PebblePad - not just an eportfolio

Supporting Learning and Teaching

If you know anything about PebblePad you will realise that above anything else it is designed to support learning – whenever or wherever that learning takes place. Although the assets created or stored in PebblePad are private, and can only be seen by others with the permission of the owner, this has aided, rather than hindered the use of the system in formal contexts.

Learners know that they can create multiple assets but only share the ones they want others to see. With appropriate permissions applied teachers, mentors or supervisors can add feedback to a user’s work: evidence shows that users are much more likely to engage with, and respond to this feedback as it feels much more personal in their system.

Of particular value in the early implementations of PebblePad has been the amount of peer support and collaboration that has taken place – often spontaneously. This has been especially evident on course with a work-based or placement element.

Gateways operate alongside PebblePad and fulfil an institutional function. They provide an ‘affinity’ area where completed assets, or assets in progress can be published by users. Gateways are controlled by teachers and permissions can be set to allow work to be ‘handed-in’ by assessment deadlines; feedback can be added to multiple items and released on demand and work can be archived for quality assurance purposes. Moderators and external examiners can be given access to gateways: Gateway tools allow, amongst other functions, secure conversations to be conducted to support the assessment process.

The flexibility of PebblePad means that many teachers use it to create structured assets; templates and supporting materials which they share with their own groups of students. Creating and publishing in PebblePad is very easy and is always secure.

How will you use it?

You could choose to use PebblePad to support research students or their supervisors. Perhaps students need somewhere to record and reflect on their learning; perhaps their tutors want to see some of these records and to provide feedback and support as part of a PDP process. Perhaps users on placement want to blog their experiences and to later select from their ‘asset store’ a sub-set of key or critical incidents which defined their learning. Perhaps the placement mentors or others would have access to the blog to provide support and encouragement. Some users will certainly want to use PebblePad to collect evidence of competence to fulfil qualification or professional requirements. Whilst all of this is taking place the PebblePad user might be recording the diverse learning experiences arising out of work; socialising; volunteering or hobbies.

Whatever you or your learners want to do it’s possible in PebblePad – and is probably already happening in some form in one or more of the 40+ institutions already using PebblePad with over 150,000 learners!