Portfolio, Learning Story, Recent Activity feed and calendar. There are no changes to the parent mobile home screen.
Group membership enhancement for mobile
Mobile users can now join an open group by tapping the Join button at the top of the group’s feed. To leave a group, tap the three dots to access the slide menu and choose Unsubscribe.
Decaying average added to summary methods
Decaying average is most suitable for assessment when teachers want to place more weight on recently scored materials, thereby rewarding students' progress without penalizing them for their starting point. This method considers the most recent scores as more representative of a student's current mastery level and puts more emphasis on those scores compared to older ones. Assessment practices that emphasize outcomes-based learning and track student progress throughout the term, rather than one overall grade, find decaying average to be a suitable grading approach.
Teachers have the option of using a decaying average in the gradebook or viewing the decaying average in the Perspective Analyze and the report card sheet’s Graph view.
The Class Setup form includes a new option to set the weight of the most recent score. The default setting is 65%. The option will apply to Perspective Analyze and the report card’s Graph view but has no impact on Gradebook calculations unless a summary column is added to the Gradebook.
Example
Student A has been assessed on outcome A.1. four times during the term. The student’s grades are:
|
|
Score |
Mean Average |
Decaying Average |
Calculation |
|
1 |
58% |
58% |
58% |
58 * 100% = 58 |
|
2 |
65% |
61.5% |
62.6% |
(58 * 35%) + (65 * 65%) = 62.6 |
|
3 |
80% |
67.7% |
73.9% |
(62.6 * 35%) + (80 * 65%) = 73.9 |
|
4 |
80% |
70.8% |
77.9% |
(73.9 * 35%) + (80 * 65% = 77.9 |
The gradebook summary columns display averages to one decimal place. The decaying average does not take the assessment weight into account.
The benefit of using a decaying average for this student is that it provides a more accurate reflection of their current performance by giving more weight to recent assessments. For instance, with a decaying average, the student's grade improves from 70.75% to 77.86% after their most recent assessment, showing their progress more effectively compared to a traditional mean average.
With symbolic grades schemes such as 4 levels, the decaying average will be based on the percentage equivalent as defined in the grade mapping scheme.
School mini profile
A mini-profile has been added to schools and districts to provide quick access to key information. With a desktop browser, hovering over a school name will show the mini profile which includes the school icon, a list of people with the role of Senior Admin, address, phone number, and website.
The mini profiles do not give access to the school page. In this example, the district has enabled teachers to search for teachers at other schools at the district. Hovering over the school’s name reveals the mini-profile, however, the teacher can’t navigate to the other school’s organization page. When using a mobile device, tapping the school’s name opens a mini-profile page.
The Senior Admin role can set the school icon through the Information panel on the School page. The address and contact information are provided by the Student Information System, but addition information can be added through the Information panel on the School page.
Additional account setting for staff
Staff have additional control over who in the district can send them unsolicited messages outside of common schools. Currently, teachers can control if parents at their schools can send unsolicited messages. As this option is enabled by default, parents at the school can send teachers Edsby messages.
For staff members only, we’ve added two different addition options. By default, these options are enabled so will have no impact unless changed by the staff member. Students or parents do not have access to these options.
Allow staff from other schools to find me using search and send messages to me
This option is enabled by default. If the district has decided that staff can find staff at other schools, a staff member will be able to opt of being found through search.
Allow staff from other schools to message me from the mini profile
This option is enabled by default. In various places, throughout Edsby, teachers may see the name of a teacher at another school. Hovering over the name displays the mini profile, which includes a Send Message option. Disabling the option, prevents staff from other schools from initiating an unsolicited message through the mini profile.
WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
In this release, we have furthered our commitment to accessibility by continuing our WCAG compliance work, ensuring a more inclusive and accessible experience for all users.
WCAG guidelines are internationally recognized standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to ensure that digital content is accessible to people with disabilities.
District IT Admin Notes
Google OAuth and Drive improvements
Progressive Scopes: Our approach now prioritizes user permissions, meaning we request access only when necessary. While this may result in an additional confirmation screen for Google Drive access after logging in, it aligns with industry standards and minimizes unnecessary requests for improved usability.
File Improvements: You can now seamlessly view, navigate, and attach shared file links and shared drives in Google directly within Edsby. While live document support isn't available due to permissions constraints, these enhancements offer greater convenience and functionality.
Modelling improvements
Enhancements have been made to the assessment modelling to include all fields on the form, including online tests, online submission, student files, teacher files and due dates.
Also, Gradebook filtering tabs based on Units can now be modelled.
Training implications and resources
The Edsby Release Reviews for 2023-24 videos can be found here.
Permission and roles changes
None in this release.
Quality improvements in this release
Assessment form: Formatting improvements to support a long list of grade schemes.
Attendance: Cancelled incidents no longer labeled as unresolved.
Attendance: Performance improvements in Planned Absence Zoom.
Credit Recovery: Recovery classes handle weighting by unit cases.
Comment Banks: Automatic periods are only engaged when a customer is set up to use the “Only select comments from comment banks” option.
Content Builder: Speed enhancements have been introduced for content copying.
Content Builder: Copied items now appear without needing a screen refresh.
Content Builder: District IT Admin see the option of copying content from an archived class.
Content Builder: Improved handling of files that have no valid extensions.
Evidence: Performance improvements to when viewing large collections of Evidence.
Evidence: Comments shared after creation appear in the Learning Story.
Evidence: Line breaks now appear in the Learning story for the Observations and Student Voice fields.
Evidence Organize: Items are ordered by date within the Sorted by options.
Groups: Resolved issues regarding students being dropped from auto registered groups.
Groups: Resolved issue regarding parents not being dropped from groups when they no longer have a student at the school.
iPad Gradebook: Typing into cells is now possible without needing to exit and reopen the Gradebook.
iPad Gradebook: Grades can now be selected on rubrics.
Online Tests: Issue with continuing an test resolved for mobile.
Personal Folder: The Google Drive and O365 live documents now work when used as attachments.
Messages: When a teacher locks a message thread it can be also unlocked by the teacher.
News River: Users only see the names of the schools they are a member of.
Panorama: Teachers with access to the Classes panel on the Panorama can no longer create a comment.
Perspective/My Work: Formatting improvements to support the inclusion of multiple summary columns.
Portfolio: Resolved issue with special characters producing an error message.
Progress Report (new): Overall summary average is computed when unshared assessments have no grades entered.
View Progress Report: Class Setup form controls the visibility of the overall average.
Report card sheets: Ordering of strands/outcomes on report cards (input and print templates) now respects standards module output.
Questions Sheets: Issue with adding questions from the question bank resolved.
Report cards: Hovering over the grade cell displays the calculation average.
Students Zoom: Tags are now correctly displayed after updates without requiring logout/login.
Student specific report cards: Resolved export issues due to illegal characters.