1. Threading Water UCC’s Plunge Into PebblePad
We changed the title of the presentation slightly from in at the deep end, to echo more accurately where we started and where we are now, you will see we did jump in head first but we believe we are currently keeping afloat.
Dr Eileen O’Leary*, Prof Henry Smithson, Dr Bettie Higgs, Mrs Caroline O’ Connor, UCC

2. Brief History
ePrePP - electronic Preparation for Professional Practice
Inter-Professional Learning
Requirement for tracking CPD by the respective accrediting bodies (MCI, NMBI, PSI)
Inter-professional collaboration (disciplines and institutions)
Nationally Funded
This is just a brief introduction to how we began this journey
With a focus on facilitating, easing & supporting the transition to professional practice we also believed it was important to include IPE, where health care students learn with, from and about each other
National Forum for the enhancement of teaching and learning in higher education

3. Intended Outcomes
Technology to facilitate transition to Professional Practice
Students
Document & Record Learning – Competencies
Reflect on Learning & Training – Reflection Diary
Identify & Fulfil Knowledge Gaps – Digital Resources
Staff
Facilitate feedback & assessment
Tracking CPD
Our aim was to support Staff and students using the one electronic platform
Key in relation to staff was to make it possible to have easy access to assessments and to be able to provide regular formative feedback to their students
Also that staff had a platform in which they could document their own CPD was essential in a forward planning strategy.
For our students our key goals were to have an electronic platform
To document and record learning, competency framework and CPD
To reflect on and for learning and training – an electronic diary i.e. an eportfolio
That will host digital resources to fulfil individuals learning or training needs

4. Student Involvement – Focus group
Some of our placements are fantastic but sometimes you get the feeling that the tutor doesn’t really know what we want
It might just work but can we please have it on an app
There is a whole range of stuff out there and we all have our favourites but it would be great to record some of our cases
I guess I don’t really know why medics prescribe some drugs
I wonder if anyone knows what it is like to be a nurse
Identifying knowledge Gaps
Standardise teaching and maximise learning opportunities
Easy Access/readily available
Greater emphasis on IPL
In our quest for suitable technology and to get a clear understanding of what was necessary to facilitate this transition we held a focus group with our students, four key themes emerged
Tutors need guidance on what the student needs from the placement a way of identifying knowledge gaps with the student and then aiming to fulfil and record them during the placement
Students felt that some placements and resources were better than others and it would be great if we could introduce an element of standardisation into the placements and maximise learning opportunities allowing students to learn from each others experiences by document or recording cases
Students also felt they did not know enough about the role of other healthcare professionals and would like a greater emphasis on IPL
It was evident that students are used to using technology that is readily available and usable on mobile devices and requested an app!

5. Why PebblePad? For Students For Staff Personal learning space
Easy access – ‘one stop shop’ for information
Operate on mobile devices
For Staff
Premade & custom designed templates (students as users & creators)
Track and assess competencies
Single sign in facility
Shared learning – collaborations
Integrated with Blackboard
Free life long access
Generate reports
Can track hours
Recording student achievement is more transparent
Security
Why pebblepad = we conducted meetings with staff also to see what each discipline wanted compiled a list of requirements – and peppbelpad offered solutions
The key features the students sought were accommodated, it is very learner/student centered, a one stop shop for information, even opperates on mobile devices
What we looked for in an eportfolio
Easy access to information
-upload videos, records of learning, links to you tube videos and ted talks, workbooks
Allows for grading and monitoring of number of times competencies are assessed
Notes: Educator – top down and student bottom up!

6. In UCC the IT Department specifically the learning technology using host pebblepad, form there to date it had created three different regions that I am aware of, one for us in the school of pharmacy, one for nursing and one for dentistry. We have used it in four key ways to date, 1. for student reflection mimicking the IIOP CPD cycle and CCSAT (core competency self-assessment tool) used by practicing pharmacists; 2. for monitoring behaviours in laboratory practicals (this was done in chemistry labs – useful as it tied in even more the relevance of chemistry in a pharmacy degree). 3. we used it with our first year students and their tutors on placement. 4. We encouraged students to use the Reflective CPD cycle template to document impromptu learning, e.g. at home understanding and relating what they are learning to medicines in the cupboard, in a part-time job, assisting a neighbour etc, Nursing will also use it in a module and on clinical placements : multiple submissions
What
Document achievement of competencies
Why
Requirement of the accreditation body (PSI)
Where
In modules
On Placement
Outside of college (impromptu learning)
How
Individual assignments
Team based project
Communicating and sharing learning
Who
Academic staff (scaffolded learning)
Student (self-directed learning)

7. Current USER Base Pharmacy Nursing IT Tralee (ePrePP partners)
70 First year students
70 Placement tutors
6 Demonstrators
7 Academic Staff, 1 Admin Staff, 1 Technical Staff
Nursing
Roll out in May to 30 nursing students and preceptors
IT Tralee (ePrePP partners)
60 Third year students
TCD (ePrePP partners)
Our current user base includes
Pharmacy
70 First year students
70 Placement tutors
6 Demonstrators
7 Academic Staff, 1 Admin Staff, 1 Technical Staff
Nursing with roll it out in May to 30 nursing students and preceptors
IT Tralee one of our ePrePP partners have used it in a module in P1 for 60 Third year students
TCD have rolled it out just recently across all five years

8. Types of Documents Created
Workbooks for Placement
Workbook for behaviour assessment in Lab
Mimic of the CCSAT
Used to self-assess against the Core Competency Framework
Mimic of the IIOP CPD Cycle
Used for Hospital visit
Impromptu learning
Webfolio for Pharmaceutical Chemistry team project
Test potential for virtual synchronous and asynchronous IPL
Worksheet of activities assessing behaviours across all Year 1
Worksheet of behaviours linked to calculations assessment
Because we used it with first years it was scaffolded predominantly – What we dis was cross reference the behaviours in the CCF with the learning outcomes of various modules and identify the behaviours we expect them to attain. We rephrased the behaviour as an activity, required the students to self assess against the stated activity and then tick the associated behaviour – this had the benefit or making the student aware of what was expected of them and give them responsibility and autonomy over their own learning. Students were also asked to provide evidence that they have attained each pre-identified behaviour, they could do this in the form of a reflection or by uploading images or files as appropriate.
On a few occasions we have left it open and asked them to add a minimum of two behaviours they believe they also achieved during the placement, labs , hospital visit or lectures, and to provide evidence for it in the form of a reflection, image, file etc

9. To get buy-in Held meeting with all staff & with each discipline
Held meetings with and surveyed demonstrators
Held training and created ‘how to’ guide for demonstrators
Held interim meeting with demonstrators
Telephoned off-site tutors individually
Mailed these tutors a ‘how to’ guide
Trained students to assist tutors
We held meeting with all staff and again separately with each discipline. Initially there were reservations about demonstrators, especially non-pharmacy demonstrators signing students off as competent or not in a list of behaviours. To circumvent this we rephrased rephrases the behaviours as more readily measurable activities and linked them to behaviours, the demonstrators were asked to assess the students against the activity – for e.g. maintains a consistently high standard of work, student comes in well prepared for the lab, student pays attention to detail and accuracy in measuring etc. We also created a ‘how to’ guide for the demonstrators and provide them with ipads where they could carry out the assessment in the lab or directly after the session.
In order to introduce the concept to placement tutors we telephoned them all individually to explain the process: why we were doing it, what to expect and what they needed to do – gave them a choice of paper based or on-line, our of approximately 70 placement tutors only one chose paper based. Followed up with and a ‘how to’ guide, we also trained our students to facilitate the tutors and encouraged them to do so.

10. Midway Feedback Staff & Students needed training
We set up weekly sessions
Students need user guide
We placed ‘how to’ guides as links as they are needed
Disliked - Repetition for chemistry lab
Explained that consistent achievement was required
Lack of confidence with the reflection process
Gave examples of reflections
IIoP presenting on reflection
Students need user guides, it was hard to predict what they would need help in at the start and time-consuming to both set it up and also to provide user guides at the same time. In S2 – we have a better feel for the issues after having obtained interim feedback and we have placed links to individual ‘how to’ sections in specific places where they are required rather that having one overwhelming users guide, which ultimately we will create when the templates have been tested.
Students did not like or see the value in repeating the same behaviours in consecutive chemistry labs, we explained to them that the practicals changed, the detail changed and that consistent achievement of the behaviours is required, we are using the Codeg framework which is developed on frequency – never sometimes mostly always = 1,2,3,4

11. Our Experiences - positive
Easy to use
Great support form PebblePad help team
Good instructional videos and help section
Good website with sample implementation plans
Capability of mimicking what is expected of professionals (real preparation for real life)
Not necessarily easy to get it to do what you want it to do
Good website with sample implementation plans – videos from other institutions on how they implemented – well maintained user group with real experiences to learn from

12. Love! The duplicate button Ability to create a customised workbook
Ability to ‘amend’ workbook after it is rolled out
Variety of ‘measurement scales’
Everything is submitted to the one place
Auto-submit
Collections
Can add evidence to support achievement
Option of workbooks/sheets as one use only
Option of workbooks and worksheets as one use only is useful and minimises error when you are introducing the use of pebblepad, students can’t reuse and submit two or three half completed documents – it leads them back to the one document all the time ensuring that all their work is in one document to be assessed.

13. Issues!! Does not auto correct or total marks
Reports (per page, not per workbook)
Tags are lost if page becomes part of a workbook
A new section always goes to the bottom
Slow to open page if there are a lot of tasks to complete on it
No way of filing templates
Assessors can’t add feedback using the evidence button
Different capabilities to insert links & images
Worksheets/workbooks
Folio/webfolio
Conversations
Different abilities to insert links and images in different places – eg in the worksheets to form a work book and in a webfolio and in conversations – can lead to confusion for the user
Reasons for putting a lot on the one page is to get a report related to it all in the one sheet
No way of filing templates, when you open your resource centre – the most recent template shows up on top but if you are the creator of many and diverse templates there is no way of grouping them or filing them per topic or subject area for example.

14. Discussion Points…. Getting students started Generating user guides
Re-ordering work experience not possible (CV)
Issues with HSE firewalls
Lack of Wifi access in remote areas (live nursing interviews)
Interim training and assessment visits from PebblePad technologist?
Just to get ideas on – doid others have solutions to or encounter these!
Overarching problem from partners
Issues - we wanted to do something specific, time consuming on occasion to figure this out!
Generate discussion around the difficulties – any tips on getting started or a design template to begin with PP
Re ordering work experience not possible
Had to delete and start again – simple button to shift stuff up and down would be useful -

15. Dream Use of PebblePad……
PHARMACY
Medicine
To use PP for collaborative learning, between health care professionals and also between Universities to facilitate tutors and placements
Cartoon credit: Canadian Inter-professional Health Collaborative

16. The IIoP Reflection Cycle
The Irish Institute of Pharmacy Reflection cycle, we received much help and support in running this from the IIoP, we look forward to a presentation from Catriona Bradley in March of this year to help enthuse our students and reassure them that they are asking the same questions as many practicing pharmacists who are required to engage in this reflection cycle.