Embedding PebblePad into the curriculum

Ideas on how educators and tutors can use PebblePad to make learning and assessment richer and more engaging.

Create online forms for your students to complete

Completed forms can be returned to you, used within a peer review activity, included in a student webfolio or simply retained as a private asset.

Encourage students to build a webfolio

Students can easily create evidence-based websites, pictures, movies or links to external references. Webfolios can be individual or can be developed by a group of students. Webfolios remain private by default, but can be shared with others or submitted for assessment as presentations, digital essays or portfolios of evidence.

Keep a blog

You could keep a blog for your students adding in topical comments about the news or a suggesting a provocative 'thought for the day'. Students can use a blog to document their learning or experiences during their studies or placements. Tutors can be invited to view students’ blogs and leave comments and feedback. Blogs give students ownership of their learning and an authentic voice, allowing them to articulate their needs and inform their own learning.

Try a peer assessment task

Assets submitted to a gateway can be distributed to members of the gateway for peer review and comment, anonymously if desired, and comments (and/or marks) moderated or simply returned to the author for consideration. It’s a straight forward way to manage an assignment submission and commenting process.

Challenge students to articulate a strategy

Ask students to think through all the stages in a plan, break down the overall plan into manageable steps and identify what resources they will need. Set reminders at critical times to check progress and to review and adapt the plan.

Help students identify their skills

As a tutor, you can encourage students to use PebblePad’s self-evaluation questionnaires to audit and evidence their skills, knowledge and expertise over a period of time. This could be over a course, a full programme or throughout their University study. Staff can develop course-specific questionnaires if desired.

Be an online supervisor or mentor

A blog is a simple but effective way to record thoughts or ideas, share them with a friend or mentor, and receive quick feedback. The whole online 'conversation' is captured and can be referred back to later, if required.

Use a folio like a course handbook

Compile your course notes, activities and interesting snippets into a webfolio and share it with your students. Allowing students to make a copy of the folio means they can then add their own notes or comments to the materials you initially provide.

Develop a course glossary

Maybe you wish to provide a glossary or a set of FAQs for your students, or perhaps you wish to create one as a collaborative task. The webfolio tool would lend itself to this sort of activity.

Share an asset through a gateway

Give students time and space to think back

Reflecting on how much progress you have made and how far you have come is often overlooked. PebblePad includes a variety of tools which are designed to prompt and encourage reflection. Reflections can be retained as private thoughts or collated and shared.

Remind students about a deadline

Tutors can send announcements to all members of a gateway. This will be delivered immediately as an email, and can also be a pop up.

Scaffold an activity

Use a form, a webfolio or other tools to set up activities for your students to complete. If you share the asset you create through a gateway and encourage students to use the copy and autopublish option then everytime they update their version, you will be able to see those changes too.

Collect data off campus

Students can capture data from their phones (such as photos, or by filling in simple forms) directly into their PebblePad asset store, ready to share, embed into a folio or submit for assessment.

Prompt students to recognise the graduate attributes within your course

All courses develop different elements of graduateness and students now have access to a graduate attributes profile.

Share assessments with an external reviewer

Assets such as student assignments submitted to a PebblePad gateway can be shared, anonymously if desired, with external users such as an external examiner. The assignments are all held securely in PebblePad so they won’t get lost in the post or left on the train, and the external reviewer can access them whenever they need to.

Help students prepare for an interview

Coming up with specific examples of when you demonstrated expertise in problem solving, or the time you demonstrated you are an expert negotiator can be tricky. If you embed these types of opportunity into your course, you might wish to encourage students to record and reflect upon exactly what they did and the skills they used. PebblePad has a range of tools designed for just these sorts of tasks, and your student then has the information recorded for the rest of their student lifetime (and probably beyond).

Course organisers share their thoughts

University of Edinburgh course organisers share their thoughts and experiences about how the PebblePad e-portfolio has been used to help students and staff.

PebblePad at the University of Edinburgh - Case Studies (2009) (pdf)

This article was published on Sep 18, 2012