Author: Venue: Date: Overview Author: Bob Guinn Venue: UWL SMR Date: Dec

What is PebblePad? AA Nov 10 2

What is PebblePad? PebblePad is a Personal Learning System which is used help student’s: Personal Development Planning (PDP) keep a personal record and commentaries on what they have learnt reflect on the way they are learning focus on their employability AA Nov 10 3

What can you do with PebblePad? With PebblePad, students are able to: build their own electronic portfolio (eportfolio) of achievements (ie create, store, and review materials which they can then present as e-portfolios, called WebFolios) share documents, images, videos, and sound files, with tutors, other students, and anyone students /staff choose to share with. AA Nov 10 4

E-portfolios and CVs Students can also use PebblePad to present a CV or a set of documents and media files to employers in a webfolio (an online portfolio). Students can use PebblePad throughout the duration of your studies at UWL, and take it with them (for a small sum of money) when they leave UWL. E-portfolios can be used as a form of assessment using the Pebblepad Gateways Tutors can create blank webfolios consisting of a collection of empty forms/profiles, blogs and action plans. These are then shared or published for students to download, populate and submit. AA Nov 10 5

E-portfolios and CVs AA Nov 10 6

Forms AA Nov 10 7 Staff can create forms for students to complete in PebblePad. For example. To create a ‘personality test’ or ‘my goals’ to link to a Webfolio or to use as a template for a weekly blog or reflective journal.

The Gateways However, Gateways can be set up for staff, so that students can submit work created in PebblePad to be assessed. Gateways can be thought of as Institutional space –where assets can be published from a user’s Personal space for viewing by other authorised users. Contact to request a new Gateway to be created for AA Nov 10 8 Primarily content added to PebblePad by a student is for their eyes only.

A Gateway AA Nov 10 9

Problems Not intuitive as it could be (e.g. no ‘Right click – save as’ functionality) Gateway - sometimes students accidentally create multiple copies of submitted Webfolios and linked forms Downloading, editing and the re-uploading of documents always creates a duplicate The date on assets displayed is the date of creation, not the last date it was edited AA Nov 10 10

Good points It’s personal – encourages students to set personal learning goals Keeps documents online so they shouldn’t get lost Good for reflective learning Forms are very useful for directing students when creating a reflective journals or for using as an initial personal diagnostic tool Shared assets can be easily commented on by Personal Tutor or others AA Nov 10 11

Good points Quote from The University of Edinburgh. Centre for teaching Learning and Assessment: “In order to help students realise and visualise what PebblePad is (and what it is not) it was helpful to characterise PebblePad as an educational equivalent of MySpace or Facebook. Students are already familiar with using these tools to share personal information, and they are comfortable with online collaborative behaviours. Although these tools can be used in an educational context they were not designed for this, and many students are reluctant to allow their private world of Facebook to overlap with their academic life.” AA Nov 10 12