Pp 2010 Digital

Effective use of PebblePad:
A collection of case studies from PebbleBash 2010

Edited by Alison Poot

Published by Pebble Learning Ltd
e-Innovation Centre
University of Wolverhampton
Shifnal Road
Telford
TF2 9FT
UK
First published 2010
First revised Edition, June 2010
© Pebble Learning 2010
ISBN: 978-0-9565641-0-8
The right of Alison Poot to be identified as the editor of this work has been asserted in accordance
with Section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book may not
be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers.
Design & cover: Pebble Learning

Contents
Strand theory: An introduction by Shane Sutherland

VIII

Part One - Case studies
1

Developing an eportfolio pedagogy for small and medium sized enterprises.
Alison Felce, Emma Purnell

3

2

From little things, big things grow: The organic propagation of PebblePad
projects in the Faculty of Education, La Trobe University.
Jenny Masters, Lilian Austin, Lyn Doolan

8

Developing the use of eportfolios to support the reflective learning process
in early primary Initial Teacher Education.
Kevin Ardron

12

Guiding, supporting and assessing midwifery students in clinical placements.
Jackie Haigh, Neil Currant

17

Student midwives’ use of PebblePad to build an eportfolio to demonstrate
placement learning.
Debbie Holmes

21

6

Generating individual learner profiles for work-based learners.
Martin Jenkins, Phil Gravestock

25

7

Supporting recording and archiving of research student supervisory meetings with PebblePad.
Peter Norrington

30

8

PebblePad implementation: You DO need to walk before you can run.
Margaret Faulkner

33

9

Putting the ‘e’ into ethics – using PebblePad forms to submit and assess
ethics applications.
Rachel Challen

39

3

4

5

10 From an eportfolio to a PLS: Integrating an eportfolio into a Post Graduate
Certificate in Learning & Teaching in HE.
Sarah Chesney

44

11 Dual learning experience: An academic studying and learning through the
PebblePad environment.
Trisha Poole

48

V

12 Teacher eportfolio Project for Northern Ireland – a multi agency approach to
teacher lifelong learning.
Gillian Stewart, Dr Victor McNair

13 ePortfolios - reflecting on the evidence.
Libby Clark, Greg Hardham

14 Lost in Reflection. How SSPAL students use ‘forms’ to find their way.
Paul Towers

52
58
63

15 It’s more than an eportfolio: Using PebblePad for online submission and assessment.
Louise Wilson

16 Let every flower bloom – an organic approach to introducing PebblePad.
Alan White

67
72

17 Teaching old dogs new tricks: A strategy to promote innovative teaching and
leadership using eportfolios.
Ian Clarke, Delene Weber

18 Introducing PebblePad. Eight stories from tutors.
Robert Chmielewski

76
80

19 Assessment of and for learning in Primary PGCE ICT Initial Teacher Training
at the University of Worcester.
Moira Savage

86

20 Using electronic portfolios to demonstrate achievement of professional
standards in Initial Teacher Training (ITT): Effective and efficient?
Helen Bird

91

21 ePortfolios for developing trainee teachers’ professional learning though
reflection.
Geraldine Jones

22 ‘Life Support Provider’ accreditation by eportfolio.
Harry Owen, Cyle Sprick, Lynne Sanderson

95
101

23 Using eportfolios in undergraduate medicine to reflect and evidence clinical
competences.
Maria Toro-Troconis, Ashish Hemani

24 Using a webfolio to present an exercise training program.
Rhondda Tilbrook, Timothy Fairchild

VI

106
110

25 A conversion among the pebbles? Using an eportfolio to support PDP with
year 2 Electronic Engineering students.
Helen Sterne

115

26 Operability of PebblePad as a medium for assessment and PDP development in second year computing students preparing for placement.
Scott Jones, Claire Bylo

27 Personal Development Planning and International Students.
Christina Meredith

28 Embedding eportfolios into an undergraduate degree program.
Jenni Munday

118
122
126

29 Embedding eportfolios in an introductory educational technology
Subject.
Jacquie Tinkler

130

30 Engaging Engineering: Introducing eportfolios into a first year Engineering
course.
Meaghan Botterill

135

Part Two - Student Perspectives
1

Will Varnam, University of Wolverhampton

143

2

Sandra Stewart, Charles Sturt University

145

3

Sarah Lewis, University of Derby

149

4

Claire Fellows, University of Surrey

152

5

Claudia Herfert, University of Potsdam

154

6

Katie Archer, University of Derby

156

7

Ann-Marie Killeen, University of Wolverhampton

158

8

Benash Nazmeen, University of Bradford

160

9

Lucy Cave, Aston University

162

Index

165

VII

Strand theory: An introduction

These case studies begin to capture some of the unique affordances of the personal
learning system, PebblePad. It is a tool wholly founded on improving learning and we
believe it to be without equal. However, it is just a tool – albeit one which is based on
sound educational principles and borne out of extensive pedagogical practice. As a tool
it relies on the people who use it to use it knowingly, insightfully and deliberatively. Just
as there is an art and a science to teaching so there is both capacity and understanding
associated with the best uses of PebblePad.
PebblePad supports good teaching and learning. It has a reflective structure, supports
individual and social constructivism, and is essentially dialogic in nature. Although it is
possible to enjoy a certain level of self-mediated dialogue, supported by the scaffolding
in the system, dialogue is always enhanced by audience: validated by valued others.
These case studies now help to validate the experiences of those valued others who
have been at the vanguard of implementing what is actually a highly disruptive technology. Disruptive technologies create tensions, challenge the status quo, are discomforting and unsettling. So why do people promote disruptive tools like PebblePad; suffer the
mental and emotional anxieties experienced by many champions of change, and endure
the chagrin and brickbats of colleagues and students alike? Because disruptive technologies like PebblePad are also transformative. They provide opportunities to radically
enhance the learning, learning experiences, and opportunities of those with whom we
engage. While this book is not a collection of ‘proper’ research papers, the sum of this
community’s learning is more compelling than any other eportfolio research I have read.
PebblePad works; though it works best when its use is considered. However, it is highly
disruptive and so requires immense effort, resilience and fortitude from its advocates
in order to overcome the cultural, technical and political challenges that are routinely
encountered in institutions.
These case studies and student accounts arose from the first PebblePad conference;
a conference designed to inform and improve effective PebblePad practice by bringing
together ‘expert’ practitioners to share their experiences and the knowledge and insights
they have developed. Undoubtedly many of those to whom I attribute expert status will
baulk at the notion, perhaps feeling more like novices experimenting, innovating and
learning as they go. The reality of course is that they are novice and expert in the same
moment.
The widespread use of eportfolios is remarkably recent and the briefest trawl of the literature will reveal that there is still no widely held definition of what they are – though my
own preference is for a simple definition of eportfolio as a digital presentation:
A purposeful aggregation of digital items – ideas, evidence, reflections,
feedback etc, which presents a selected audience with evidence of a person’s learning and/or ability.

VIII

Discussing ‘Personal Learning Systems’ is much less problematic because there is no
literature. There has been plenty written about ‘Personal Learning Environments’, the
loosely connected tools and services idiosyncratically constructed by a learner over
time: but a fuller understanding of personal learning systems can only emerge as a result
of this community’s conversations and our shared learning because there are few tools
like PebblePad and none as widely used. When eportfolios became fashionable many
existing tools, which were patently not eportfolios, were ‘rebranded’ creating confusion
for the community. With that precedent in mind I would argue that we relinquish the term
‘eportfolio’ to the wider community but assiduously promote the notion of a Personal
Learning System and rigorously defend what we believe the term stands for.
So, what does it stand for? That comes out of these cases and learner accounts. The
sense that it is ‘my place’, a personal place but a place from which I can choose to connect with others. It is a place where my thoughts, ideas and aspirations can be more easily articulated through the supporting structures it contains. It is conversational, though
not always in an easy way. This place challenges me, encourages me to deconstruct,
analyse, reflect and reconstruct and it provides opportunities for social enrichment of my
learning experiences. Of course, my personal learning space also allows me to create
multiple eportfolios for myriad purposes and diverse audiences.
We are developing new models of learning, new ways of thinking, acting and being.
There are emergent pedagogies that may be claimed to be unique to this system and
these papers help us understand the role of the learner and the teacher in this space. At
an episodic level there is much to celebrate, much to learn from and much to commend
the individuals involved. However, as one might expect with an emergent technology and
emergent practice, there is a great deal still to be done if we are to fully realise the truly
transformative nature of personal learning systems in the context of life-long and lifewide learning. Indeed, how can we realise those latter aspirations when there are still so
few examples of course-, programme-, or institution-wide implementations?
Each new intervention, each case-study, presentation or conversation helps us to better
understand the pedagogy of PebblePad (which I’ll now use as short-hand for the personal learning system). I think of these accounts of practice as contributing to a learning spiral, extending our knowledge and understanding at each rotation, and each turn
further improving practice. But this ‘practitioner’ spiral cannot continue to develop in
isolation from two others that are essential to proper embedding and which are requisites
for promoting integrative learning.
Along with the practitioner spiral the two additional spirals may be perceived as part of
a triple helix or, my current preference, as strands in a rope. As they extend in parallel
with each other the rope gains in length and strength. The two strands that have yet to
be twisted and formed alongside the practitioner strand can be themed as programme
and institutional strands. Until these strands are developed in support of the first strand
the practitioner ‘strand’ will continue to be under strain, always in tension and never attaining its true strength.
The programme strand refers to the extent to which ‘the curriculum’ understands that
episodic use of PebblePad is sub-optimal. Without integration at programme level stu-

IX

dents will question the effort required to understand the system, will see through the
rhetoric of integrative learning, won’t have the opportunities to make sense of learning
across modules and are unlikely to develop habits of use beyond the formal requirements of the module.
The institutional strand concerns the sum of the learner experience with the institution. It
is integration of PebblePad at the institutional level that is most indicative of the institution’s commitment to value learning beyond the curriculum. It is easy to see how a personal learning system can be used to support application and preparation for university,
the first year experience, group work, placement learning, student awards, research,
preparation for employment, professional accreditation and active membership of the
alumni. It is equally easy to then see how the same benefits enjoyed by students might
be enjoyed by staff for appraisal, promotion, professional development and career enhancement.
Promotion of the programme strand falls to course leaders. In those few instances where
this currently happens, the programme is likely to be a professional route to nursing,
teaching or a similar subject where there is already a history of portfolio use. Promotion
at an institutional level requires insight and leadership. It requires a commitment to the
oft espoused rhetoric that the graduates of this university are more than the sum of their
subject knowledge. Leadership at the institutional level means seeing personal learning
systems and eportfolios as not just an answer to the problem of PDP, a solution to support placement learning or another elearning technology to add to the pile, but rather the
only way to properly support and promote learning over time, wherever it takes place.
Leadership at the institutional level will promote whole-of-programme implementation
and will reduce the strain on the practitioner champions who are currently supporting too
much of the load from their single strand.
The words above are a nod to what needs to be done but they should not be read as a
criticism of institutions or of individuals; they merely state where we are and where we
ought to be. That we have only made it here is a reflection of the novelty of systems like
PebblePad and the emergent interest in eportfolios. It may also be due to the relative
conservatism of the large organisations that sanctions its use, particularly in these financially straightened times. That we have actually got so far is testament to the creativity,
endeavour and persuasiveness of the practitioners whose view of learning and teaching
resonates with the principles of PebblePad. This book and the conference it arises from
are a celebration of their work and of what has been achieved so far.
So, it’s a real delight to introduce these papers to you and to commend the learning to
be drawn from them. These case studies and student accounts really do indicate the
transformative potential of PebblePad, a potential we hope to see more readily realised
as our knowledge, understanding (and powers of persuasion) develop over time.

Shane Sutherland
Development Director, Pebble Learning
June 2010

X

Part One
§
Case studies

1
Developing an eportfolio pedagogy for small and medium
sized enterprises
Alison Felce and Emma Purnell
The Institute for Learning Enhancement, The University of Wolverhampton, UK
The background context
This case study describes a project led by the Institute for Learning Enhancement in conjunction with 5 pilot schools, support departments, and the business development unit.
As a Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) funded project within the Institutional
Innovation stream, synergies with other projects within the phase have been identified
and the pedagogy developed to include these, where relevant.
The University of Wolverhampton is a post-1992 Higher Education Institution (HEI) with
strong links in the community and a widening participation agenda. One of its strategic
aims is to build the portfolio of higher education (HE) for work-based learners to meet the
need in the local economy for HE level skills. In the Wolverhampton area there is a higher
than average proportion of the population qualified to level 2 or 3 (equivalent to pre-entry
or entry level for HE, respectively). In line with Leitch (2006), and to offset the anticipated
decline in full-time student numbers, the university has set up a subsidiary company to
build links with local employers and to gather intelligence on learning needs. Around
73% of those employed in the private sector locally, are located within small to medium
sized enterprises (SME, i.e. with fewer than 250 employees), (CFE, 2009), making this a
significant market group.
The university is recognised as a leading expert in the innovative use of eportfolios; a
Higher Education Academy (HEA) Pathfinder project on the use of eportfolios has recently been completed and the university is part of a collaborative project run by the
Centre for Recording Achievement on the implementation of eportfolios for the employer
engagement agenda (HE5P).
Learners in the target market are likely to have left school with few academic qualifications, have been working for a number of years in manual / technical employment and
have limited confidence in the use of information technology (IT). Thus the initial target
level of study for the project is HE year 1, i.e. level 4. In addition, potential learners are
not able to access current provision (full-time / part-time courses) and will have limited
time each week to study. The pedagogy developed needs to take all the above into account as well as the different and varied learning needs of employer and learner and also
provide a cost-effective, sustainable and scalable learning opportunity.
The current practice
The University of Wolverhampton has been using eportfolios since 2005 and has built its
capacity in this through a strategic oversight led by the Institute for Learning Enhance-

3

ment. Networks of Technology Supported Learning Co-ordinators, echampions and eportfolio mentors have enabled widespread use of the eportfolio tools within the curriculum, predominately full-time on-campus provision. There is also expertise in the use of
eportfolios for mentoring students in practice placements and for portfolio building for
summative assessment.
However, the majority of engagement with learners off-campus is via bespoke Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses, which are usually non-credit bearing and
designed as “one-off” provision.
The challenge
The university needs to have a sustainable, scalable and cost-effective provision for
learners in the workplace and to develop a pedagogy that will allow negotiated and
bespoke learning, will enable the learners to gain credit for prior formal and informal
learning, will provide scaffolding to support the learner in HE, and has a flexible assessment framework that is adaptable to the varied learning experiences the target market
will want.
The pedagogy must allow learners to “build” their learning through a variety of opportunities, for instance, gain credit for prior learning, employer-based training, informal learning, taught courses, ‘new’ learning. It must take into account the learners’ potential low
level of IT literacy, anticipated lack of confidence in IT applications and potential low expectations regarding ability to succeed in HE. In addition, the learner will be work-based
and will not attend any face-to-face sessions so all learning, support, guidance etc must
be available on-line and the learning and tutor support must be available asynchronously
to allow access at a time to suit the learner, not the institution.
The university undertook a survey of its CPD provision and identified a disparate approach to external clients. The survey recommended that a more collaborative and strategic approach be developed to avoid duplication and wasted effort and to build the
capacity to provide HE level learning, and CPD, to the local business community.
The university set up a business development company through which a more coherent
approach to employer engagement could be provided. Monies from the JISC Institutional Innovation Programme are being used to develop an eportfolio based pedagogy to
enable the planned employer engagement with work-based learners. There are a number
of other strategic reasons to develop this pedagogy; these include the new professional
studies programme, where learners can design their own award, as well as new “shell”
modules and accreditation of employer-based training.
The approach
The eportfolio based pedagogy is being developed using an action research methodology. Five schools were identified to participate in the work based on their current subject
portfolios and their willingness to engage with work-based learners. ePortfolio champions were identified in each of the five schools and invited to mentor an academic subject
led within their own school. The mentors have all been involved in the HEA Pathfinder

4

project so have recent knowledge and understanding of curriculum design within an
eportfolio environment.
A series of three retreats supplemented by short workshops are being used to share
experiences and learning across the pilot projects and to work collaboratively on setting targets and outputs for each phase of the project. The core project team includes
the university co-ordinator of work-based learning (the Project Manager), an eportfolio
expert, the head of blended learning, the deputy head of quality and academic standards
and the director of IT services. The project steering group includes the Pro-vice Chancellor, PVC (Academic) as chair, the head of the new business development company, an
employer and an external evaluator. The project team and steering group provide crossrepresentation of all key stakeholders.
The business development company undertakes market research to identify commonalities in learning needs of local SMEs through interviews that result in a performance
needs analysis. The results of this market research are then developed by the academic
subject lead into a validated 5 credit unit, equivalent to 50 hours of study.
The pilots are being staggered so that learning from one can inform the development of
the subsequent pilots. A set of practice guidelines are being written outlining, interalia,
design of eportfolio templates, types of activities for learners including development of
critical reflection and formats for formative assessment. In parallel with the design of the
eportfolio quality assurance and systems processes are being developed to enable the
learner to complete 5 credit units and build these into modules and awards at a later
date.
The issues
There have been three key issues that the project has had to address:
Firstly, a need to ensure that all involved have the same understandings about the pedagogy and the systems and processes development required to enable that pedagogy to
be realised. Key to the project’s success is the learning, and associated HE credits, it will
enable beyond the initial pilot unit.
Secondly, the locus of control needs to be with the core curriculum development team
to maintain an overview of the developments and to ensure that all participants are benefitting from the learning achieved through the action research being undertaken. It is
important that the learning is not happening in small ‘silos’ otherwise any output may not
be fit for purpose. It may not take into account all aspects of the research undertaken
because what is being learned in one silo may not be shared with the others.
Thirdly, but perhaps most importantly is the issue of time, and different deadline needs
for different partners in the project. External deadlines set the agenda for the first pilot
and potentially impacted on its effectiveness, however, in meeting a tight timeframe,
important lessons were learnt that have fed into the research.

5

The result
The first cohort of learners, working in the construction industry, has completed the first
pilot unit, Enhancing Communication Skills, and this is currently being evaluated. Based
on the experiences of this unit and from interim evaluations from the learners the second
pilot, Management and Behaviour with learners who are managers in organisations, has
been developed and design of the third, Employability Law, is almost complete.
We have developed guidelines for the design of a webfolio template through which the
learners access learning materials and activities. The activities were embedded within
webfolio pages in the first pilot. These are now scaffolded within ‘blogs’ as this allows
much quicker and easier access to the learners. In addition, the use of a blog means that
each comment entered by the learner becomes a unique asset that can later be built into
a summative assessment, if the learner chooses. There are three modes of blog within
each unit: activity blogs, personal blogs and a collaborative group blog. The tutor is able
to enter into a dialogue with individual students, or the group.
Guidelines for accessing PebblePad, downloading the webfolio template and posting it
to a gateway have been written and are accessed by new learners via a public URL. This
guidance includes how to register for an IT account and an introduction to the unit from
the unit tutor. All of which make it more accessible and should help avoid difficulties in
accessing the learning materials.
The first pilot relied primarily on digital paper. Subsequent units will have minimum use
of text and make use of electronic resources that the resource librarians can assist in
sourcing for the academic tutors. Furthermore, PowerPoint slide shows, talking heads
and pod-casts as well as links to existing external resources such as YouTube are used
to cater for a range of learning styles and preferences. The learners are asked to evaluate each unit at the mid and end point via online questionnaires within the “Surveyor”
software.
The learning
An eportfolio provides an effective tool to make HE level learning accessible to learners
in the work place as well as providing a framework in which to build additional learning
experiences and to articulate other formal and informal learning. Clear guidelines on
good / best practice and expectations are needed in advance to avoid misunderstandings and timelines need to be agreed.
It is unlikely that initial ideas will result in a finished solution so an action research approach with staggered pilots allows ideas to be developed and refined before a final
output can be achieved.
The university has invested significantly in building a community of practice with eportfolios. Accessing this community via the mentoring aspects of the project is an appropriate
use of the intellectual capital of the organisation and further extends the community.
Issues that have been encountered in the pilot units developed to date include:

6

•
•
•

difficulties in getting distance learners into PebblePad: we have redesigned the
help videos and guidance as well as telephoned students to talk through the
instructions;
confusion with copying from and posting to gateways: we have contracted Pebble Learning to develop an auto-publish function;
conflict between a business model looking to reduce tutor intervention and a pedagogic model that requires tutor intervention to support learner transition into HE.

In brief
•
•
•
•

A scaffolded eportfolio can provide a learning medium for work-based learners.
An eportfolio can allow work-based learners to build their learning into a coherent
award.
Ensure you provide clear guidance and support for developers and learners.
Make use of the existing intellectual capital to build capacity and the community
of practice.

References
Leitch, A. (2006) Prosperity for all in the global economy - world class skills. Final Report (The Leitch
Report). [Online] Norwich: HMSO (Published 2006), Available at: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/
media/6/4/leitch_finalreport051206.pdf. [Accessed: 11th June 2008].
CFE, 2009. The demand for higher level skills from businesses in the West Midlands. [pdf]
Leicester: CFE. Available at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rdreports/2009/rd10_09/rd10_09wm.pdf
[Accessed 10 March 2010].
University of Wolverhampton, 2003. University of Wolverhampton Pathfinder Project. [Online] (Updated Unknown), Available at: http://www.wlv.ac.uk/pathfinder. [Accessed 10 March 2010].

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs01.pdf

7

2
From little things, big things grow: The organic propagation of
PebblePad
Jenny Masters, Lilian Austin and Lyn Doolan
Faculty of Education, La Trobe University, Australia
The Faculty of Education is located across all five La Trobe University campuses. La
Trobe University (LTU) offers programs at graduate and undergraduate levels for students to qualify as primary and/or secondary teachers. There are around 1,800 students
enrolled at any one time across the Faculty. This case study reports on the implementation of PebblePad across the Faculty in 2008, 2009 and for 2010.
The current practice
Education courses at LTU have previously incorporated some use of portfolios as devices to map prior learning, frame learning experiences or to showcase learning events
for the purpose of employment. However, prior to using PebblePad, we relied on the
construction of paper-based portfolios or perhaps the development of basic digital portfolios by building html pages in Dreamweaver. Any use of portfolios was largely dependent on individual lecturers and these tasks usually resided within a particular subject.
Our students were not supported or encouraged to construct a comprehensive portfolio
for their learning.
The challenge
We wanted our students to be able to create a professional portfolio in order to reflect
on and represent their learning journey as a pre-service teacher. This portfolio needed to
transcend subjects and year levels across their course.
Reflective practice is recognised as an essential element for successful teaching.
Through the process of reflection, a teacher considers his or her own performance and
the experiences of his or her students in order to improve both teaching and curriculum
design. A portfolio that encourages reflective writing provides a catalyst for students to
develop an understanding of who they are as teachers and how they might grow and
extend their capabilities. Our previous attempts to develop reflective practices with our
students tended to focus on the micro, for example, a lesson within a subject rather than
as a sustained ongoing process.
The approach
In 2007, the use of digital portfolios in the Faculty of Education was quite limited. At that
stage we were using a Learning Management System to support teaching and learning
but the electronic management of artefacts was virtually non-existent. In the Bachelor
of Education, the students participated in an introductory ICT subject where they developed a digital portfolio as an HTML page, however, the focus was more on the ICT skills

8

for building web pages rather than the content. Our goal is to progressively introduce
digital portfolio tasks into our curricula in order to move to a portfolio-based program.
We chose PebblePad as our platform early in 2008 and the Faculty of Education participated in the software trial for the University. We began the trial by simply replacing the
existing digital portfolio task in the Bachelor of Education introductory subject with a
PebblePad portfolio. In the second semester, with the same set of students, we replaced
two additional tasks in two subjects with PebblePad based activities. The university
agreed to allow us to continue our trial in 2009 and so we identified further opportunities
for using PebblePad.
Several staff members participated in Advanced PebblePad workshops in February 2009
and we redesigned the tasks from 2008 in light of what we knew about PebblePad and
digital portfolios. Additionally a lecturer from a post-grad campus decided to use PebblePad in his program. In the second semester of 2009 we also introduced a reflective
portfolio task to the 4th year of the Bachelor of Education as a “capstone” experience.
During 2009 the interest in PebblePad grew as PebblePad experiences were shared in
both formal and informal contexts. Students who had used PebblePad in 2008 requested to use a webfolio to submit work for an elective subject that was normally submitted
on a CD. Academics who usually used traditional methods of assessment and submission began to consider how they might use PebblePad and asked for accounts so they
could explore the possibilities.
Interest in the course wide digital portfolio concept was also growing. A lecturer from
the Faculty visited Alverno College in Milwaukee, US to attend a workshop on integrated
assessment that incorporated an integral digital portfolio to showcase obtainment of
outcomes. By the middle of 2009 it became apparent that the use of digital portfolios and
PebblePad was a direction that the Faculty was prepared to commit to.
The Graduate Diploma of Education, a one-year post degree qualification, was due for
major course review and the design team decided that in 2010 PebblePad would be
used as a portfolio tool across the course. Further in 2009, the university launched wide
sweeping curriculum reform under the “Design for Learning” banner and so the Faculty
of Education decided to incorporate the concept of a digital portfolio in alignment with
the Alverno philosophy as part of the Design for Learning response.
In 2010, every student and every lecturer in the Faculty will have a PebblePad account.
Students in the Graduate Diploma of Education will use PebblePad as a device for
recording, reflecting and presenting across their year program. In the undergraduate
courses, lecturers will be actively supported to use PebblePad for both formative and
summative assessment tasks. By 2011, digital portfolio tasks will be mapped across the
courses. It is expected that the students will have at least one task per semester that
contributes to their learning portfolio.

9

The issues
The concept of an encompassing digital portfolio is massive and if this project was proposed without significant lead-in, it is likely that it would face considerable barriers. In
this model though, the gentle “propagation” of PebblePad tasks is giving academics
time to consider the concept and find a niche where they might operate comfortably. Of
course, early adopters did face difficulties, including technical problems that come from
being in trial mode and cynicism from students who perhaps had limited experience with
Web 2.0 technologies. In general though, the project has been well accepted and is supported positively at all levels across the university.
The result
This project has stemmed from the work of a few enthusiasts who felt comfortable in
trying new technologies to support learning and teaching. While positive outcomes were
always anticipated, the extent and widespread integration of the digital portfolio concept
across the faculty is perhaps unexpected. Some of the successful implementations so
far include:
•
•
•
•
•

The establishment of an embryo ‘preprofessional’ portfolio for first year preservice teachers
An ‘applied learning’ portfolio where final year Primary Education students reflect
on and present non-formal learning experiences
A daily reflective blog for students in an early years curriculum intensive
The redesign of the one-year graduate teacher qualification to incorporate digital
portfolios as a thread throughout the program.
Establishing PebblePad as a reflective tool for students with a trade background
in the Graduate Diploma in Technology Education

Although the full implementation of digital portfolios is still to be realised, the alignment
of Faculty and University priorities have proved timely for this initiative.
The learning
While we often assume that large-scale projects with generous funding stand the most
chance of success, this case study has shown that cycles of modest but persistent
achievement can also provide positive outcomes. The implementation of PebblePad
across the Faculty of Education has followed a familiar pattern of technology implementation (Rogers, 1995) where early adopters lead with innovate ideas, which are then
harnessed by the majority when demonstrated outcomes are evident. This model of
effectance has proved to be a manageable and sustainable way to integrate digital portfolios across our programs.

10

In brief
•
•
•

The implementation of PebblePad in the Faculty of Education at La Trobe University may be likened to organic propagation.
Cycles of implementation with demonstrated outcomes have helped to persuade
academics to consider the digital portfolio as a useful mechanism for supporting
teaching and learning.
The integration of digital portfolios and PebblePad has been adopted by the Faculty of Education as a common and worthwhile goal.

References
Rogers, E.M., 1995. Diffusion of Innovations (4th ed.). New York: Free Press

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs02.pdf

11

3
Developing the use of eportfolios to support the reflective
learning process in early primary Initial Teacher Education
Kevin Ardron
School of Health, Community & Education Studies, Northumbria University, UK
The background context
Northumbria University is an ‘A’ category provider of Initial Teacher Education.
Our Primary provision consists of the following 3 programmes (cohort numbers in brackets):
•
•
•

BA (Hons) Early Primary Education (120 students in each of 3 years)
PGCE Primary Education (110 students)
PGCE (flexible, distance learning) Early Years and Primary (46 students)

This case study focuses on the experience of the 120 students in the 1st Year (2009
Cohort) of the BA programme outlined above. The majority of this cohort are students
aged18 – 21yrs (80% female). The minority are mature students and career changers.
The current practice
The core element of the undergraduate Initial Teacher Education programme is built
around a reflective learning process that culminates in a submission of evidence in Year
3 against the Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) Standards identified by the Training and
Development Agency (TDA, 2009). The typical format for this evidence is currently a collection of A3 Lever Arch files.
The concept of reflective learning is introduced to students in Year 1 as part of their professional studies strand, Learning, Teaching & Creativity (LTC), at which point they are
encouraged to begin keeping a ‘learning journal’. It is envisaged as an informal approach
but one that will involve students keeping a record of their learning throughout their university and placement based training over the course of 3 years. Students draw on their
journal entries during group and individual tutorial sessions and in support of their assessed academic writing. This approach to process based learning and how technology
may enhance it, is well documented and highlighted by Granberg (2009).
As part of the LTC strand in Year 1 students are introduced to ‘e-learning at Northumbria’
and a core ICT module. The aim of this is to ensure all students are quickly able to communicate and work effectively using our institutional eLP (Blackboard).

12

The challenge
•

•
•
•
•

All students in the 2009 Cohort have been informed that their Standards File
evidence will be presented electronically (PebblePad QTS Profile) in May 2012.
This presents a number of challenges as it represents a significant shift from the
established paper based format.
Staff and students will become established and competent users of PebblePad.
Students will use PebblePad as a medium for their Learning Journal and will be
using this in an increasingly independent manner.
By 2012 all 3 year group cohorts of the BA programme will have adopted PebblePad.
Students successfully completing in Year 3 will continue to use PebblePad as a
reflective development tool in their NQT year.

The purpose
This initiative has been driven by a number of factors:
The Characteristics of ICT in ITT (TDA, 2008), developed in partnership with the Association for Information Technology in Teacher Education (ITTE) and the British Educational
Communications and Technology Agency (Becta), are a set of criteria designed to help
teacher training providers assess their own provision with respect to ICT. This work addresses those characteristics that specifically focus on the development of eportfolios,
and the innovative use of ICT related to professional development (Characteristics 8, 9
& 10, TDA, 2008).
Students entering in Year 1 are increasingly competent users of ICT. They have an expertise in ‘Office’ applications and are adept Internet users, communicating and collaborating using social networking applications. The long established, introductory ICT module
was no longer fit for purpose and needed re-examining in the light of this. PebblePad
offers the opportunity to draw on these existing competencies and develop them further
in a professional context.
When collating their Standards File it is difficult for students to draw on paper based
evidence stretching back over 3 years. The value of some experience is essentially ‘lost’
as students focus only on the evidence that has been generated during their third year.
The majority of Standards Files submitted are very similar to each other and the current
format provides limited opportunity to fully reflect the depth of the students experience
and training.
The approach
The timeline for this initiative is 3 years. The intention is to build on our experience and
roll out to each subsequent new cohort. By year three we aim to have 360 students engaged with PebblePad as the central resource supporting their reflective learning profile.
The methodology has been informed by the pilot phase project which was funded by the
TDA in 2008 – 2009 (ICT in ITT Grant for eportfolios) and focused on the PGCE Primary
cohort.

13

During this pilot phase, after the initial introduction, students were given the option of
using PebblePad as a medium for their learning journal and as a means of ultimately
presenting evidence towards the QTS Standards. Despite the majority of students being motivated to adopt this approach, numbers quickly diminished as the significant
workload associated with the PGCE began to impact. Not being a compulsory element
of their programme, students reported a reluctance to invest time in it. This concurs with
the findings of Kirkwood (2009) in his assessment of students’ use of technology for
learning.
However, a focus group of 6 students remained and these were able to share their experience and collaborate on how best to organise assets and evidence as they worked
towards their Standards submission. All students in this focus group successfully presented using the PebblePad QTS Profile and were subsequently recommended for their
award. Our work on this pilot phase helped to generate discussion about the development of eportfolios across the university and in 2009 an institutional commitment to
provide access to PebblePad for all students was announced.
Based on this and the experience gained in the pilot phase we were able to target the
undergraduate route as this would allow staff and students to adopt PebblePad over a
3 year timeframe, making the goal of 100% electronic submission more achievable. Embedding opportunities for students to use PebblePad in assessed modules and removing the optional element has helped to encourage initial engagement and will hopefully
foster longer term independent use.
The issues
For all students to be able to submit electronic evidence confidently in Year 3 they must
become established and competent users of PebblePad. This capacity will have developed over the course of their programme as they are encouraged to become increasingly
independent in their use of PebblePad and use the tools available to support their reflective learning. The challenges associated with this will be related to the need to modify
aspects of taught modules in order to embed opportunities that require students to use
PebblePad.
There are significant staff development issues to be resolved in order to effectively support this technology enhanced reflective learning process and ensure we have the capacity to accept up to 120 electronic submissions. The move to an electronic format
for submission of Standards evidence represents a significant cultural shift, but one
that is supported by the University’s commitment to PebblePad. The experience gained
through similar initiatives based in other institutions across the UK and presented in the
publication, “Effective Practice with eportfolios” (JISC, 2008) has provided much needed
guidance as we begin to address these issues.
The result
We are currently coming to the end of the first year in this long term project to embed
PebblePad in the BA (Hons) Early Primary Education. All students in the 2009 cohort
have engaged with PebblePad and used the Webfolio Tool as a Learning Journal and to

14

submit an integrated presentation of their ICT tasks as part of the LTC Module.
Students have provided useful feedback via a questionnaire designed using the Profile Tool and this will inform how we approach the next stage of our work. As students
embark on their Initial Assessed Placement they will be setting up a Webfolio that will
become a weekly electronic learning journal aimed at supporting their reflective development. We have also received funding through the TDA ICT in ITT Grant to provide
students with webcams and digital voice recorders for the duration of this placement to
encourage the inclusion of ‘video/audio diary’ entries.
Examples of the initial webfolio work have been shared in whole cohort seminars and
students will be invited to share their latest experience as part of the end of year Conference Week. Our initial aim was to establish a firm foundation in year one that would
inform our approach as we move forward into the second phase of this initiative.
The learning
•
•

•
•

How to implement and manage change in a HE environment.
That although the aim might be for students to adopt an e-based reflective learning tool because they recognise its intrinsic value, this cannot be left to chance
and initial engagement may well have to be structured and linked directly to assessed modules.
There are significant cultural barriers that have the potential to inhibit the scale
of success. These are likely to be associated with existing staff and academic
practice.
The student voice is the most powerful agent for change in this situation.

In brief
•
•
•

Introducing students to PebblePad during their initial Induction Period is vital.
A small team of staff (3 in this case) to lead on this kind of project builds capacity
to overcome cultural barriers.
Listen to students.

References
Granberg, C., 2009. Implementing digital individual development planning in teacher education: the
challenges of communication in relation to the development of ICT supported methods. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 18 (2), pp 123 – 136.
JISC, 2008. Effective Practice with eportfolios. Bristol: JISC.
Kirkwood, A., 2009 E-learning: you don’t always get what you hope for. Technology, Pedagogy and
Education, 18 (2), pp107 – 122.
TDA, 2008. Characteristics for the provision and use of ICT that all teacher training providers should
be aiming to attain. [pdf] London: TDA Available at: http://www.tda.gov.uk/upload/resources/pdf/i/
ictforproviders.pdf [Accessed 18 March 2010]

15

TDA, 2008. Professional Standards for Qualified Teacher Status and Requirements for Initial Teacher
Training. [pdf] London: TDA Available at: http://www.tda.gov.uk/upload/resources/pdf/q/qts_itt_req.
pdf. [Accessed 18 March 2010]

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs03.pdf

16

4
Guiding, supporting and assessing midwifery students in clinical placements.
Jackie Haigh and Neil Currant
Division of Midwifery and Reproductive Health, University of Bradford, UK
The background context
The context is an undergraduate midwifery programme preparing students for graduation and eligibility to apply to join the professional register of midwives. The regulatory
body, Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), stipulates at least 50% of the programme
must be direct client contact time. Supporting both mentors and students in the practice
setting is a high priority for the division. Our students have been graded for clinical practice since 2000 and this has recently been incorporated as a standard to be attained by
all midwifery programmes (NMC, 2009).
The number of midwifery students contracted by the Strategic Health Authority has increased year on year to meet workforce needs. Staffing has not increased to the same
extent so the midwifery team had to review priorities and make decisions about how to
work more productively. A key target was to reduce the time spent travelling to see students in clinical placement.
The current practice
Each member of the midwifery academic team is allocated to a particular clinical area
or areas as a Link Lecturer. The role of the Link Lecturer is to monitor the placement
as a learning environment and to support the assessment process by participating in
preliminary, intermediate and final interviews with the student and the allocated mentor.
This is good practice because it allows the lecturer to moderate the assessment process and ensure equity. It reinforces the importance of the assessment process for both
mentor and student. It was also an opportunity for informal interaction which updated
the Link lecturer on changes in the clinical area. However undertaking three face to face
interviews per student placement involved significant travelling time. Also the tripartite
formative discussion was only minimally recorded in the student portfolio partly because
of the nature of informal discussion and partly because of the confines of space in the
paper based portfolio.
Records of the interviews and the student’s achievement in clinical practice were maintained in a paper portfolio which the student carried to every placement throughout the
three years of the course. This was good practice in that the mentor had access to the
full clinical experience history of the student but it meant that the records available in the
university were limited. If there were issues regarding student performance or the student
lost her portfolio there was no immediate access to clinical records in the university.

17

The challenge was to:
1. Supplement the paper-based record with online clinical action plans that the student shared with the Link Lecturer.
2. Improve the quality of reflection on experience by providing better recording facilities.
3. Provide an alternate medium for tripartite discussion of student progress.
4. Make the process of action planning and achievement of learning outcomes more
transparent to the student.
5. Encourage better use of literature by improved facilities for recording and storing
references.
The purpose
1. The first driver was the need to reduce time spent travelling to placement as this
was becoming an unsustainable burden as student numbers increased and staff
numbers did not. However this can be seen in the more positive light of minimising car journeys to reduce our carbon footprint. This is in line with university
‘ecoversity’ policies and the philosophy of the staff.
2. The second driver was our experience using mobile devices for clinical practice
in the Assessment and Learning in Placement Settings (ALPS) project. Our students were allocated Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) in 2005 to trial their use in
practice. We adapted our paper based assessment tools to create digital records
for use within these devices. We found that students preferred the neatness of
word processed records and this encouraged fuller and more reflective accounts
of their clinical experiences (Haigh, Dearnley et al., 2007)
3. The third driver was the availability of PebblePad as the University’s adopted eportfolio platform. I had been using this tool for academic progress files but found
it difficult to engage some students in the process. They could not see the point.
However many students spontaneously used the tool to record clinical experiences. This more ‘professional’ type of portfolio as opposed to ‘academic’ (Clegg
and Bradley, 2006) made using PebblePad part of a regular practice and so made
the tool itself more familiar and acceptable. It was hoped this would improve its
use more generally as a vehicle for personal development planning.
The approach
PebblePad was introduced to the University as a pilot in 2005. I took advantage of this
availability to try out an eportfolio assessment of personal academic development in a
midwifery lifelong learning module. The University adopted PebblePad as its eportfolio
platform in 2007. In September 2008 I extended the use of PebblePad to the clinical
practice modules. Pre-formatted action plans for clinical placements were introduced

18

for each stage and placement area. Students copied the relevant action plan from the
gateway. They could then edit the plan to add reflections on their clinical experiences.
Each performance indicator they had to achieve competency in during the placement
became a ‘step to success’.
Experiences were recorded in the drop down ‘how and when’ boxes. These action plans
provided discipline specific scaffolding to aid recording and reflection by the student.
They were shared with the Link Lecturer so she could monitor and comment on progress. Most mentors preferred to comment in the paper records only. Cohort 2008 was
provided with a clinical eportfolio template to house all placement action plans. These
eportfolios were published to a gateway so that the University had a record which could
be archived.
Stakeholders: Midwifery staff, students and clinical mentors.
The issues
Political:

Access to good quality IT facilities is variable within the NHS and many
mentors are reluctant to use technology.
Cultural: 2nd and 3rd year students and mentors were used to a face to face system
and perceived the new system as an easy option for lecturers.
Technical: The use of pre-populated action plan assets presented two challenges. The
first was that students struggled with adding a lot of content to the action plan
record. They often recorded work in the wrong place or without saving due to
how the action plans work. Forms are apparently easier to customise for staff
and complete for students than pre-populated assets. They allow automatic
publishing to a gateway for staff to review progress.
The second was that action plan assets are less flexible, when compared to
forms, on mobile devices; given the limitations of access to IT facilities for
students on placement. For example, a form can be directly accessed, completed and saved via a mobile web browser without the need for PebblePad
software on the mobile device.
The result
1. Clinical action plans shared with the Link Lecturer are an accepted part of ‘the
way we do things here’.
2. Some students make excellent use of the action plans as a learning tool.
3. The comments facility has been used effectively to record discussions around
student achievement particularly in cases where students were not achieving
learning outcomes. Staff are realising the benefits of this form of record keeping
and are making more effective use of it.
4. Using action planning for clinical placement has helped some students transfer
the skills learned to planning for other assignments.

19

5. The reference section provides an opportunity for students to practice Harvard
style referencing and for tutors to give formative feedback on this issue, helping
students apply knowledge sources to practice.
The learning
Clinical practice or work-based learning is a good place to introduce portfolio type learning tools because students understand the purpose.
“Doing an action plan about an essay means nothing but to record experiences that you’ve had in clinical practice or that you’ve had with your
peers. Those are the things that you’re going to look back on and actually
care about.” Student midwife
The administration of the tools and gateways needs careful thinking through to ensure
it does what you want it to in the most effective manner. For example, action plans may
have a better structure to help students record but forms are more flexible. However,
forms cannot be used to validate individual competencies like profiles. So in trying to
achieve reflection, competency mapping, convenience for students, and convenience
for staff, you may need to compromise on some functionality in order to strike a good
balance.
Make time for evaluation, consultation and revision on a yearly basis but confine major
changes to year 1.
In brief
•
•
•
•

Be prepared to take advantage of new technological developments.
Build on existing strengths.
Ensure all stakeholders see the benefits.
Build use of the tool into regular practices where there is potential for enhancement.

References
Clegg, S. and Bradley, S., 2006. Models of Personal Development Planning: practice and processes. British Educational Research Journal, 32(1), pp57-76.
Haigh, J., C. Dearnley, et al., 2007. The impact of an enhanced assessment tool on students’ experience of being assessed in clinical practice: a focus group study. Practice and Evidence of the
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (PESTLHE), 2(1), pp21-41.
NMC, 2009. Standards for Pre-registration Midwifery Education. [pdf] London:NMC. Available at:
http://www.nmc-uk.org/aDisplayDocument.aspx?documentID=5700.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs04.pdf

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5
Student midwives’ use of PebblePad to build an eportfolio to
demonstrate placement learning
Debbie Holmes
Midwifery, School of Health and Wellbeing, The University of Wolverhampton, UK
Introduction
Student midwives train over 3 years for a BSc Hons. Degree and a Midwifery Registration. The course is based on 50% theory and 50% practice. The midwifery team of 10
lecturers currently support approximately 150-180 students to compile their portfolios.
The students come from a variety of backgrounds and are aged between 18 and 52
years of age.
The current practice
The midwifery curriculum within the School of Health has, for some time, required the
students to maintain a yearly ‘paper’ portfolio containing written evidence to support the
achievement of the ‘Standards of Proficiency for Practice’ determined by the Nursing
and Midwifery Council (NMC, 2004). The portfolio is also encouraged to build evidence
for continuing professional development (CPD), a requirement by the NMC for the registered midwife (NMC, 2006). The writing of a new curriculum gave the midwifery teaching
team the opportunity to introduce an eportfolio as part of the year long practice modules.
The paper portfolio had become a collection of certificates and artifacts that did not
particularly demonstrate learning. The presentation generally lacked creativity and personalization.
The challenge
By implementing the eportfolio the team hoped to meet some of the students’ needs
and requirements in relation to e-learning. There was also a hope that it would encourage students to be more creative in how they showcased evidence of learning in clinical practice. It was hoped the eportfolio would demonstrate development of skills and
knowledge in relation to clinical practice and that this would be shared with personal
teachers at the University and with the clinical mentors in practice. It was expected that
communication with students in placement may increase and enhance the support systems that already existed.
To introduce an eportfolio was to move forward and meet the learning styles and requirements and expectations of 21st century students. The students’ paper portfolio was very
driven by demonstrating learning outcomes. It was hoped the eportfolio would encourage the students to think more about self outcomes and not rely solely on a competency
outcome model. Self assessment is a skill that the team wished to encourage as the
students are required to develop as reflective practitioners.

21

To do this students needed to personalise their portfolio by describing what they did in
practice, and how this enhanced their learning by providing evidence of the learning. It
needed to be about personal learning. In the electronic portfolio the outcomes are still
required to be demonstrated but added ‘layers’ can demonstrate the personalization.
There was a drive to encourage this creativity.
Technology for learning is much more likely to be used by the students if it is something
they are familiar with. The blogs within PebblePad are very similar to some social networking technologies. Networking can be important for learning and reflection. Net activity amongst students can be a powerful tool, and it made sense to harness this power of
networking for learning.
Many midwifery students participate in an international online forum for student midwives before starting the programme. Instead of that being their only online space for
interaction it was thought that the University PebblePad could provide an alternative that
may compliment the communities they were already part of. The ‘blogs’ could then be
linked to the eportfolio to demonstrate ongoing reflection and discussion on learning.
Retention and attrition were also considerations in the decision to introduce the eportfolio. Pre-course activities, supportive communities and increased communication could
be facilitated through the use of PebblePad functions and the eportfolio.
The approach
A staff development retreat attended by the whole midwifery team enabled them to see
what the University intended introducing, PebblePad, and the potential to create eportfolios. The midwifery team were then able to explore how this could be used within their
teaching and learning strategy and how it could benefit their students. The team were in
the process of rewriting the curriculum and decided to incorporate a mandatory eportfolio. The decision was based on the growing evidence within the University and Nationally in relation to the successes with the system PebblePad and the pedagogy behind
electronic portfolios.
There was some resistance from the team. Some concerns were voiced in relation to
changing something that was already in place and appeared to be working reasonably
well; a paper portfolio. Other barriers were in relation to supporting students and the
team to learn the skills required within PebblePad.
Students were encouraged to compile a portfolio providing at least one piece of evidence for each of the 18 placement learning outcomes. The aim was for students to
learn the ITC skills required to use the system through learning tasks. The tasks were to
engage the students with learning the skills of using the software by using meaningful
tasks that were related to what they were enrolled to do; which was to become midwives.
All of the teaching and support initially came from the module leader with support from
the technology lead for the School of Health and Wellbeing.
Time factors were considered as was the degree of change. This was going to be mandatory for all students and this by far was the most underestimated factor as it has been

22

difficult to evaluate all of the aspects. The module leader has been so busy implementing
the project there has been little time to evaluate effectively.
The result
We are now on our seventh cohort of students. To date all students have managed to
build and present a portfolio electronically. Some students provide the minimum requirements. Other students find the eportfolio an extremely useful learning tool and provide
comprehensive stories and evidences for learning. Students do not currently receive a
grade for the portfolio, but they do not pass clinical practice if they do not provide the
minimum requirements. We now utilise ex students to assist with the teaching and learning.
Almost all of our modules in the curriculum use the electronic submission facility on
PebblePad, many return prompt feedback this way too. Many of the modules in the curriculum use PebblePad to support learning and teaching. ‘Blogs’ form part of learning
and teaching and have been used to support our ‘blended learning strategy’ within the
University.
We now need to involve our clinical mentors more, but this will require consultation with
our clinical links to enable us to be sure the systems in the Trust meet with the requirements of PebblePad. We have seen some success here but the work within the School
of Health is ongoing.
The learning
The success of the implementation is far more likely to be achieved when the whole
team, including the manager, are involved and are using the system themselves.
The more the project has developed the more teachers have become involved and developed their own skills. More teachers are also returning feedback electronically, and
this has improved the immediacy of the feedback for the students. Students no longer
have to travel from placement or wait until they are next in University, they can access
their feedback electronically at their convenience. Teachers get to see what students
are experiencing in practice and can help them make sense of situations they may find
themselves in and can provide immediate feedback and support.
Members of the administration team have been keen to participate and have begun to
take over some of the work of the module leaders in relation to setting up gateways for
electronic submission.
In brief
•
•
•
•

Students can improve their ITC skills through meaningful tasks within PebblePad.
Teachers have improved their own skills by engaging with PebblePad.
The use of PebblePad in other modules has increased.
Students are becoming more creative in their presentation of evidence for placement learning in their eportfolios.

23

•
•

Students are using the system to reflect on practice and learning.
Timelines are crucial to provide opportunity for useful evaluation.

References
NMC, 2004. Standards for proficiency for pre-registration nursing education. [pdf] London:NMC.
Available at: http://www.nmc-uk.org/aDisplayDocument.aspx?documentID=328.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs05.pdf

24

6
Generating individual learner profiles for work-based learners
Martin Jenkins and Phil Gravestock
Co-generative Toolkit, University of Gloucestershire, UK
The background context
This case study is based upon Co-genT (Co-generative Toolkit), a JISC-funded Lifelong
Learning and Workforce Development project led by the University of Gloucestershire,
with partner institutions the University of Winchester, University of Worcester and the
Western Vocational Lifelong Learning Network.
Higher education provision for work-based learning has been dominated by universityled provision. This has tended to follow a traditional paradigm and has been criticised by
employers for not demonstrating any understanding of their needs and language.
Willis (2008, p32) identifies the need for higher education institutions (HEIs) to establish
a framework ‘designed to facilitate the accreditation, within higher education, of work
based and work-related learning’ as a means of ensuring academic integrity and flexibility within the system.
The current practice
In common with the sector as a whole, the University of Gloucestershire’s work-based
learning provision has been focused primarily on supporting individual learners to meet
their personal and professional development needs through university delivered programmes.
Recognising the need for greater flexibility in provision the University of Gloucestershire
validated its own accreditation framework, called the Gloucestershire Framework for
Personal and Professional Development, in 2009. This framework is designed to allow
maximum flexibility for employers and learners whilst maintaining academic standards.
It has the capacity to have nested within it small and distinct learning events such as
continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities, standard module length
credits and the ability to accommodate Employer-based Training Accreditation (EBTA).
Awards can then be built up to include certificates and diplomas, Foundation Degree,
Honours top-up and Masters level qualifications.
The Framework includes generic material, located within ‘shell modules’, which is necessary to meet the requirements of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education’s
regulatory Framework for Higher Education Qualifications (FHEQ) (QAA, 2008) and allow
for the delivery of named awards. The Framework does enable assessment and ‘delivery’ through a mixture of work-based learning based on employment-related material,
accreditation of prior experiential learning (APEL) and off-the-shelf modules.

25

These elements can be delivered via relevant departments in the University of Gloucestershire, other higher education providers, or employers. Co-genT is developing mechanisms to support the design and delivery of these flexible curricula.
The challenge
The Government has strongly articulated a Business Community Engagement agenda
for UK higher education. Within this agenda there are clear expectations for more flexible
delivery modes and greater involvement of employers through the co-generation of curricula. A key challenge of this agenda is ‘supporting the learner in ‘translating’ their prior
and current achievements outside the university into a discourse whereby they can be
recognised by the academic community’ (Walsh, 2008, p15).
Co-genT is an action-research project which seeks to implement flexible delivery, in the
broadest sense, through co-generated curricula and to investigate the processes involved. At the core of this project is the desire to encourage innovative curriculum development and delivery within the recognised quality assurance frameworks demanded by
higher education. ePortfolios are central to the delivery mechanisms envisaged for this
project, providing the means to present the student with their individual requirements
and the forum for presentation of evidence.
Eyres, Hooker & Pringle (2008, p99) observe that if ‘positive responses to this agenda
[workforce development] are to be embedded within institutions, it will require transformational change to the traditional models of delivery in higher education’. In essence
there is a need to develop procedures over and above the existing work-based learning
provision which has been embedded within traditional curricula and associated processes.
Co-genT will address these gaps through development of a:
• set of procedures which facilitate flexibility and responsiveness within a rigorous
academic framework that ensures appropriate standards are met;
• vocabulary to facilitate communication and alignment between academic standards and occupational standards;
• toolkit which supports the development of individual learning programmes delivered through the PebblePad eportfolio.
The approach
Co-genT is establishing processes and tools to exploit accreditation frameworks and
provide more flexible forms of delivery and co-generation of curricula. It is developing
tools to enable interaction between academia, employers, support staff and students in
the development and delivery of negotiated curricula that will help translate employer
requirements into academic outcomes.
Key elements within this overall process that will be developed through the project are:
the creation of the vocabulary and outcome builders; generation of an individual learner
profile; and integration of PebblePad and ELLI (Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory http://www.ellionline.co.uk/).

26

The vocabulary and outcome builders are tools developed to facilitate dialogue, and
capture and share practice. The vocabulary, through the facilitation of dialogue between
employers and academia, helps to map and align learning needs to academic level descriptors. The vocabulary has been created through the aggregation of level descriptors
from the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications (FHEQ), South East England
Consortium for Credit Accumulation & Transfer (SEEC) and the Northern Ireland Credit
Accumulation and Transfer System (NICATS). Following this initial discussion and subsequent mapping to academic levels the outcome builder element can be used to generate
learning outcomes. This process helps to maintain an employer’s language for these
outcomes while ensuring the academic level has been identified. This tool allows learning outcomes at different levels – programme, unit, session, activity – to be generated.
The learning outcomes form the basis for generating an individual learner profile. A
simple configurable toolkit enables curriculum designers, working with employers in a
co-generative curriculum design process, to select skills, attributes, and/or outcomes
that are automatically translated into learning profiles for curriculum design and personalised pathways for curriculum delivery. Drawing upon learning design frameworks the
learner profile will make explicit to learners, through a visual representation, the support
and resources available to support their specific learning activities; in effect creating an
individual programme specification for each student. This individual learner profile will
be delivered to students through PebblePad, making clear to the students the evidence
that will need to be collected to meet the identified outcomes and supplemented by the
support and resource information.
In addition, the project is further developing the use of portfolio-based learning through
the integration of personal development tools such as ELLI, which provides information
about seven dimensions of learning: changing and learning; meaning making; curiosity;
creativity; learning relationships; resilience; strategic awareness. This development also
includes consideration of mentor training for staff, in order to support students in the
interpretation of their ELLI profile.
In issues
Through this project a number of issues have emerged which have implications more
generally for the provision of work-based learning. These could be grouped under the
delivery of flexible learning opportunities and the design and assessment of flexible
learning opportunities.
In considering the delivery of these new learning opportunities there is still a need to understand what is meant by the term ‘work-based learner’. A move toward more flexible
means of delivery will require a re-assessment of the view of the work-based learner and
also work-based mentors. To help ensure academic integrity and standards of this provision careful consideration of technologies for work-based learning is required. All of this
must then be underpinned by reflection on the pedagogies of work-based learning, to
move away from the dualist language of ‘chalk and talk’ versus ‘facilitation’ to a ‘brown
field site’ approach, where best practice from both traditional and more innovative pedagogies are valued.Designing and assessing flexible learning opportunities will require
different systems to enable them, including the implementation and running of flexible

27

credit frameworks and the impact of national initiatives such as the Higher Education
Achievement Report (HEAR).
Fundamentally, the questions that also need to be addressed are: Where is the demand
for these flexible forms of delivery? How can employers / professional bodies be engaged with this approach?
The result
This is a live project running until March 2011. At this stage of development the vocabulary and outcome builders are being piloted in different contexts.
While this project was initially conceived with a focus on work-based learning, the development of the vocabulary and outcome builders has highlighted the value of such tools
for other applications in higher education. These include use as a generic staff development tool to support the writing of learning outcomes and as a means for prospective
higher education students to self-assess their own skills and experience, so helping
facilitate access to higher education.
In brief
This project is still at the development stage, however, it has already highlighted the
importance of:
•
•

•
•

Providing access to a consistent vocabulary to inform the dialogue around cogeneration of curricula.
A clear need for the development of a coherent vision by top level management
across the whole of each institution to ensure that the structural, cultural and
process changes involved in the introduction of work-based learning frameworks
are adequately planned and co-ordinated.
A need for pedagogic theorising to establish a basis in scholarship for workbased learning, eg. defining what ‘work-based learning’ means, what kind of curriculum design is involved, etc.
Groundwork which will need to be done by sharing key issues across the sector,
adopting a solutions-orientated approach to addressing the practical issues, and
defining the principles, values and resources which underpin work-based learning as a field in HE.

References
CogenT, 2009. List of core words. [Online] (Updated Unknown)
Available at: http://www.pebblepad.co.uk/cogent/Vocab. [Accessed March 2010].
Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory, 2007. ELLI Online [Online] (Updated Unknown)
Available at: http://www.ellionline.co.uk/, [Accessed 16 March 2010].
Eyres, R.D., Hooker, E. & Pringle, J., 2008. Engaging with workforce development: what do staff
in higher education need? In Workforce development: Connections, frameworks and processes

28

[Work-based learning series] Higher Education Academy, July 2008, pp.99-110. Available at: http://
www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/workforce_development.pdf
QAA, 2008. The framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern
Ireland. [pdf] Mansfield:QAA. Available at: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/FHEQ/
EWNI08/FHEQ08.pdf. [Accessed March 2010].
Walsh, A., 2008. What is distinctive about work-based knowledge and learning? In Workforce development: Connections, frameworks and processes [Work-based learning series] Higher Education
Academy, July 2008, pp.8-17. Available at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/
workforce_development.pdf
Willis, K., 2008. Frameworks for work-based learning, in Workforce development: Connections,
frameworks and processes [Work-based learning series] Higher Education Academy, July 2008,
pp.31- 42. Available at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/workforce_development.pdf

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs06.pdf

29

7
Supporting recording and archiving of research student supervisory meetings with PebblePad
Peter Norrington
Research Graduate School, University of Bedfordshire, UK
The background context
The Research Graduate School (RGS) at the University leads student activity across
eight Research Institutes. Currently there are around 150 postgraduate research students on research masters, MPhil, PhD and other doctoral programmes, roughly half of
whom are part-time, and geographically dispersed, with some based overseas.
The current practice
Research students were expected to complete notes of formal supervisory meetings and
maintain them as a record of supervision, including their action planning and engagement with Personal Development Planning (PDP). A Word template was provided for the
required format.
In practice, the RGS did not receive records of supervisory meetings, and so could neither monitor supervision as a regular practice, nor provide evidence in occasional claims
that supervision had not taken place. Supervisors could not provide consistent, acrossthe-board records that such supervision had taken place either, as the template was not
always in use, and where it was (or other recording styles were used) records might be
captured in either paper or electronic formats, but without assurance that the records
were in fact kept.
The challenge
Our aim is to develop and introduce a consistent process across all institutes for all students and all supervisors: for students to record their supervisory meetings, particularly
key outcomes of meetings (rather than minutiae) in terms of action plans and progress
towards these, and record PDP opportunities; for supervisors to comment on the records; and for the RGS to archive such records.
The University Research Strategy anticipates an increase between now and 2014 to 500
postgraduate students in total (on and off campus). Notwithstanding current issues, with
this growth in mind, ad hoc processes are no longer effective or efficient, nor in line with
quality assurance, in ensuring that supervision is being conducted on a regular basis, or
leading to identifiable progress in research programmes and student development.

30

The approach
The RGS, with assistance from the Head of e-Learning, designed a custom PebblePad
form. The e-PDP Development Officer (ePDP-DO, the author) was then put in charge of
working out process issues, and rolling out the process to students, supervisors and
the RGS administration. The development is emergent, partly because the roll-out plan
changed direction strategically, and partly because the context of roll-out is not easily
reducible to consistent conditions.
Four main stakeholders have been identified: students, supervisors, RGS administration,
and the ePDP-DO. The RGS’s aim is to have the process rolled out to all students by the
end of the 2009-10 academic year.
The initial intention of the RGS and ePDP-DO had been to trial the process with a small
number of supervisors and some of their students. However, the RGS then decided to
move straight to implementation. As the Research Institutes have different backgrounds,
the strategic implementation is now based around those who will engage actively first
– both students and staff. Students are being trained to train their supervisors, as supervisors are not usually available to attend training in any numbers, and this leads to
inefficient use of the ePDP-DO’s time in training.
The training sessions are being used to test the process, along with feedback afterwards. However, the training is not just “click here” to execute completion of the form,
but includes holistic training on action planning, PDP, eportfolios and PebblePad, as
without these, the form will be seen in isolation, and render the experience fragmented
and unsatisfactory.
The issues
•

•

•

•

Structurally, the CETL – where the ePDP-DO is based – does not have postgraduate student issues within its remit. However, the project will ultimately involve well
over 100 academics as supervisors, and thus offers a route to staff uptake of
PebblePad more generally. This is supported by the ePDP-DO as a recent PhD
student at the University, who has an interest in research student PDP.
Culturally, there is some resistance to the introduction of “another system”, however, there is also some clear positive uptake. This mostly mirrors issues experienced with introducing other technologies, so does not have any direct implications for PebblePad itself.
Pedagogically, there are issues with the extent to which research students, certainly many new ones, understand enough about issues such as student-supervisor relationships, action planning or PDP to be able to use the form effectively
without an holistic view.
Technically, there are issues with the trust involved in passing a form between different parties and the extent to which it can be considered authoritative. Additionally, there are issues with manual account provisioning from inadequate central
records data.

31

•

Politically, culturally and technically there are unaddressed issues about the longterm maintenance of “the form” (and the processes around it) and the provision
of training.

The result
The ePDP-DO negotiated a real level of control over the roll-out process, which enables
flexibility in development and delivery, and avoids micro-management.
Initial training for students is around 30% complete. However, the actual usage of the
forms is currently less than this. There are signs of issues arising with staff questioning
the utility of the process who may not have been involved in the decision to introduce
it, although others welcome it. Such issues will need addressing at an appropriate level.
The ePDP-DO is about to move to tactics for reaching students and staff, to work with
some of them in groups within institutes, and geographical locations. We also need to
engage in evaluation and further development. There are however issues within the RGS
around workload and staff availability for introducing new processes.
The use of PebblePad in the RGS is anticipated to expand, for both formal and informal
purposes; indeed some other activities have begun since the start of this particular usage, so we are making reputational gains with cross-fertilisation.
The learning
Networks of contacts and influence are helpful to create positive uptake, rather than
relying on formal policy statements as drivers to uptake. The rollout of this project is not
independent of other developments with the platform rollout, and making them work
together is valuable.
The success of this project in this context depends, at least to some extent, on the particular characteristics and prior experiences of the ePDP-DO. However, the analytical
aspects (e.g. stakeholders, form design, process structure, development) are shareable
and repeatable. We look forward to sharing the process and the form with others in the
community, for their use and feedback.
In brief
•
•
•

Negotiating control – with line manager support – over aspects of the rollout enables more robustness in the developmental process.
Working with all stakeholders to ensure they all find benefits they can own enables positive process embedding.
Treating roll-out of projects within wider contexts may support better long-term
rollout, even if in the short-term it draws a particular project out.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs07.pdf

32

8
PebblePad implementation: You DO need to walk before you
can run
Margaret Faulkner
Institution-wide Implementation, University of South Australia, Australia
The background context
The University of South Australia (UniSA) has students at 4 campuses based around the
city of Adelaide, 2 regional campuses in South Australia, as well as offshore locations.
Approximately 5,000 of the approximately 36,000 students are based offshore. Around
80% of our students are completing undergraduate qualifications in a wide range of programs across 4 Divisions (faculties): Business, Education, Arts & Social Sciences, Health
Sciences and Information Technology, Engineering and the Environment.
UniSA is transitioning from an in-house learning management system to learnonline, a
Moodle environment integrated with other systems that support learning. This change
was required to support the online learning technologies and services envisaged in
UniSA’s teaching and learning (T&L) framework (Lee, 2007). Release of the framework
coincided with investment in curriculum renewal, particularly in practice-based learning,
service learning and teaching-research nexus experiential learning opportunities.
The framework retained seven Graduate Qualities (GQs) embedded into the curriculum
and explicitly linked to student assessment. In addition to GQs, a large number of our
programs require the development and evidencing of professional competencies for accreditation.
Paper-based portfolios are the primary method used but recent technological changes
provide an alternative that also strengthens involvement with external stakeholders. Previously, the tool Transcript2 recorded achievement of GQs, linking learning outcomes
with career management. As with other systems developed in-house, this tool required
replacement.
The challenge
ePortfolios are an appropriate vehicle to support the implementation of our Teaching
& Learning Framework. PebblePad, and other systems that offer eportfolios, support
learning in ways that were not previously possible with paper portfolios (AeP, 2008).
An example is the flexibility to create multiple portfolios from the same data sources
tailored for specific purposes. ePortfolios were perceived as providing systems aligned
with supporting student engagement, with learners empowered to create portfolios to
suit their individual needs and broader audiences.

33

The trial of eportfolio concepts at UniSA through the Law pilot provided an opportunity
to explore how PebblePad supported learning for assessment and lifelong learning that
year and examine its potential for providing links with employers, accreditation bodies,
industry and our community in Law and other areas.
Another driver to provide eportfolios at UniSA was Australia’s response to the Bologna
process in Europe and its future implications for UniSA and its graduates. The Australian
version of the European Diploma Supplement was announced in September 2008 (Gillard, 2008), called the Australian Higher Education Graduation Statement. ePortfolios
compliment this requirement by capturing both formal and informal learning to provide a
holistic perspective of graduates.
The approach
In 2008, UniSA funded a trial of PebblePad in the School of Law to explore how eportfolios enhance the learning environment. This project incorporated lessons from the literature on implementing eportfolios with plans to embed the system in incremental stages
to avoid confusion, frustration and disillusionment (Love, McKean & Gathercoal, 2004).
This was aided by mapping relevant opportunities to embed eportfolio concepts across
the program prior to implementation.
The institutional wide interest in eportfolios led to the formation of an umbrella team
(Lambert and Corrin, 2007) that consisted of staff from both academic integration and
technology infrastructure areas. Establishment of a reference group that included a representative from each Division, a Law student, and support staff, provided interaction
with a wide range of stakeholders.
Cross-institutional links were established with external stakeholders. Initially this was
with a fellow Australian Technology Network (ATN) university, Queensland University
of Technology (QUT), experienced in eportfolio implementation. QUT later became the
lead institution for the Australian ePortfolio Project (AeP 2008) that examined Teaching
& Learning eportfolios in Australia and internationally. Links were also established with a
local institution, Flinders University, and RMIT University, another ATN member that we
have ongoing collaboration with in this area.
In 2009 following evaluation of the 2008 pilot, UniSA expanded its trial of PebblePad
purchasing 2000 licences to support projects that covered each of our Divisions in the
following schools:
•
•
•
•
•
•

34

Engineering (across all schools embedded into the common first year undergraduate program and pilots with third year and postgraduate students)
Natural and Built Environments (Postgraduate students)
Health Sciences (fourth year Occupational Therapy undergraduates)
Education (professional placement undergraduate students)
Nursing and Midwifery (third year Midwifery undergraduates)
Global Experience students (elective course across many programs)

The issues
Political
Although primarily driven by needs of the pedagogy of teaching staff, eportfolio concepts were supported by UniSA’s Divisional Vice Chancellor, Academic and included as
an element of learnonline. The promotion of the incumbent to Vice Chancellor of another
institution during 2009 withdrew support from an institutional champion.
Technical
In 2009 the uptake was lower than expected. One of the reasons was technical problems faced moving from a hosted environment in 2008 to our own systems in 2009.
This change led to errors for assets that recorded dates, e.g. action plans. These were
instrumental to the use of PebblePad by 4th year Occupational Therapy students and
resulted in a high level of frustration for both staff and students until the issue was identified and resolved.
The Engineering pilot for the common 1st Year Undergraduate program required over
250 students to create webfolios to display their learning in two courses. Technical problems marred the experience of many of these students, particularly those that left the
assessment task until the last day. With an average of 5mb files being uploaded by each
student the system was incredibly slow and a task that should take minutes took hours.
News of some poor experiences soon spread throughout UniSA. However, when this
cohort were later provided with an opportunity to select their preferred mechanism for
presenting a collaborative experiential learning assessment piece, over 70% elected to
use PebblePad over other choices including word documents and web authoring tools.
Learning Culture
Key learning from our pilots include:
• Pedagogy may not go as planned. Without strict guidelines, some engineering
students ended up with over 100 assets linked to a webfolio (i.e. all their work in
that course). This not only led to strain on the ability of the server to cope with the
uploading of files, but exceeded both student workload guidelines and what an
assessor can review for feedback. This highlighted tension between scaffolding
the learning process through highly structured templates and fostering the potential for creativity through less guidance.
•

Appreciation of an eportfolio approach takes time. Law students experienced a
staged approach to gradually develop necessary academic and technical skills
for eportfolio thinking. However, this delayed many from experiencing the benefits
of an eportfolio approach. The initial association was as a mechanism for assessment, leading to comparisons with Word or other tools. Only later did connections
across the program provide a more holistic perspective. Pilots also revealed the
need for further support to develop reflective and self-assessment skills.

35

Teaching Culture
PebblePad offers an opportunity to positively transform the learning environment. As
with any change, this requires the commitment, development and support of all stakeholders. Commitment is unlikely from most staff until PebblePad is used beyond one
year at a time, and perceived as easy to use with benefits that outweigh effort required
for change.
•

Example: Global experience students were given a career management assessment task previously completed in hard copy. The fourteen individual elements
were not synthesised but uploaded within webfolios. Assessment required an
enormous amount of clicks with the process of marking online onerous and beyond any perceived benefit for use in one course.

Staff leading pilots are innovators prepared to invest time into a system that supports
their teaching philosophy and engages students and external stakeholders with the
learning process. An ongoing challenge is to extend this approach across the institution
(Quinn & Sherville, 2009).
The result
UniSA has gained valuable experience of eportfolio implementation and developed eportfolio and PebblePad communities of practice, not only within UniSA but with other
Australian institutions. The hosting of a Showcase event in September 2009 provided an
opportunity for staff and students to share their experiences and suggest a way forward
in 2010. This was followed by a joint Review and Planning forum hosted by RMIT in
December 2009.
In 2010, UniSA planned further increase of the use of PebblePad with 3000 licences
purchased to support experiential learning in:
•
•
•
•
•

Medical Radiation (undergraduate students)
Division of Health Sciences (common 1st year course)
Division of Business (common 1st year course)
School of Communication, International Studies & Languages
School of Computer and Information Science

The learning
Our experiences confirm the developmental nature of stakeholders’ understanding of
eportfolio concepts and its associated challenges (Joyes, Gray & Hartnell-Young, 2009).
Implementation challenges have created communities of practice to share experiences
and disseminate good practice.
The evaluation of eportfolio approaches and systems is more complex than other support tools due to the lifelong or lifewide philosophy requiring a program rather than assessment task or course evaluation timeframe. This is further complicated when underlying concepts, such as reflection, are not universally understood or interpreted.

36

Although the desire to provide an eportfolio system for our students to support a shift to
experiential learning and the capturing of graduate qualities were initial drivers for choosing PebblePad, other aspects were implemented (action plans, forms, blogs, profiles) in
addition to webfolios. These functions enable a balanced approach to eportfolio implementation supporting the learning process and outcomes (Barrett, 2009).
The breadth of PebblePad beyond the traditional eportfolio system means that functions
used to support or assess learning can be undertaken in multiple ways at UniSA. This
makes training and support a challenge. A fully integrated system is expected to simplify
implementation and enable a greater focus on pedagogy.
Compelling reasons for using PebblePad are required when introducing the tool due to
the long-term perspective of eportfolio approaches. The collection of UniSA relevant
examples are one method being explored to explain the approach and portray the value
of reflecting on learning.
In brief
•
•
•

Implementation requires buy-in from all stakeholders, a clear purpose, lifelong
and lifewide perspectives with pedagogic support and technical support.
Staff and students seek greater integration between systems (internal and external).
Communities of practice assist implementers to overcome challenges and maintain focus on the potential benefits to learners, the university and society.

References
Australian ePortfolio Project, 2008. Australian ePortfolio Project. [Online] (Updated 10 March 2010)
Available at: http://www.eportfoliopractice.qut.edu.au/, [Accessed 26 March 2010].
Barrett, H., 2009 Lifelong ePortfolios: Creating your Digital Self, Keynote address, ePortfolio 2009.
[Online] Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/eportfolios/eifel2009keynote, [Accessed 26 March
2010].
Gillard, J. 2008. Australian Higher Education Graduation Statement. [Online] (Updated 04 Sep 2008)
Available at: http://mediacentre.dewr.gov.au/mediacentre/Gillard/Releases/AustralianHigherEducationGraduationStatement.htm, [Accessed 26 March 2010].
Joyes, G., Gray, L., & Hartnell-Young, E. 2009. Effective practice with e-portfolios: How can the UK
experience inform practice? [pdf] (Updated 2009)
Available at: http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/auckland09/procs/joyes.pdf, [Accessed 26
March 2010].
Lambert, S., & Corrin, L. (2007). Moving towards a university-wide implementation of an ePortfolio
tool, Australasian Journal of Education Technology, [Online]. 23 (1), pp1-16, Available at: http://
www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet23/lambert.html, [Accessed 26 March 2010].
Lee, P., 2007. University of South Australia: The Teaching and Learning Framework 2007, approved

37

by Academic Board June 22, 2007.
Love, D., McKean, G. & Gathercoal, P., 2004. Portfolios to webfolios and beyond: Levels of maturation. Educause Quarterly, 27(2), pp24-37.
Available at: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0423.pdf, [Accessed 26 March 2010].
Quinn, D., & Sherville, S. 2009. From little things big things grow: scaling-up assessment of experiential learning, Assessment of Experiential Learning, [Online]. 26 (5), pp329-344
Available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewPDF.jsp;jsessionid=0510F089EC04EDA
B75C6604A63953A74?contentType=Article&Filename=html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/1650260501.pdf, [Accessed 26 March 2010].
University of South Australia, 2009. Divisions, Schools and Administrative Units [Online] (Updated
29 October 2009).
Available at: http://www.unisa.edu.au/about/divs/default.asp, [Accessed 26 March 2010].
University of South Australia, 2009. Learnonline Project [Online] (Updated 24 November 2009)
Available at: http://www.unisa.edu.au/learnonline/Site%20Content/FAQs.asp#Why%20is%20
the%20learn%3Cb%3Eonline%3C/b%3E%20platform%20necessary, [Accessed 26 March 2010].

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs08.pdf

38

9
Putting the ‘e’ into ethics – using PebblePad forms to submit
and assess ethics applications.
Rachel Challen
School of Engineering and the Build Environment, The University of Wolverhampton, UK
The background context
This pilot project took place within the School of Engineering and the Built Environment
(SEBE), in conjunction with the Blended Learning Unit (BLU). Key members of the project
team included Rachel Challen (BLU), Prof. Richard Hall, Kevin Garner, Graham Oakes,
Kadda Yahiaoui and Patricia Osborne (SEBE).
A post 1992 Higher Education Institution, the University of Wolverhampton run a number
of UK and International programmes of study throughout their 9 schools with an average of 22,000 students. The School of Engineering and the Build Environment (SEBE) in
particular, have 34 UK based programmes and 6 overseas delivery programmes, levels
4 – 7, enrolling 2000 students across the whole school. SEBE itself is split into 3 departments. This case study took place in the Architecture and Product Design (APD)
department with level 6 students completing their final year dissertation projects. This
core group of 20 students had previous experience of the Institutional ePortfolio system,
PebblePad, having used it in level 4 and 5 modules.
The current practice
The existing process involved a complex paper trail which involved students contacting and sending a potential supervisor all relevant documents including any supporting
evidence in a paper format. Students went to the relevant departmental website and
downloaded the ethics form. This was filled out digitally, printed and the paper form
handed in to the module leader/supervisor. The supervisor then categorized the submissions to either an A or O grade. This submission then went to the Head of Department
who confirmed the grade and then forwarded to the APD Ethics committee. The school
produced a database with a list of students with the assigned grade. The database was
then passed to the SEBE school committee to be amalgamated with the whole school
submissions in the form of a manually inputted spreadsheet which was produced showing the statistics of research being carried out.
This process clearly involved a lot of paper transference between a number of different
departments before the project was authorised and completed, and there was huge
potential for the forms being mislaid or sent to the wrong person. If problems arose with
the submission and more information was needed, the paper form had to be returned
to the proposer and created again and sent back to the module leader. This resulted in
the process potentially having to be repeated a number of times. This clearly has a time
implication for the submission and important deadlines. Furthermore, the process was
segregated into the different transactions between proposer and marker and there was

39

little relationship between the different processes and tutors involved.
Additionally, the information given to the students in the different schools regarding the
submission requirements varied slightly in both content and format.
The challenge
The existing ethics application process was lengthy and unclear for both students and
tutors, with little interaction between the stages of the application. The chair of the SEBE
ethics committee approached the BLU to work in conjunction with them to create a
process that could be implemented across all schools. This process needed to enable
better monitoring of the ethics applications, create an easier application process and
also build on the students’ digital literacy. Digital Literacy is a recognized Wolverhampton
University Graduate attribute.
In order to achieve a more seamless and interactive process the stages within the process had to be more accessible and transparent. Whilst the actual stages themselves
couldn’t be altered, there needed to be a holistic process which students and tutors
found less complex, that could be integrated within the school and that would add value
to the process, the projects, the results and the reporting.
In addition to the changes to the process, it was equally as important to ensure that all
students, regardless of department, had equity of information and resources available
in relation to the dissertation. In order to support this, a webfolio was created with all
relevant documentation, questions and resources. This provided a central point for all
students and was intended to make the application process much clearer for the student. It was also important that there was one Gateway (a designated virtual space in
PebblePad) for each school to organise and view students’ submissions, completing a
more interconnected process.
The approach
An action research methodology was undertaken with the BLU working with the ethics
committee and the SEBE tutors to provide, implement and assess a new working model
enabling the School to improve the ethics application procedure. The initial meeting took
place in July 2009 with the aim of the resource being ready to use for the commencement of the pilot in Semester 1 2009. The pilot stakeholders were all involved in a School
Ethics meeting held in October. The tutors involved have been supported with a mentor
model within their own department.
Project issues that needed to be addressed:
Equity of information
There were instances where students found it difficult to find the correct information and
resources needed to enable them to complete their application. This could be a barrier to
them completing their application correctly and on time. PebblePad was used to create a
webfolio which wrapped all the relevant student information and placed it on a gateway,

40

as a URL link sent to all tutors involved in the pilot. This enabled the information to be
shown within lectures and/or sent as a personal asset to students.
Reducing workload
Tutors’ administrative workload regarding the ethics submissions needed to be reduced.
The current system was paper based with the responsibility on the module leader to
follow up outstanding submissions. The solution to use one gateway highlighted any
outstanding work and provided an easier way to contact students.
Tutor communication
The problem of the stages within the process being segregated and incohesive was
a major one for ensuring the correct information was received by the student and approved by the tutor. Additional communication to agree the grading of the application
needed to be more combined and accessible. The tool was used within PebblePad to
attach a private tutor blog to each specific submission for all of the necessary stakeholders to communicate with each other and also with the students if adjustments needed to
be made on the application.
Security
There was a large concern that the current process of paper based submissions which
were posted around the departments held a confidentiality risk, especially in the case of
projects that are based within companies and may use sensitive material. Holding the
material in a password protected, virtual space, on a University server provides both
security and safety of the submissions.
Transparent information
Viewing all submissions in one area allows the tutors to have a much clearer idea of the
progress of applications and if any issues have arisen.
Amalgamation of results
A more comprehensive, consistent and reliable result process was required. Using the
statistic analysis tool within the Gateway allows an easy amalgamation of results at both
departmental and school level
Technical
Technically, not all tutors had the same experience of the software and needed support
and training in order to access gateways and communicate using the blogs.
Cultural
Culturally, placing submissions and communicating online is a different way of working
for a number of staff. However, within the pilot, the tutors involved had previous experi-

41

ence of PebblePad. When the project is rolled out across the school there will need to be
a structured mentor model approach to support tutors.
The result
Statistical results are in progress as the deadline for the first pilot submissions occurs
after the submission of the case study and will be submitted at a later date when the
full analysis is available. However, anecdotal evidence from the tutors involved suggests
that the pilot has been a great success with the potential to build on the evolution of
the PebblePad methodology in relation to the ethics submission process for a cohort of
French MSc internship students in Biarritz studying the same module.
The particular needs of this group surround communication issues, equity of experience/
process/support and the sharing of potentially sensitive company material. The ethics
form and the virtual discursive nature of the submission between the involved parties
would aim to improve communication and would involve the student mentor in the process. This will allow a more formative process to be implemented in the early days of the
dissertation. This may lead to using a specific form or action plan within the system as an
introductory and informative exercise. This process will very strongly emulate a business
process that the graduates might be expected to engage with in employment.
The learning
Using a predefined form which is published to a specific virtual area, makes the submission process:
•
•
•
•
•

More efficient
More secure
More accessible (virtual)
More visible
More transparent

This process also allows information from students and tutors in the stages to be interlinked and not just seen in isolation
In brief
•
•
•

Needs to be integrated rather than in week 4 as in pilot.
No choice about process.
Encourages tutors to engage with blended learning.

Resources
Rachel Challen, 2009. SEBE Ethics Proposal WebFolio [Online] (Updated 22 March 2010)
Available at: http://pebblepad.wlv.ac.uk/webfolio.aspx?webfolioid=1546950, [Accessed March
2010].
Rachel Challen, 2010. SEBE School Ethics Applications [Online] (Updated Unknown)

42

Available at: http://pebblepad.wlv.ac.uk/PebbleForm/answer.aspx?external=true&formid=1547017
[Accessed March 2010].
Rachel Challen, 2010. SEBE School Ethics Applications - Supervisors Feedback [Online] (Updated
Unknown), Available at: http://pebblepad.wlv.ac.uk/PebbleForm/answer.aspx?external=true&form
id=1547243, [Accessed March 2010].

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs09.pdf

43

10
From an eportfolio to a PLS: Integrating an eportfolio into a
Post Graduate Certificate in Learning & Teaching in HE
Sarah Chesney
Centre for the Development of Learning & Teaching, University of Cumbria, UK
The background context
In March 2007 the Centre for the Development of Learning and Teaching (CDLT) received JISC funding to look at ways in which an eportfolio or personal learning system
could support staffs’ continuing professional development. The overall aims of Flourish
(the JISC funded project) were to ease the administrative burden experienced by learning, teaching and research practitioners at the University of Cumbria through the use of
PebblePad, who were project partners.
Flourish encouraged staff to:
•
•

Use the PebblePad personal learning system to aggregate records of learning
and achievement into eportfolios to be used for professional purposes, including
professional accreditation and academic qualification;
Store and reflect upon evidence of their development.

One of the key aims of Flourish was to embed the use of PebblePad into our Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (PgCinLTHE). The PgCinLTHE is a three module course offered to all new academic staff (for whom the course is
compulsory) and learners from a number of health care providers who support students
in practice. It is run by the CDLT. The university is highly dispersed geographically and
the course runs on two sites, with the tutors travelling to deliver the course sessions on
the different campuses. The types of assessment for this course are based upon participants reflecting on their own practice. Each year there are approximately 30 students
who start the course and complete the first module, although not all of these students go
on to the second or third modules.
In the PgCinLTHE we have been requiring use of PebblePad for at least some parts of
assessment since 2008. Embedding the use of PebblePad has taken a few years, but we
are at a stage now where all the participants’ assessments have to be completed through
the PebblePad system, and by the end of their course of study, all participants have a
record of their work and a portfolio of evidence of their learning.
The challenge
Before introducing PebblePad all the learners’ records of learning, either through the
Personal Academic Record or through assessments, were paper based. In addition,
there were very few opportunities for consistent formative feedback on assessments.
We wanted to seize the opportunity that this emergent technology offered.

44

We felt that PebblePad had the potential to increase communication between tutors and
learners, particularly formative feedback. We wanted our students to have a body of evidence that they could show their colleagues or if necessary line managers or employers
at the end of their study.
We wanted to increase efficiency through on-line submission of assignments and avoid
the enormous paper-based portfolios of evidence that were being submitted. We wanted
this particular group of staff to experience an eportfolio first hand so that they would be
prepared if they used an eportfolio with their own students.
The purpose
We were aware of external drivers such as the Higher Education Funding Council for
England (HEFCE) e-learning strategy and the Department for Education and Schools
(DfES) strategy. We felt it would be remiss of us to continue to use paper based systems
when our remit is to prepare staff to teach and support learners in a 21st Century world.
We wanted to model best practice in the area of on-line submission and the existing
systems didn’t suit the portfolio style assignment that learners had to submit.
The approach
The eportfolio was introduced on a small scale and users were not required to use it.
However, when we identified a lack of engagement by users, we decided to require the
use of the eportfolio for at least one assignment. The course team were keen to be able
to give formative feedback on assignments and had struggled to do this before the introduction of PebblePad.
The stakeholders were the PgC participants, the tutors, the administrative support staff
and to a small degree the external examiner. We anticipated that if we introduced the
eportfolio with staff, then they would be encouraged to use it with their own students and
have first hand knowledge of the software and how it should be used to support learning.
The timeline was at first non existent but when we received JISC funding under the Flourish project, we had to embed the use of the eportfolio into the PgC within two years.
We introduced the learners to PebblePad at the very start of their studies and repeated
workshops on how to use the software throughout the first two modules.
The issues
The barriers were numerous. We battled against the perception that this was a one off
project. This attitude allowed users to think that it wasn’t worth investing time to learn a
new piece of software and use it to record and reflect important aspects of their studies.
In addition the tutors involved on the course had to be convinced that, whilst this was
a new way of working, the risks were minimal and opportunities to enhance practice
would emerge. The users themselves were hesitant about a new way of recording and
reflecting on their learning. We had to resist their desire for continued use of Microsoft
Word and email.

45

The result
We now are at a stage where every student and every member of staff at the University
of Cumbria has a PebblePad account. This has sent out a clear message that we are no
longer running a small-scale project. In fact the software is now regarded as one of the
three key institutional technologies installed to promote and enhance learning.
PgCinLTHE participants now have to use PebblePad for every assignment throughout
the course. Peer observation ‘paperwork’ is completed in PebblePad. One of the assignments is a ‘patchwork text’, which requires learners to write around four teaching and
learning themes and then ‘stitch’ the work together with a reflexive commentary. Learners were encouraged to draw upon evidence from peer observations and reflective diary
entries to substantiate their claims. This assignment is presented in a webfolio format
with hyperlinks to the evidence.
We had anticipated that use of the eportfolio for their own studies would encourage
use of the eportfolio with their own students. There isn’t much evidence of this yet. The
main motivating factor for this particular group of staff to use PebblePad with their own
students seems to be seeing other staff use it with students.
Other CPD processes and recognition are now aligned to the PgCinLTHE. For example
the university’s professional standards are aligned to the HEA Professional Standards
and all applicants have to use PebblePad to apply for accreditation.
The learning
It took much longer than anticipated for the eportfolio to become embedded in the programme. Some learners (and some staff) struggle to differentiate between the VLE (in our
case Blackboard) and PebblePad so this needs to be addressed at the start of a course
of learning.
Inevitably some learners will resist using PebblePad but it is recommended that the
course team adopt a consistent approach ensuring that all learners use PebblePad for
assignments. Using the software has prompted a revision of how technologies are used
within the course and even a discussion about whether we have an eportfolio system or
a ‘personal learning environment’.
It has also changed the nature of assignments, allowing us to design assessment such
as the patchwork text which now has to include non text-based artefacts such as audio
files or video clips. Some tutors are using the PebblePad blog to support learners as they
write their assignments – I would argue that this is not an eportfolio activity but a good
learning and teaching method facilitated through a personal learning system.
There is strong evidence that using PebblePad has saved a lot of administrative time and
effort. However, this has to be balanced against the amount of support and encouragement this particular group of learners needs to use PebblePad. Long term it is worth the
effort and we do feel that we offer the PgCinLTHE participants a range of technologies
to support their learning, and that the course team have demonstrated how useful an

46

eportfolio can be to support assessment for and of learning.
In brief
•
•
•

Have a clear purpose for using the technology.
Link the use of the technology to assessment.
Provide tip sheets for the users to get them going.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs10.pdf

47

11
Dual learning experience: An academic studying and learning
through the PebblePad environment
Trisha Poole
Faculty of Education, Charles Sturt University, Australia
The background context
Charles Sturt University (CSU) is a regional university with multiple campuses in regional
cities in New South Wales and beyond. The University has identified itself as a University
for the Professions. The Faculty of Education is one of the largest in Australia with four of
its six Schools focussing on Teacher Education.
EEL409 (University Learning & Teaching) is the first subject in the Graduate Certificate in
University Learning & Teaching (GCULT), and while it is available to all students studying
the GCULT, it is compulsory for all ‘new’ teaching/academic staff at CSU. The subject
involved is available across campuses, schools, and faculties but is administered by the
School of Education in the Faculty of Education and delivered by the Division of Learning and Teaching Services. EEL409 is a distance education subject that has been augmented by two internal workshops for those who are CSU staff (which is my situation).
A generalised view of the student cohort would characterise them by being a group
of educated professionals who are new to teaching at University level or who want to
solidify their University teaching experience with a formal qualification. In my cohort,
there were more than 20 students, most of whom are teaching at CSU at one of the nine
campuses.
My expectations
As an academic undertaking this subject and discovering that I would need to use PebblePad as the tool to submit the assessment items, I was a bit wary at first because using
a personal learning system to submit assessments is not conventional at CSU. It also
seemed very technologically savvy for a group who were not necessarily up to date with
technology. However, I was excited at the prospect of learning a new tool that I could
potentially use with my students in the subjects that I teach. I saw this as an opportunity for me to evaluate the personal learning system as a study tool and an assessment
method without having the pressure of ensuring that I had considered all potential issues
that may arise with a diverse cohort.
The challenge
The challenge for me as a student was to learn a new personal learning system and
produce a webfolio that would be more than just text – more than just a word document transferred into an online environment in the personal learning system. I was also
challenging myself to be more creative in my thought processes and in how I displayed
information. Sometimes when a new technology is introduced, it is easy to do the bare

48

minimum to get by while not actually absorbing the technology and working with it. So, I
also wanted to push the boundaries of what I could achieve in the webfolio while staying
within those that had been set in the assessment guidelines.
The purpose
The purpose of creating the webfolio was to showcase or illustrate the work-based project that I undertook during the subject. The work-based project was the essence of
our assessment and PebblePad was the means of submitting the assessment. Because
the subject was also part of my Professional Development as an academic at CSU, the
impetus for presenting our assessment in PebblePad was also to help us become more
competent and confident in using personal learning systems. As we worked with PebblePad, we were encouraged to constantly consider how we might use PebblePad in our
own subjects. As CSU has an initiative about using technology in subjects, this was also
one of the drivers behind PebblePad’s use in the subject.
The approach
PebblePad was briefly introduced during the first internal workshop and we were guided
through it via vodcasts in our subject’s online environment. There was a lot of self-guided
study required to become proficient at the basics of PebblePad, but once I became
familiar with the environment, it seemed to be a logical process that allowed me to be
non-linear in the development of my webfolio.
Initially, I attempted to ‘have a go’ at using PebblePad but I was not competent at using it due to the new terminologies (such as ‘Assets’ instead of ‘Files’). However, after
a quick look at the introductory vodcast provided by the subject lecturer, the structure,
layout, and usage of PebblePad became obvious. From this point, I felt that I could
produce anything and start to be very creative in my approach to both the assessment
task and its presentation in PebblePad. It was at this point that I began to experiment
with content and layout. (* See the Appendices for examples of the different layouts I
experimented with.) Overall, I felt that PebblePad became very intuitive after I took the
time to understand the initial concept and layout. I began to enjoy creating small assets
such as Thoughts, Meetings, and Blogs. As I created more and more assets, I found that
I could present much more information in the webfolio than I could have done in a simple
document. There is a great amount of flexibility available in PebblePad and this helped
me think outside of the typical assessment box when I was creating the webfolio.
The issues
The main hurdle that I faced as a student using PebblePad to present my assessment
was changing my preconceptions of what assessment should look like at a postgraduate
level. When I first found out that we would submit our work in a webfolio, I felt as though
the subject was not a ‘serious’ subject but rather something that I needed to do to ‘tick
the boxes’. However, as I began to work in PebblePad and develop my webfolio, I realised how much more was required from me in terms of creativity, planning, organising,
and preparing something that was not only academically sound, but also visually appealing.It was at this point that I realised that I had a lot more freedom in the presentation of

49

my project because I wasn’t limited to text- and image-based content: I could create a
more interactive and attractive assessment piece.
One minor barrier that I faced was when I wanted to create HTML-style pages with fully
integrated and embedded videos. (I did not have time to experiment further with embedding videos due to time constraints on both myself and the assessment deadlines.) At
this point, I felt that the PebblePad environment became restrictive, but also appreciated
that most people would not see this as a restriction because they might not reach that
stage or level of development. If they do reach it, then it is likely that they will use another
environment to create their document then add it into the PebblePad environment as an
asset. I have since found out how to embed HTML into a webfolio and it appears to be
relatively easy (and logical) once explained.
The result
Using PebblePad to present and submit an assessment item has shown me how flexible
and creative I can be in assessment items – both as a student and an academic who is
evaluating PebblePad as an assessment tool. It has opened another avenue to presenting work in a more technologically-driven world and one where Web 2.0 technologies are
becoming the norm in tertiary education spheres.
I have seen the value of using a personal learning system such as PebblePad with my
students to give them another option for presenting work and tracking their progress
through their subject and their course. Having gone through the process of being introduced to PebblePad and internally reconceptualising how assessment can be presented, I can understand the barriers that my students might face when I introduce the
concept and technology to them in my subjects. Also, as I know how my students might
react, I believe that I am in a better position to introduce PebblePad to them as a professional development tool and one that can enhance, enforce, and increase their learning.
The physical results of my work with PebblePad during the subject can be viewed online
and there are some images in the Appendices at the end of this document.
The learning
This experience with PebblePad has changed my perceptions of what is ‘valid’ learning
in a university learning and teaching arena. It has also made me more aware of alternate
learning and assessment processes that would be beneficial to both academics and
students alike (and to those of us who are both!). I also found that through the process of
reconceptualising the assessment, it gave me the opportunity to become more creative
and flexible in the content that I included and how I presented it. The functionality of
PebblePad allows non-linear work processes and thought patterns to flourish, and are
perhaps even favoured: this can allow more creative processes and assist in producing
more innovative work. It also supports students (and academics) who are more visually
oriented than textually oriented. I believe that this is a great step towards providing more
inclusive learning and assessing environments.

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In brief
•
•
•
•

A good introduction and orientation to the software is important otherwise it can
be confusing and overwhelming.
PebblePad offers a great amount of flexibility and it is only limited to the user’s
imagination.
People who work non-linearly can flourish in this environment because it offers
great vvdiversity and many options for presenting information.
When a more flexible environment is provided for teaching and learning, more
innovative outcomes can be created.

Appendices
Appendix 1 – initial welcome screen
Appendix 2 – basic embedding of images
Appendix 3 – more complex embedding of images
Appendix 4 – creating submenus/embedding other webfolios

Appendix 2 – basic embedding of images

Resources
Trisha Poole, 2009. SEBE EEL409 - Trisha Poole - Work-based Project: Develop Presentations for
Three Conferences [Online] (Updated 25 November 2009)
Available at: https://eportfolio.csu.edu.au/pebblepad/viewasset.aspx?oid=30195&type=webfolio,
[Accessed 03/2010].

* For the complete set of files contained in the appendices please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs11.pdf

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12
Teacher eportfolio Project for Northern Ireland – a multi agency approach to teacher lifelong learning
Gillian Stewart
Belfast Education and Library Board, Ireland

Dr Victor McNair

School of Education, University of Ulster, Ireland
The background context
Having worked in 2006/7 to establish the principles and concepts for a teacher eportfolio, the Teacher eportfolio Project for Northern Ireland (Te-PNI) partners listed above have
piloted and evaluated eportfolio processes across a range of professional development
activities to the extent that there are now plans to have an eportfolio for all teachers
embedded into the Northern Ireland Managed Service for ICT through its management
organisation ‘Classroom 2000’ (C2K). The teacher eportfolio is defined as:
‘… a collection of authentic and diverse evidence of teaching competence that has been
the subject of reflection, synthesis and selection for presentation to a professional audience for a specific purpose.’
The agreed principles state that all eportfolio work should be based on the General
Teaching Council for Northern Ireland (GTCNI, 2007) teaching competences and the National Standards for Headship for Northern Ireland (RTUNI, 2005), that ownership of all
eportfolio content resides with the individual user throughout his/her career, that each
organisation will ensure that its eportfolio software solution will conform to the Te-PNI
specification, and that its implementation is based on collaboration among the partners
involved. To date, there are over 700 active users across a wide range of professional development phases including Initial Teacher Education, Induction and Early Professional
Development, teachers’ annual review process (Performance Review and Staff Development) and the Professional Qualification for Headship.
The current practice
Although there is a strong culture of reflective practice among teachers in Northern Ireland, the Department of Education is pressing for greater “continuity and progression in
professional development” between the phases (ETI, 2005, p34). There is divergence in
the support offered by the partners in spite of the range of policy initiatives that require
all support agencies to work together. We believe that having a single eportfolio area for
teachers, with common tools, platform and outcomes will provide this coherence.
The challenge
The project addresses a number of key challenges:

52

1. How do we break the cycle of inward reflection and try to build better and
more effective communities of practice where learning is truly shared, debated andembedded in classroom practice?
2.

How do we create continuity and progression around the professional development activities that teachers are required to undertake from the start to the
finish of their career so that they are able to recognise common elements and
build on each activity through a common set of processes?

3.

How do we manage such commonality in a way that allows the Northern Ireland teacher partnership organisations to maintain their distinctive contribution to professional development while making it possible for the outcomes of
one phase to initiate more effectively the activities of the next?

4. How do we achieve standardisation of software tools, support materials and
services in support of these common processes, particularly in the use of
similar forms of multimedia evidence in similar ways?
We argue that a common set of processes based on eportfolio-supported professional
development will help bring about commonality in the ‘teacher development continuum’
proposed by Wang et al (2008).
The purpose
Increasingly teachers are expected to be more accountable for their own learning and
for the impact of their teaching on their pupils’ development. Professional learning has
traditionally been recorded using paper-based systems.
However, in a context of ever increasing teacher e-maturity, there is a higher expectation
on classroom practitioners to demonstrate their professional learning using the digital
technologies that the children they teach (their digital natives) use so intuitively from an
early age. The Te-PNI Project has therefore presented the opportunity to explore eportfolio tools as an alternative way of selecting, presenting, reflecting on and quality assuring
evidence of core ITE, Induction, EPD and CPD activities as part of a teacher’s lifelong
learning journey. This has taken place against a background of local and national policy
drivers including:
•

the NI Department of Education’s recommendations for:
“the integration of an eportfolio for professional learning as a means
of creating efficiencies in professional development” (ETI, 2008, p34)
“… better strategic planning and delivery of professional development
opportunities for teachers” (DE, 2007, p6)

•

DfES’s recommendation to “develop support systems for teachers to … build
their record of achievement throughout their lifelong learning.” (QAA, 2009)

53

The approach
An evaluation of the work was undertaken between March and June 2009. There were
over 100 respondents from a total of 400 eportfolio users across all the organisations
represented. The professional development milestones included assessment activities,
action planning, Formative and Career Entry Profiles in ITE, Induction Action Planning,
EPD Professional Development Activities and webfolios (web-based eportfolios).
Questionnaires were developed to ascertain views regarding the eportfolio-based processes along with other issues such as their personal experiences, the role of the tutor
and the technical issues they faced. Following the questionnaires, focus group interviews sought to probe the issues raised more deeply. Cohort samples included PGCE
students, first year B.Ed students, teachers in the first three years of their careers and
tutors in HEIs and schools.
The issues
The following ‘barriers’ present challenges to the Te-PNI team:
1. Financial issues in relation to software licenses and professional development and training costs for project participants
2. Technological issues in respect of standards, software selection and use as
well as the need to match user and organisational needs to software tools.
While recognizing that the choice of an appropriate model will require wider
discussion prior to any policy decision, it is hoped that Phase 3 will conclude
with the development of specifications for the procurement of a Teacher eportfolio for Northern Ireland
3. Cultural issues in respect of achieving a shift in traditional mindset from paper based to digital evidence of professional development and reflection.
An important and emerging outcome of the project evaluation to date has
been the identification of a ‘cultural change’ model that places teachers and
support personnel at the centre of all our work, and that aims to improve the
quality of their reflection and more closely link their professional developmental stages and the dialogue in which they engage.
This model, drawing on the JISC change management infokit (JISC, 2009), summarises
how change has taken place in the respective organisations during the three phases of
the project but with regional change some way off. The extent of the model’s organisational fit varies from partner to partner. For HEIs, the advent of the project fitted with
institutional PDP policy requirements has provided a means of addressing QAA requirements. In other organisations, embedding is impeded by an uncertain policy background
as we await the formation of a single Education and Skills Authority for Northern Ireland.

54

The result
Student teachers (PGCE and First Year B.Ed.) and their tutors gave a positive endorsement to eportfolio-based processes of Action Planning and Formative and Career Entry Profiling, indicating their support for its ability to facilitate professional development
across a range of activities. While some students expressed a range of concerns including technical problems, duplication of paper-based and online activities and having
to operate the software, their tutors were positive about how the eportfolio facilitated
learning.
Beginning Teachers and their tutors were exceptionally positive about the benefits of
eportfolio-based professional development and viewed the tools as making a valuable
contribution to their Induction and Early Professional Development (EPD) activities. Their
tutors’ opinions largely mirrored the views expressed across a range of descriptive attributes and focused on the effectiveness of the technology to support more strategic and
long-term benefits. The potential for impact on the wider teaching workforce, therefore,
is strong.
There was a consistent and strong positive correlation between users’ engagement in
eportfolio-based reflection and their identification of areas for improvement. We have
distilled this correlation into a three-stage model of eportfolio use, “Reflect-IdentifyDevelop” and argue that it provides a coherent and long-term pattern for engaging in the
reflective process and supports teacher lifelong learning.
Three-stage model of eportfolio use

The learning
Emerging from the project have been the following 4 important lessons which must be
borne in mind if an eportfolio for teacher lifelong learning is to be embedded in the profession across Northern Ireland:

55

1. Teaching and Learning - eportfolios must be seen to produce real improvements in innovative practice that have the support of all professionals. The
outcomes of the project evaluation to date suggest that the culture for implementation is right as the overwhelming majority of participant teachers view
professional eportfolios as a natural progression from the way they use ICT in
their personal lives. The project team will continue to engage in longitudinal
research and evaluation and share innovation within and beyond the project.
2. Strategy and Policy - The Te-PNI project will continue to seek to integrate
with the key professional development milestones and the Management Information System and inform e-learning policy initiatives
3. Technology and Standards - E-mature teachers need software that is
adaptable, fit for purpose and which can provide benchmarks for learning. In
this respect the project team will continue to test and refine processes and
examine practice in other Education sectors and professions
4. Partnerships - Relationships have already been forged with key UK agencies and the project team will aim to develop both these and other emerging
European contacts, into real working partnerships for joint learning, development & dissemination.
In brief
There is strong data to support the view that an eportfolio can make a very positive
contribution to teacher professional development although evidence in support of its
efficacy to develop reflection is less strong. There remain challenges in embedding the
eportfolio across the teaching career life cycle, in particular developing the teacher education partnerships in such a way that there is not only commonality in understanding
but also continuity and progression in the use of eportfolios to support teacher lifelong
learning.
References
DE, 2007. Use of Information and Communications Technology in Schools. DE Circular, 24, pp2-4.
Available at: http://www.deni.gov.uk/circular_2007.pdf. [Accessed April 2010]
ETI, 2008. An evaluation of the use and impact of learning environments in schools and in the wider
education service. [pdf] Bangor: ETI. Available at: http://www.etini.gov.uk/le_in_schools_in_wes.
pdf. [Accessed April 2010]
ETI, 2005. Report of a survey: The induction and early professional development of beginning teachers. [pdf] Bangor: ETI. Available at: http://www.etini.gov.uk/dev_of_beginning_teachers.pdf.
[Accessed April 2010]
GTCNI, 2007. Teaching: The reflective profession [pdf] Belfast: GTCNI. Available at: http://www.
gtcni.org.uk. [Accessed April 2010]

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JISC, 2009. ePortfolios InfoKit [online]. Available at: http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/e-portfolios. [Accessed April 2010]
QAA, 2009. Personal development planning: Guidance for institutional policy and practice in higher
education. [pdf] Gloucester: QAA. Available at: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/progressFiles/guidelines/PDP/PDPguide.pdf. [Accessed April 2010]
RTUNI, 2005. National standards for headteachers. Belfast: RTUNI. Available at: http://www.rtuni.
com/uploads/docs/21672_National%20Standard.pdf. [Accessed April 2010]
Wang, J., Odell, S. & Schwille, S.A. 2008. Effects of teacher induction on beginning teachers teaching: A critical review of literature. Journal of Teacher Education, 59(2), pp132-152.

Project Partners
University of Ulster
Queen’s University, Belfast
St Mary’s University College
Stranmillis University College
Northern Ireland Education and Library Boards
Regional Training Unit, Northern Ireland
C2K
GTCNI
Department of Education for Northern Ireland
Becta

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs12.pdf

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13
ePortfolios - reflecting on the evidence
Libby Clark and Greg Hardham
Faculty of Science, School of Community Health, Charles Sturt University, Australia
The background context
Charles Sturt University (CSU) is a regional university with multiple campuses in regional
cities in New South Wales and beyond. Within the School of Community Health, students
are now able to undertake a professional 4-year program in speech pathology: the Bachelor of Health Science (Speech Pathology).
Two of the main reasons for introducing this degree were to expand the professional opportunities for students from rural and remote backgrounds, and to offset the shortages
of health professionals in non-metropolitan areas. Although there is a strong rural focus
throughout the course, graduates are prepared for practice in metropolitan as well as rural settings. Students learn to assess, diagnose, plan and deliver intervention programs
for individuals with speech, voice, language, fluency and swallowing disorders.
The course is taught from the Thurgoona campus, predominantly by internal study, with
some distance education subjects.
The current practice
Of the two subjects that were chosen for piloting PebblePad:
1. SPH 103 (Analysing Language, Interaction and Context) has approximately 50
students, and for the past five years has used a paper/CD based portfolio assessment item.
2. SPH 214 (Therapeutic Communication Practice 2] has approximately 36 students. In 2009, this subject changed from 8 point to 16-point full year subject to
allow more time for development of basic clinical skills, some of which were to be
completed via a portfolio of self-directed clinical practice tasks.
The use of paper-based portfolios in SPH103 was fraught with problems, especially associated with the management of the materials at the end of each year. Students were
submitting CDs containing audio as part of their portfolios, but this resulted in loose piles
of materials piled up in academic offices, and transportability became a serious issue at
marking time. Keeping track of items was also difficult with so many individual ‘pieces’ of
the portfolio, as was returning the portfolios after marking was complete. In fact, sometimes students didn’t pick up their portfolios at the end of the semester, indicating that
they saw the task as ‘just another assessment item’, rather than an integral link to their
development as a professional.

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In the second year subject, students needed to record and analyse speech from their
professional practice with clients, and submit the records as transcripts. Yet there was
no way of validating the transcripts by markers (thus ensuring that the students had accurately transcribed the conversation, an important skill in itself).
The challenge
Firstly, I was hoping to make the assessment process more manageable. It was essential
that the portfolios become more accessible and transportable, and that the same situation wasn’t repeated in the second year subject.
However, I also wanted students to be able to capture evidence of their professional
skills in different ways. Paper-based portfolios don’t lend themselves to use of audio
(or video), which is critical for capturing the interactions that are central to a discipline
like speech pathology. PebblePad offered more scope for the incorporation of evidence
using a variety of media. For example, having audio as evidence for the students’ transcriptions of speech would help me align the two, making it easier to validate what they
were saying.
I was also hoping that students would see the connection between their first year portfolio and the kinds of professional evidence required later on.
As students also need to compile an evidence-based portfolio of clinical competence
in fourth year, it occurred to me as I started to explore PebblePad that we should be
encouraging students to develop a culture of collecting evidence of their professional
growth from the beginning of the course. PebblePad provided an environment in which
the culture of collecting (and reflecting on) evidence of professional growth could be
developed. In this sense, it was a gradual emerging of the ‘bigger picture’ of how PebblePad could be used to support learning and development throughout the degree.
The approach
I began using PebblePad with the first years to teach them the skills associated with
gathering evidence of their clinical skills and reflecting on their practice. Then, when external feedback revealed third-year students were still struggling with some basic clinical
skills, I decided I needed to build more early-stage practical experience into second year.
As a result, I devised a series of self-directed reflections on clinical practice for SPH 214
students to gather within the PebblePad environment using the blog for weekly reflections on clinical experiences, but encouraging uploading of audio and video recordings
that showed the development of other practical skills.
At first, students were sending each of their artefacts to me individually and asking for
feedback, and this quickly became unmanageable. With further support, I encouraged
the students to use a webfolio to gather their various artefacts. This ‘emergent’ practice
developed as I was still developing in my own mind what I wanted from students. As students began to see how the webfolio gave more structure to their work, they started to
develop their own strategies, and in many ways they were our co-partners in developing
the best way of working to meet our needs.

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This was particularly true of the first years, who also became mentors for the second
year students.
The issues
The first-year students embraced PebblePad, but the second-years were initially much
more reluctant. One of the key reasons seemed to be that the second year subject was a
year-long subject, and I didn’t introduce PebblePad until second semester. The students
found this disruptive and difficult to move from paper-based to electronic portfolios midyear. However, by the end of the year, most admitted they could see the advantages.
The differences may have also partly been because the first-years were not being introduced to a ‘new’ way of doing portfolios (i.e. electronic, as opposed to paper-based).
They found PebblePad easy to understand and many of them helped the second-years
with the technology!
The other difference was in the kind of activities involved. The first-year activities were
half group and half individual, whereas in second-year they were all individual. The capacity for sharing and commenting as a group before submission within the PebblePad
environment enabled strong peer support, giving students more confidence in both the
tools and their practical learning activities.
There were also issues related to activities involving ‘reflection on practice’ (which were
a hurdle requirement) as opposed to the use of an eportfolio per se. Students in second
year traditionally find the process of reflecting on their practice difficult; they often provide descriptions of what they did, rather than reflections on what they have learnt from
the activities.
I expect many of these issues to be transitional ones and won’t appear in second year
in 2010 because students will see PebblePad and the associated activities as routine.
The result
Our initial challenge of transportability and ease of access was definitely met – no more
boxes on the floor or uncollected portfolios! The marking process was more streamlined,
though a number of changes would be made to enhance the process of adding comments:
a) some students failed to enable ‘comments’ to be made on individual webfolio
items, which then required comments to be handwritten on evaluation forms (students now submit via the gateway, removing this issue);
b) most students uploaded Word documents, instead of writing directly onto the
PebblePad pages. This required opening multiple files which was time consuming, as was transferring changes into comments (student instructions are now
more clear, so hopefully this will no longer be an issue).
The students were generally very successful in creating basic webfolios, and most were
able to upload diverse kinds of evidence for the practical skills they were developing.

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The evidence that they collected seemed to be more tangible to them, and made it easier
for them to see how what they are doing will become embedded in their professional
practice.
The first years fully embraced PebblePad, and gained significantly in confidence, especially following their mentoring of the second years. I feel confident that they will each
have strong portfolios by fourth year. The second years, while more reluctant, still agreed
that they were pleased they had completed their webfolios and could see the use and
purpose of it.
Another result was the enhanced ability to provide feedback during the semester, rather
than only following final submission. This enabled feedback for learning, rather than only
feedback on learning.
In 2010, students will be encouraged to share their work with peers for comment prior to
submitting for final marking, so that they are developing habits of peer review to improve
the quality of the evidence and reflection. I’m now also much clearer on the purpose of
PebblePad for both subjects, and this will be communicated clearly to students at the
start of semester.
In terms of personal growth, I’ve also achieved a lot. Prior to this experience, I didn’t
have a great deal of experience in PebblePad or in the manipulation of video and audio,
but I’ve found that my skills have advanced quickly, and that makes me so much more
comfortable about using PebblePad this year and beyond.
The learning
In future I’ll encourage students to develop a webfolio structure from the beginning rather
than collect a long list of individual assets which they upload at the ‘end’ of the session.
They will also be better guided to place content on webfolio pages instead of attaching
external documents, making commenting easier.
At times, I was swamped with PebblePad assets that had been shared with me for
feedback. Next time I’ll know better how to manage portfolios – I don’t need to see each
piece of evidence as it is developed.
As students make extensive use of audio files in their webfolio, it is important that they
are aware of the importance of minimising file size – and can do this effectively.
Many of the webfolios were similar in appearance – students devoted their efforts to the
evidence without regard for the aesthetics. Next time I’ll add an assessment criterion for
individuality, or ‘flair’ in presentation. I’ll encourage students to use images (of inanimate
objects – no people) to trigger reflection.
Before embarking on this with students, it’s vital to have some fundamental professional
development in the basic uses of PebblePad, especially on how each of the asset types
can best be used. Rather than attempt to use all types of assets from the outset, I think
it’s more important to begin to develop the process of create/share/reflect.

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Using PebblePad as a personal learning tool and repository will develop over time as
students continue to see its relevance.
In brief
•
•
•
•
•

Start small – as you progress, you’ll see new advantages and synergies between
different areas of student learning. It’s OK to build over time.
Use student mentors to help those more anxious and hesitant to take on the new
technology, and pass on positive feelings towards the technology.
Group activities may help make the initial experience a more positive one for students, building on peer support.
Don’t forget to support students in associated technology skills, such as compressing video files.
Know your purpose, and communicate it clearly.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs13.pdf

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14
Lost in Reflection: How SSPAL students use ‘forms’ to find
their way.
Paul Towers
School of Sports, Performing Arts and Leisure, University of Wolverhampton, UK
The background context
This project took place within the School of Sports, Performing Arts and Leisure (SSPAL)
in conjunction with the Blended Learning Unit (BLU). Key members of the project team
included Paul Towers (BLU), Gavin Ward and Alison Barbar (SSPAL).
Through a voluntary work based learning experience, students gain first hand experience of the primary school environment. Students reflect upon their own teaching, the
teaching of others, and selected specific issues in the host school. The 90 students are
required to complete a minimum of 40 hours of voluntary work and must complete a
weekly reflection. There are two assessments the students must complete for the first
and second semester. The first assessment is to complete a group presentation and the
second is to create a resource for the school. The weekly reflections aim to help in both
these assignments.
The current practice
Pre existing work was word processed, printed and given to the tutor. Additionally, students have one-to-one tutorials, group seminars and lectures to help them through their
placement. All the work was printed off and submitted summatively at the end of the
semester/year. The existing process had no formative assessment integrated within the
practice and therefore any reflective practice was only discussed if the student attended
the tutorial sessions. The two assignments (presentation and resource) were a combination of word processed documentation and the presentation itself. Students would
discuss their ideas and reflections in one-to-one sessions with their tutors Gavin Ward
and Alison Barbar.
The students found reflection a difficult process to understand and engage in. They
would not, or were reluctant to, express their ideas in group seminars or group tutorials.
Students fell into ‘friendship groups’ and would not engage with their peers outside of
these groups. This meant that group seminars were not as engaging as the tutors had
hoped.
The challenge
The case study aimed to provide a structure in which the students would feel supported
in their reflections, whilst offering enough freedom to not feel restricted. The forms had to
be readily available for the students and once completed they needed to be positioned in
one place allowing access for their tutors to give developmental feedback.

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There was also a strong need for students to communicate and work collaboratively
outside the classroom. Having a space where students can communicate with each
other regarding their assessments or their placement was the ‘gold medal’ the team were
striving for. The main challenge for this was student engagement. Creating these areas of
work had to be backed up with training, enthusiasm and feedback from the staff.
The purpose
A tutor new to the module had identified an issue with the level and value of the students’
reflections in a previous cohort. This issue was apparent from module results, student
evaluation forms and discussions with staff members. These investigations clearly indicated a strong need to support students in their reflective practice.
At the time of revalidation and development of this module, the University had started
on strategic plans and was underway with refocusing of the undergraduate curriculum
with a move to 20 credit modules and the Blended Learning Strategy. With these developments in mind it was a perfect opportunity to explore new methods of learning and
teaching for the module.
The approach
The BLU had worked and developed a variety of different modules using PebblePad in
a variety of different schools. With the knowledge of the system and with Gavin Ward’s
understanding of how he perceived the module working and developing, the BLU and
Gavin Ward planned a series of meetings to develop the material. They started in early
summer allowing them plenty of time for the forms to be tested and altered. The project
team chose the form asset because the BLU and Gavin Ward could easily create a structure scenario for the students to fill in and complete, hoping that this method would give
the students a ‘map’ to find their way through reflective writing and learning theory. The
following is a link to the blank Weekly Placement Form:
http://pebblepad.wlv.ac.uk/PebbleForm/answer.aspx?external=true&formid=1311789
Once the students have completed the forms the team needed a mechanism that would
store them in a linear way and that can be readily available to the student and the tutor.
After discussion in meetings the BLU decided that a blog would be the perfect container
for the submitted forms. The use of blogs has been well documented throughout our institution; they provide a platform where students can submit entries and/or other assets.
This gives the user a complete history of the students’ progression. The blog itself was
published to a gateway allowing the tutors access to the forms that are contained in the
blog. This process takes minimal effort from the students and it is clear for the tutor what
new reflections are in a student’s blog.
There was a need for an introduction to the system and to show them how to use PebblePad. With help from the rest of the Blended Learning team, we had 3 groups with
roughly 30 students in each and delivered a 2-hour session. The training session covered
the basics of using blogs and the forms. The students would submit their blogs to a gateway that had been previously set up. The session allowed the students to create their
first ‘weekly placement form’ and publish it to their blog. This would be backed up with

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constant support and guidance from the module tutors and the BLU team.
Both the BLU and the tutors followed up with a second training session in semester 2
when a second form was introduced to the group. This last form was optional for the students if they wanted to use it. The form was focusing on more detail of their placement,
including information that they could only fill in for the second semester.
The issues
The main issue arising from this module was to ensure that staff and student expectations matched. Students’ expectations at the time were that they were going to receive
additional feedback via their reflections. The demand for feedback was high but the staff
aimed to meet the expectations set.
The result
At this moment the students will be finishing their final assessment. The plan is to revalidate the module for the 2010/11 academic year in the summer. There has been some
success in using forms to make structured reflections. The students have also engaged
in collaboratively discussing their placements via a blog as well as working together in
making their presentation.
The students did ask to receive more feedback, allowing them the ability to reflect more
in their independent blogs regarding their placement. The reflective forms and blogs
were not assessed, but it was recommended that it would vastly help students with their
final assessment. This condition has meant a relatively low uptake with the students.
The questions that have arisen from this module and will be asked at revalidation, are:
•
•
•

Do the reflective forms need to be a core part of the student’s assessment?
Should the reflective forms be assessed?
And if so how do you assess student reflections?

The learning
This module has shown that student assumptions and staff assumptions can be two different things, even though they were aiming for the same results. Any reflective writing or
practice in any form needs to be supported with constant feedback, even more so when
placed online. When students are presented with a choice between online support and
one-to-one support, they will inevitably choose one-to-one. Giving students constant
and sustained feedback means that tutors can focus on the key areas within their oneto-one tutorials or group seminars.
In brief
•
•

Using forms in PebblePad is a great way to structure your students’ learning,
especially if they struggle with reflection.
Collaborative learning helps students develop their reflections and is vital when

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•

students are on placement.
Just like feedback in one-to-one sessions, it is equally, if not more vital to receive
feedback in online reflections.

Resources
Paul Towers, 2010. Weekly placement form [Online] (Updated Unknown)
Available at: http://pebblepad.wlv.ac.uk/PebbleForm/answer.aspx?external=true&formid=1311789
[Accessed March 2010].

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs14.pdf

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15
It’s more than an eportfolio: Using PebblePad for online submission and assessment
Louise Wilson
Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE), Coventry University, UK
The background context
The nature of the institute is one of Higher Education delivering undergraduate and postgraduate education. At the time, the Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE)
had responsibility for educational development and the professional development of
academic staff across the wider university. This new Masters level course was launched
in December 2008 to provide an introduction to new teachers, in particular PhD students
and part-time lecturers, who had not taught in a HE context before. The program was
piloted with two cohorts and formed a module within the PhD framework. The learners consisted of PhD students who were required to complete the module as part of
their studies and new lecturers, teaching part-time, who had joined the institution from
professional practice. None had formal teacher training at HE level and had not used
an eportfolio before as a personal record of achievement or for recording professional
development. The cohorts consisted of a wide demographic to include UK and International learners as well as a mix of adult, mature learners all with various experiences of
educational systems.
The current practice
This course was a new module and it was being piloted as an additional provision to the
current portfolio of academic staff development programmes. The current assessment
practice used paper-based formats where students submitted hard-copies of teaching
portfolios for summative assessment at the end of their programme of study. Learners
were required to submit portfolios containing typical contents such as activities, reflections, materials drawn from practice to provide evidence, peer observations and reflective commentary. Predefined submission dates were given for hand in via the reception
desk during normal opening hours.
The A4 portfolio folders varied in size and content because of the creative nature of the
learners and their interpretation of the instructions and/or learning outcomes. A manual
process existed where administration staff would record and issue a receipt. A group of
assessors were advised to collect the coursework from the administration office and to
use paper-based processes for marking, grading, student feedback and validation. The
assessed submissions were stored for the required time period in archives before being
returned to the learner, taking up storage space.
The underlying problems and risks for this new course surrounded the heavy reliance
upon paper-based systems, processes and formats which did not provide the flexibility
needed by these cohorts or for supporting a blended learning programme where virtual

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team teaching would occur. The issues included the fact that some of the learners were
international research students who may not be in the UK on the submission date and
therefore unable to follow the manual process of physically handing in their portfolio.
The part-time lecturers were not on campus every day either. This could have brought
about an increase in extension or deferral requests and had a negative impact on retention through students not completing the course.
The challenge
The anticipated challenge was to improve the aspects of current practice by moving from
paper-based formats to flexible online submission and assessment. Teaching portfolios
were historically assembled for a variety of purposes with summative assessment being
one of these but technology was not being used. The challenge was to enhance submission, assessment and the development of teaching practitioners by using an eportfolio
that was designed to be capable of integrating formative assessment, summative assessment, self-assessment, engagement in reflective practice and for personal development planning (PDP). The added challenge came from stakeholders who expected the
course to lead to external professional recognition by enabling individual students to
become members of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) at Associate level. This was
a first for CSHE and for me.
I hoped the changes would enhance current practices to provide flexible assessment
methods and submission processes; allow access from anywhere in the world at any
time; provide a clear structure and guidelines for the portfolio content; enable virtual
team teaching, working, and assessment; engage new teachers in the practice of selfassessment and continued professional development (CPD); improve the timescales
for marking and the provision of student feedback; and to enable internal moderators
to validate assessment online and to offer this opportunity to external examiners. Also,
there would be a reduction in the need for storage and classroom space which was at
a premium.
The purpose and approach
The requirement to design a blended learning course and knowing that the students
would consist of UK and International learners (who might not be on campus to submit
their work) meant that it became necessary to consider the impact of this during the
design stages of teaching. Also, there was a reduced availability of new teachers being
able to attend educational programmes that took them away from their research studies or the workplace. The drivers for change arose from stakeholder expectations, the
need to move away from paper-based formats to flexible online systems supportive of
blended learning and the fact that a successful pilot could lead to the module becoming
part of the existing academic staff development portfolio. I had used PebblePad both
as a learner and a reflective practitioner. This enabled me to see the distinct advantages
and possibilities for this eportfolio in providing a solution to the challenges faced and to
create an efficient online submission area that was also capable of recording continuing
professional development/achievement.
The initial approach to solving the issues associated with the traditional methods for

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submission and assessment required me to become more familiar with the PebblePad
eportfolio system. I needed to understand the ways it could be used to program and
implement a more user friendly approach for the learner, the teacher and assessor. This
required me to design an outline for the content structure from my own pre-existing
knowledge of PebblePad. An outline that integrated a learning outcome approach, reflective practice, self-assessment, uploading/generating of evidence to satisfy learning
outcomes, personal development planning and reflective commentary to encourage
deep learning.
It was necessary for me to work with and receive advice from e-learning experts, especially those who had a deeper knowledge and expertise of using PebblePad as well its
capability. I developed a pilot eportfolio for testing and use. The purpose was to use this
as a framework that allowed my thoughts to be shared with others, critiqued, changed
and enhanced by the expertise of e-learning and educational developers within CSHE.
It was essential to work in collaboration with specialists and closely with my peer who
would be assessing the submitted coursework also and who was knowledgeable about
the extended functions available to PebblePad system administrators.
The timeline for development was only three months which was due to the changing
timescales for the launch. Having no previous models to work from the need arose to
innovate and design specifically for this course. Working collaboratively with others, and
using the initial design as a basis, resulted in the creation of an online e-teaching portfolio that morphed into its current format - a non-paper based format that can be used for
online submission, assessment and internal moderation. The tasks included:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Introduction (to self, discipline, hopes and fears)
SWOT Analysis
Personal Development Plan
Initial Microteaching Experience
Reflective Diary (Blog)
Reflection on Sessions and Activities
Task 1 - Design for Teaching and Learning (Learning Outcome)
Task 2 - Design for Assessment (Learning Outcome)
Task 3 - Reflective Account
Self Assessment (Summative Assessment)

This was trialed and tested before launching to cohort 1 and suggestions from end-ofmodule evaluations used to enhance the design for cohort 2. These changes included an
additional area for learners to reflect on their individual growth during the twelve week
course by encouraging double loop learning. In turn, this informed the renewal of an
ongoing professional development plan and encouraged the development of teachers
as professional practitioners.
The issues
The main barriers that I faced related to my own technical ability, that is, my own in-depth
knowledge of PebblePad, its system administration capabilities and its power to deliver
an online resource that could be used successfully in teaching practice, especially for

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online assessment/submission. I was constrained by the predefined launch date and the
need to develop an entire blended learning course within given timescales and costs.
This change would mean moving teacher education and learning away from the traditional methods used in CSHE by replacing paper-based formats with online methods.
This was not a problem because the Teaching Development Fellow Network (TDFN)
was keen to embrace change and to implement best practice for teaching and learning.
Leading the module enabled me to be in control of the design of learning from the module outline to the end-of-course evaluation and to innovate knowing that support was
available to make this happen.
The result
The overriding results from the launch of the programme (Introduction to Teaching in
Higher Education) was the implementation of online submission, assessment and internal moderation using PebblePad. The course returned positive feedback throughout
delivery from various stakeholders having ensured that the potential barriers/issues were
overcome during the design stages. The achievement has produced an e-teaching portfolio specifically assembled to combine different purposes and to demonstrate to other
teaching practitioners how PebblePad can be used to improve the learning experience
for students through online submission and assessment as well as for lecturers, assessors and internal moderators.
It has proven to be a success with the two pilot cohorts completing and an excellent
retention rate. Student feedback was positive and suggestions will be used to enhance
future delivery to another cohort. By using the eportfolio, engaging in reflective practice,
observing the ways in which existing technology can be used in teaching practice these
new teachers are able to go on to share their insights with others. The use of online submission and assessment has been recognised by internal and external stakeholders as
a model for teaching practice for other staff development programmes. Initially, the pilot
involved two assessors working closely together to trial this new way of virtual working
and online marking. The result is that this model is being considered for use across the
other PgCert modules.
The learning
I learned that PebblePad is more than an eportfolio and that in collaboration with others a simple idea can be turned into an effective online system that provides flexibility
to students and lecturers engaged in the assessment process. Spending time upfront,
during design, to develop online assessment returns an efficient system that is virtually
free from paper-based formats.
I have learned also how an e-teaching portfolio can be designed to incorporate many different purposes such as formative assessment, summative assessment, part of a qualification, to provide a structure for learners, to help others to become members of other
institutions, to allow for development through reflective commentary, and as a guide to
help students evidence and cross-reference the achievement of module learning outcomes. Investing time upfront pays off through flexibility and the fact that assessment is

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not allowed to be constrained by traditional working hours which, in itself, is supportive
to blending learning as well as to virtual team working. I intend to learn more about the
system administration of PebblePad and how it can enhance teaching and learning practice for workplace/related learning and education.
In brief
•
•
•
•
•

“Lock Down” – enables students to view the content after submission but not to
change it.
Extended Submission Time – students can submit their work online up to midnight extending their hand-in time beyond the traditional opening hours of an
administration office.
Users’ IT Skills – provide early support to help students learn how to use PebblePad, to become orientated and offer further support later, normally prior to submission.
Train Assessors – especially those not involved in the design to understand the
purpose, structure, content, assessment criteria and processes for quality assurance.
Provide Clear Instructions – regarding self-assessment, submission and assessment expectations by developing an exemplar for students to view. This helps visual learners to understand and provides examples of the different ways in which
evidence can be presented and cross-referenced.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs15.pdf

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16
Let every flower bloom – an organic approach to introducing
PebblePad
Alan White
Institution-wide Implementation, Northumbria University, UK
The background context
We started from the belief that if PebblePad was going to be used to the maximum extent of its flexibility, then people would have to use it the way that they wanted to rather
than have its use imposed. We also realised that in order to achieve this aim, there would
need to be a system in place that would encourage, guide and support people in how
they wanted to use it. Everything that follows in this case-study stems from this initial
position.
The current practice
Northumbria consists of approximately 32,000 students in 9 schools, each of which
maintains a certain level of self-sufficiency and autonomy, although technology for use in
teaching and learning is provided centrally. Northumbria has been a Blackboard institution since 1999 and now has a high level of take-up (admittedly there is a wide variation
in the amount and nature of that take-up). Day to day running of all teaching and learning
technologies is the concern of the LTech team, consisting of academics, learning technologists, helpdesk staff, content creators and programmers. Operational management
includes LTech together with representatives from IT, the student administration team
and the library. Various evaluations of Blackboard suggest that it is liked by students but
seen very much as a teacher controlled environment. Primarily, students like the facility
to access teaching materials. We were also conscious that whilst Blackboard has obvious merit for teachers who prefer behaviourist type approaches, it is a less welcoming
place for those who choose to use constructive and collaborative approaches to learning.
There are some pockets of excellent use of Blackboard discussion boards, wikis and
blogs at Northumbria, but on the whole students dislike the teacher ability to control and
oversee, as well as the necessity for the teacher to set up the function in the first place.
There is evidence of students using Facebook as a learning space, and at one level we
are happy to encourage this (there is an ongoing pilot; it will be interesting to see whether
the formal recognition of Facebook will lead to it being seen as a less attractive place and
as a teacher controlled space). On the other hand, there is recognition of the ephemeral
nature of Facebook and the difficulty of using it to create a historical record of the construction of learning.
Whilst the nature of learning and teaching is important to an institution such as Northumbria, it was also helpful that other drivers came together at the same time, helping
to focus institutional vision towards alternative technological approaches. Northumbria

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has recently participated in the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)
Benchmarking programme, out of which came the imperative to make more effective
use of the VLE and enhance student learning through creative use of new and existing
technologies. We also thought that a product such as PebblePad may have an influence
on a number of other work packages identified in the institutional benchmarking report,
including approval procedures for all online learning, workload, staff development, student stakeholders and widening participation, as well as lifelong and lifewide learning.
In addition, from the National Student Survey came recognition that students wanted
more timely and constructive feedback and feedforward, and the most recent University
Teaching and Learning Strategy underlined an emphasis on e-learning and PDP as well
as collaboration and assessment.
The challenge
The decision was taken to buy 5,000 PebblePad licences, with the option to increase if
the initial pilot was successful. We considered PebblePad to be exciting technology with
huge potential, and assumed a large proportion of students and staff would be equally
interested. Our immediate problem was that we didn’t have the resources to support a
large number of people across the whole range of PebblePad features, and might have
to concentrate on delivering instruction, and on only a limited range of features, which
ran contrary to our belief about what PebblePad should be.
We knew that a bottom-up approach would ensure that PebblePad use was grounded
in what people actually wanted, especially if that approach included both staff and students, and we knew a top-down approach would give the authority needed. We also
felt a two-way approach from the middle would be more likely to mean that there was
continuity and integration across the student career. Our problem was that we were not
really sure how to bring these three strands together in an effective and efficient way.
The approach
It was at this time that we successfully applied to participate in the Enhancement Academy initiative run by the Higher Education Academy (HEA), in which our intention was
to create and develop a system which would structure not only the implementation of
PebblePad but also be used as a basis for the introduction of any major teaching and
learning technology in the future. The initiative brought together 9 institutions to explore
the enhancement of teaching and learning through technology, and whilst each institution developed its own strategy, there was a combined synergy and level of support.
Furthermore, although the use of technology was key to the outcomes, the emphasis
was very much non-technical, with the recognition that whilst long term enhancement
has to be grounded in the achievement of change, it also needs to be seen as a social
process rather than a technological one.
A three day retreat with other teams from the Enhancement Academy was a luxury but
also an intensive and positive experience, not least through the support of expert advisers brought in from the HEA. In brief, the teams were encouraged to consider their environmental position in respect of their proposed enhancement and their strategic relationships with the rest of the university, through the use of rich pictures. This was followed

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by an examination of the implementation process, including analysis of the myths and
traditions of the institution’s culture, a full stakeholder analysis and also a walkthrough
of potential challenges and barriers. Finally, the retreat was rounded off with the creation
ofan evaluation pathway for each project.
Following the event, our identified stakeholders were brought together in a Northumbria
version of the HEA retreat, which involved key teaching and central staff, senior management (particularly Associate Deans and the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Teaching and
Learning) and student representatives as well as the Students’ Union. Two days were
set aside for the event, which also included four outside experts from institutions with
extensive experience of eportfolio work (mostly PebblePad but also including Mahara)
as well as Matthew Wheeler from PebblePad. All of the outside participants presented
an overview of their own experience of portfolio work and also contributed immensely to
the various discussions and groupwork. To a large extent the retreat followed the pattern
established by the HEA; a rich picture of what each school wanted an eportfolio to be,
followed by an opportunity to develop strategies for implementation and enhancement
in the presence of constructive support from other teams.
The issues
As part of the roll-out, each school was invited to identify a champion or champions
who would act as the focal point within the school for the initiative. The background of
the champions varied and included administrators as well as senior and newly qualified
teaching staff. Their role description was left deliberately vague, on the recognition that
each champion was almost by definition a person with a certain amount of enthusiasm
and commitment, who would likely be able to mould the position to fit the context of the
school or department. In this way, the implementation was more likely to be owned by
each school rather than seen as something being imposed on them.
The result
It is still very early in the life of the project, but so far things are progressing more smoothly than we could have hoped. Each champion has been visited regularly by members of
the team, and supported in their choice of approach. No timescale has been imposed on
any of the schools, but most of them have set their own targets and expectations and are
firmly in charge of their own pilots and projects.
To date, some of the projects include:
•
•
•
•
•
•

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Creation of a workbook template based around forms and profiles for a competency based health programme. This is being piloted by student volunteers with a
view to launch programme-wide in September.
Liaison of Careers Service and academic staff to support students in lifelong
learning, with an emphasis on employability.
Student presentation of work using PebblePad as a wiki.
Student submission of previously Blackboard-based eportfolios.
Creation of group webfolios, where each student owns their own pages and can
critique others.
Use of PebblePad in fieldwork.

•
•
•
•

Use of PebblePad for Personal Development Planning.
Use of PebblePad as an induction tool.
Study skills packages designed by the library with an emphasis on recording of
achievement.
Of course, none of the above is particularly innovative, but they are nonetheless pleasing to the planning team. A great deal has been achieved in only a few
months, with a relatively small amount of resource, and appropriately for a tool of
the nature of PebblePad, has been achieved in a collaborative and constructive
way.

In brief
•
•
•
•
•

PebblePad is a flexible tool which can be used in many ways by different people.
If its implementation does not reflect that then there is a possibility that it can
simply become another institutional tool.
Collaboration at all levels of the university is essential.
When people feel in control of a project, success is much more likely.
Investment at the beginning pays dividends.
And – ironically – if you really want flexibility, then you have to have all the right
structures in place.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs16.pdf

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17
Teaching old dogs new tricks: A strategy to promote innovative teaching and leadership using eportfolios
Ian Clarke and Delene Weber
School of Natural and Built Environments, University of South Australia, Australia
The background context
The University of South Australia introduced the STEP 2010 project in 2008, to improve
teaching and learning outcomes through encouraging innovation, and supporting excellent practice in teaching, particularly by incorporating experiential learning opportunities
for all undergraduate programs. Over 4.5 million dollars was made available to support
the development and it was expected that all Schools would share this money. Our
School received funding to develop staff expertise in aspects of experiential learning
as they applied to cross-disciplinary integration, work-based learning, service learning,
teaching technical skills and teaching large classes. A fundamental underpinning of our
approach to experiential learning was Kolb’s Learning cycle (Kolb & Kolb, 2005) which
emphasises the importance of reflection by the learner. We incorporated the need to
understand the value of eportfolios as a way for students to record and reflect on their
learning and incorporated this into our project. Teams of approximately ten staff members were tasked with developing expertise in one of the areas and disseminating that
information to the wider school. The success criterion for the overall project was focused
on how this information was translated to student teaching.
The current practice
In terms of eportfolio use, there was no pre-existing practice within the School. However,
there were a number of staff using reflective writing, generally in the form of reflective
journals. Rather than a problem with the current situation, we looked at eportfolios as an
amazing opportunity where we could do what we wanted to do (eg. critical reflecting) but
in a way that related to students (e.g. blogs), that provided a better scaffolding for what
we wanted (i.e. many needed prompts to focus their writing and avoid a “dear diary” description of events and personalities), acknowledged students desire to use multimedia
approaches (i.e. silly photos from their mobile phones!) and provided lots of “extras” that
we knew would be useful in guiding their learning (e.g. action plans).
We had three main aims when we began the eportfolio project:
1. To educate academics on the value of reflective thinking;
2. to provide staff with confidence and a degree of expertise in the use of PebblePad
so they didn’t feel they were only “one page in front of the students”; and
3. to develop a pedagogically sound and strategic approach to implementing and
integrating PebblePad across the whole degree program.

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The driver for this change was the University mandated Step 2010 project. However,
the true motivator for the project was when we began to see the opportunity eportfolios
could provide to both staff and students.
The approach
As said, the main issues were cultural. People were busy, often satisfied with their teaching approaches and cognizant that there were more rewards in improving research outputs than in improving teaching. We approached the project by working with the willing.
The project began with an awareness program about reflective learning that included
visiting scholars, workshops and seminars. This was designed to create an appreciation
for reflective learning and expose staff to a suite of tools that could assist in improving
this aspect of their teaching (one being PebblePad).
We then developed a specific eportfolio team. We actively encouraged our best teachers
and new young teachers to be part of this team but certainly welcomed and promoted
the “training and education opportunity” to all staff members. To “sweeten the deal” and
acknowledge the time people would need to provide to be engaged in this project we
also offered $1500 that could be spent on professional development related to teaching.
The plan is that these core group of staff now skilled in the use of PebblePad will be
able to provide encouragement and guidance to a larger network of staff who may need
further “proof” of the usefulness of the system to come via a trusted colleague before
they themselves are willing to adopt it. As students become more skilled in the use of
PebblePad, it is anticipated that expectations from students will also drive adoption of
eportfolio in other programs in the future.
Now that we have a base knowledge of the value of eportfolios we are using a whole of
program curriculum planning process to identify the most appropriate courses and assessment pieces where PebblePad could be introduced.
The issues
We had great support politically because the DVC Academic was a strong advocate for
eportfolios. However, this in itself creates some cultural resistance from staff who are
sceptical of top down initiatives. From a technical standpoint, we had satisfactory support. Our teaching and learning team were brilliant and the IT staff tried to keep up with
everyone but were learning a new program themselves and often spending less time with
it than the academics involved. The main IT issue related to the institutional technology
and how it supported PebblePad. In a nutshell, the system operated like a really old version of Word – much too slow for time obsessed staff.
The biggest issue we faced was a cultural one. We have a university environment where
the main focus is research output so many logical academics after weighing their costs
and benefits, were not interested in changing their teaching styles because they knew it
would take time away from their research, which was more rewarded. In addition, some
were simply not interested in changing, and some wanted others to use it first, work out
the problems, and assess the benefits. Developing a culture where quality teaching is

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prized and innovation encouraged is an ongoing challenge despite it being part of the
institutional mandate.
The result
We now have a small core group of academics introducing PebblePad into specific parts
of our degree program from first year. They are skilled in how to use PebblePad and motivated by the value it can bring to both student learning and their own professional development. In addition to teaching, these individuals are using PebblePad for performance
management, developing research plans, and reflective journals of their own teaching.
We have a larger group of academics aware of the concept of eportfolios and a respect
for the place of eportfolios within the degree programs. Importantly, academics from
across the school have grown in their awareness of the value of reflection within the
learning cycle and this has already translated to more thoughtful student assessment
tasks and an increasing sophistication among students in the way they reflect on issues.
The learning
We learned that despite Universities upholding an image of “change agents” and “dynamic thinkers” who are committed to challenging students to “think beyond the box”,
many academics are reluctant to change the way they have been teaching for decades.
However, and not surprisingly, we also discovered that they were much more receptive to
change once they understood PebblePad was not just another University initiative they
were being mandated to adopt, but rather one of a range of pedagogically driven tools
that they could consider to help student learning outcomes.
In terms of the approach we took, in hindsight, we would have planned our introduction
slightly differently. Firstly, the slowness of how the system operated was related to our
University server but introducing the program to staff before this problem was rectified
gave some staff an excuse to dismiss the usefulness of the program before they actually
trialled it. Secondly and more importantly, we made an erroneous assumption at the beginning of the project concerning the knowledge staff had in terms of teaching practice
(and perhaps even interest in teaching). We should have committed more time to making
staff aware of the value of critical thinking and the role of reflection in the learning cycle.
This underpins the values of PebblePad.
A third “lesson” was to ensure those training your staff have adequate experience and
training themselves before they embark on training others. Although this sounds common sense, tight time frames and being involved in multiple projects meant our school
trainers were still grappling with various functions and the overall potential of PebblePad
when they began training. This situation of novice teaching novice was exactly what we
deliberately try to avoid with students. While it had some advantages and most people
were sympathetic, this resulted at times in the early adopters being dumbfounded by a
negative criticism of the program that given another month of training they would have
been able to justify succinctly and politely explain that the criticism was not so much a
problem with the program as a lack of understanding of the optimal way to use an eportfolio (e.g. there were constant comparisons of what various Microsoft products could do

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better, which were often conversations that missed the point in terms of the purpose of
an eportfolio). The lack of ability to quickly respond to criticisms also seemed to provide
a suitable excuse for some staff to avoid trialling the system.
Finally, we should have realised the power of cold hard cash and not tied it up to a time
frame or specific expenditures. We gave staff $1500 for participating in the project but
said it had to be spent within the financial year on an expense related to professional development in teaching. We may have got better staff uptake had we said instead, it could
be spent on marking, conference attendance, a research assistant, anything related to
your work, as long as you attend the training courses and develop at least one piece of
your course that uses PebblePad.
In brief
•
•
•
•

Introducing any eportfolio system needs to begin with a staff who appreciates
the need for reflective learning so use pedagogical research rather than policy to
drive the introduction of an eportfolio.
Staff introducing a specific eportfolio system, such as PebblePad, will be more
successful if they already have experience and some level of sophistication in
using the software.
Focusing on leaders within your school and early adopters is a useful way to
introduce eportfolios.
The benefits of eportfolios need to be demonstrated to the staff member, not just
the students. Providing a financial incentive to entice people to “experiment” is a
worthwhile bribe.

References
Kolb, A. and D. A. Kolb, 2005. Learning styles and learning spaces: Enhancing experiential learning
in higher education. Academy of Management Learning and Education 4(2), pp193-212.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs17.pdf

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18
Introducing PebblePad: Eight stories from tutors.
Robert Chmielewski
Eight different case studies, University of Edinburgh, UK
The background context
The University of Edinburgh is an old and large institution with over 22,000 students.
It has 22 Schools and offers over 600 first degree programmes.
As part of a pilot study, 14 course organisers decided to use the eportfolio package
PebblePad during the 2008/2009 academic year. The course sizes and study subjects
varied from over 200 students (Career Development Planning, Business Studies) to 12
students (MSc International Animal Health). Different aspects of PebblePad’s functionality appealed to the different course organisers for different reasons and purposes.
At the end of that academic year the course organisers who decided to use PebblePad
were asked to summarise their experiences with this new system (new to them and their
students). Therefore, instead of focusing on just one case, this document will include 8
stories of PebblePad implementations. Each story is different, each case was different
and each time students produced different types of assets.
1. MSc Management Research & Development and Lean Business MBA
(Dr Tony Kinder) [80 accounts]
“80 of my students (MBA and MSc) have used PebblePad during this year; all for formally
assessed work. They were submitting subject related presentations as webfolios. The
webfolios contained blogs, pictures, subpages and even built-in YouTube videos.
The overwhelming reaction from students is positive. Pedagogically, the students prefer
a modality that allows them to express themselves, indeed, if there is a danger it is that
students enjoy PebblePad so much that they spend more time on these assessments
than the credits (often 35 credits) warrant.
Two groups particularly benefitted. Firstly, MBAs are able to include detailed examples
and references to experience using PebblePad that are more difficult to capture in normal essays or reports. Secondly, students using English as a foreign language (the majority of Business School students) are able to overcome limitations in expression using
multimedia. Some of the best assignments I have ever experienced have been in
PebblePad format. We recommend and will continue its use. Already, other lecturers in
the School are adopting it.”

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2. Career Development Planning, Business Studies
(Dr Wendy Loretto, Ruth Saville) [214 accounts]
“PebblePad was used as part of a professional development course, led by the Careers
Office, but embedded within the year 2 Business Studies course. Students had to create
a CV and a personal action plan.
Here is a selection of student responses:
“…for second and third years it should be given like at the beginning of
the course. They should have an introduction to PebblePad along with the
introduction to the course.”
“When we had shared with friends, other students about the PebblePad
based course - our friends had envied us, wishing they too had something like that, which is to do with real life and what to do when you
finish school.”
“It’s a good way to get all your ideas together”
“It’s actually not as popular now, but I think it will get more and more popular with time”
Most of the students responding said they would use PebblePad again. Over 85% said
they would use it for creating an action plan and/or a CV.”
3. Certificate in Advanced Veterinary Practice and MSc in Equine Science
(Sharon Boyd) [52 accounts]
“Qualified vets wishing to be assessed for the CertAVP are required to provide effective
evidence of their personal experience as a practising veterinary surgeon. The majority
require reflection through a learning diary and cases in a specific format. PebblePad also
allows the participants to store their CV and any additional file evidence.
We use PebblePad to assist with activities for the new online MSc in Equine Science. Our
first activity involves the students recording, through video and/or photos, various feed
types that they use in their professional work with horses. These will be accompanied
by explanatory texts.
So far, everyone has received the system very favourably. There is so much that can
be done in PebblePad. Support is fantastic, which always helps! I can see our use increasing as we become more familiar with the product.”
4. MSc International Animal Health
(Dr Kim Picozzi) [12 accounts]
“Each third year student on the International Animal Health online MSc programme has
been given login details for a PebblePad account. Once their supervisory support has

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been confirmed we suggest that they provide these named individuals with access to
PebblePad in order to enhance the collaboration between them and their supervisors.
We recommend that they use the blog tool to record their thoughts and progress and
encourage their supervisors to support them via this approach.
It seems to have produced quite a marmite response from both the students and
supporting academics. Some have been very happy and have used it with regularity
throughout the year while others have found access to be very difficult and quickly gave
up, preferring to use email. As many of our students are based in developing countries
I had thought that connectivity might be an issue, but surprisingly this has not been the
case.”
5. MSc Advanced Nursing Practice
(Dr Anne Robertson) [19 accounts]
“PebblePad was used here as a tool to enable us to operationalise our philosophy of
education. It helped support the development of professional and personal growth of our
students. Students used the system to share their work experiences. Moreover, PebblePad allowed them to define their own needs, and to work at their own pace. The system
has allowed us to put all of the above in one place – that’s a big advantage.
Things that our students particularly like are the interface, the blogging tool (also used
for communication) and the built-in word processor. When using the system, students
showed lots of their own initiative. However, some learners with different learning styles
found this way of presenting assets (as a website) more difficult. Those particular students were advised to create their portfolio structures on paper and then move them to
the digital domain.
The potential of the tool is bigger than just a Personal Development Planning tool. It
would not have been possible to run the programme without it.”
6. MSc Community Education
(Dr John Bamber) [28 accounts]
“Students used the PebblePad system as part of their MSc Community Education
coursework. The tutor created online forms within PebblePad, which were grouped according to subjects and published in separate ‘gateways’. Gateways act as the channel between the individual account owner and the institution or institutional space.
Students off campus were asked to copy and fill in the forms and then return them back
to the tutor through the gateways for comment and assessment. The use of the facility
has been very impressive. The students returned over 160 assets to gateways where
interaction between them and the tutor resulted in an exchange of over 30 comments.
Apart from the use of gateways, various PebblePad assets were shared privately between the users in the group on more than 40 occasions.”

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7. MSc Management of Training & Development
(Dr Rory Ewins) [46 accounts]
“We used PebblePad as an optional way for students to keep a personal development
portfolio (alternatively, they could maintain and submit a paper portfolio). We had a onehour session introducing them to the tool and the concept of a PDP, and let them loose.
I asked them to get back to me if they had any technical problems, but very few did.
We experienced some problems around submission time, when they were unsure how to
share their PebblePad items, and with whom.
We have to clarify with students how best to use the tool. Most students created separate portfolio items for what were essentially a series of separate posts better suited to a
blog format; only one actually used the PebblePad blog tool.”
8. MSc E-Learning
(Jen Ross) [28 accounts]
“Students on the core course for the MSc in e-learning, “An Introduction to Digital Environments for Learning”, spend two weeks reading about, exploring, and discussing
eportfolios. Each eportfolio block starts with students exploring a set of exemplar eportfolios from around the web, getting access to their own eportfolio space, and completing core readings. This year their eportfolio space was provided within PebblePad, and
the response to it was generally positive (this has not always been the case in previous
years). Here are some specific comments about PebblePad:”
“I really like PebblePad, especially how user friendly it is”
“The PebblePad is the only one I have seen and that clearly isn’t very flexible as you can’t create your own forms (although it is lovely anyway!)”
(Tutor’s note: Actually you can create your own forms!)
“I tried PebblePad. Didn’t really like it. Posted a moan about all the endless
form filling. Then... it struck me that PebblePad’s forms were the scaffolding you were talking about.” (in response to another student’s posting
about how to support reflection)
Conclusions
There are two main things which should be learnt from the PebblePad pilots:
•

It is necessary for course organisers to know beforehand what they want to
achieve through PebblePad.

Key amongst the lessons learned was the importance of knowing beforehand what is to
be achieved through the use of the eportfolio. Regardless of how attractive PebblePad
may look or sound – it is just a collection of tools. As with everything, specific tools are
suited to specific tasks.

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Therefore, if a course does not contain tasks that can realistically be completed with
PebblePad then PebblePad should not be introduced.
•

Students need to realise and visualise what PebblePad is (and what it is not) and
how to use it.

In most of the cases, students took part in introductory sessions where PebblePad and
its selected tools (relevant to the course) were discussed and explained.
PebblePad was not presented to students as an eportfolio system. 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 social networking tools to share personal information,
and they are comfortable with online collaborative behaviours. Users of social websites
also learn how to prioritise when publishing new information about themselves. This can
help when creating assets in PebblePad which sometimes relies on the process of online
self-reinvention.
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. That is where the PebblePad system comes in.
Future plans
The majority of the tutors that participated in the pilot are already eager to use the system in future years. During the first year, students were mainly using the built-in PebblePad tools. PebblePad’s suite of built in tools is extensive, and initially may appear too
generic. However, almost all the tools can be tailored to local contexts, and training and
support will be available to allow users to realise their vision. Amongst the customisable
tools that are being deployed are Profiles and Forms.
With more and more PebblePad forms and profiles being offered to students, eportfolio
tasks may become too complicated. Therefore, new solutions (including training sessions and ‘taster’ sessions about gateways for tutors throughout 2010/11) are being
developed to make the submission process quicker and more efficient. Another feature
likely to be of particular interest to simplify the process is the webfolio. Tutors have also
started creating blank webfolios consisting of a collection of empty forms/profiles, blogs
and action plans. These are then shared or published for students to download from a
gateway, populate and resubmit to the gateway.
In 2009, PebblePad was used during the first year mainly to support students’ learning
activities. From the 2010/11 the usage will expand as the system will also be deployed
to support staff development initiatives - initially on a pilot basis within Information Services (skills framework; managers’ development programme and annual development
reviews).
The overall feeling about the system around the University is very encouraging. The number of people who want to utilise it is advancing rapidly.

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We hope that by 2012, the PebblePad system will become as familiar and recognisable
amongst our community as the current VLE.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs18.pdf

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19
Assessment of and for learning in Primary PGCE ICT Initial
Teacher Training at the University of Worcester.
Moira Savage
Institute of Education, University of Worcester, UK
The background context
In 2007 Primary ICT re-evaluated the existing paper-based ICT portfolio trainees completed to demonstrate their ICT capability in relation to the Qualified Teacher Status
(QTS) standards. The traditional paper-based model had evolved into a ‘scrap book’
type portfolio and stakeholders questioned the value of collating such an extensive array
of materials in relation to purpose, merit, authenticity and quality. Also, assessment had
been purely end of training summative assessment by tutors and lacked any substantial
formative component. This process coincided with the University purchasing PebblePad
and the option of a manageable eportfolio system becoming available.
When considering whether to revise the existing paper-based portfolio or change format, the nature of the evidence and activities trainees were engaged in highlighted that
a digital portfolio (webfolio) had particular affordances. In particular, enabling trainees
to digitally ‘showcase’ their ICT capabilities rather than just writing about them. There
was also the desire to create a tool which scaffolded trainees engaging in the ‘reflection
on practice’ process. Similarly, I perceived merit in facilitating emerging professionals in
peer learning and review activities. My assertion being that we could take advantage of
web-based hosting functionality (gateways) to share and collaborate more effectively.
In designing the eportfolio structure I felt it was imperative to bring together and embed university reflective tasks, collaborative projects, school-based activities with young
learners and self and peer-review, all within the umbrella of the QTS standards. The
eportfolio involved presenting a series of individual and collaborative case studies; accompanied by a narrative commentary detailing how their professional understanding of
information and communication technologies, as tools for learning in the primary classroom, had evolved.
In January 2008 a pilot primary ICT eportfolio began with 20 postgraduate trainees undertaking a compulsory ICT module as part of their PGCE. This has now been rolled out
across UG and PG ICT training.
•
•
•

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Pilot approximately 20 Postgraduate Flexible PGCE students 2007
Phase 1: 120 Primary PGCE students 2008
Phase 2: 120 Primary PGCE students 2009; 20 Postgraduate Flexible PGCE students 2009; 130 Undergraduate BA Hons with QTS students 2009 (Blogging tool
only in year 1).

The challenge
Summary of aims for the ICT eportfolio project:
•
•
•
•
•

To enable trainees to include digital artefacts including text, graphics, video and
audio.
To develop trainee’s ICT capabilities as a by-product of constructing the eportfolio.
To emphasise ‘quality’ rather than ‘quantity’ of evidence by requesting that trainees present two authentic case studies; strengthening the link between university-based and school-based training.
To introduce a more complete ‘reflective cycle’ to assist trainees in relating their
reflections to future professional action.
To increase the level of formative feedback students received by building in a
range of self- and peer-assessment opportunities via the gateway feature, in addition to tutor feedback.

The approach
The eportfolio template has evolved over the last 3 years. The current version can be
viewed at http://pebblepad.worc.ac.uk/webfolio.aspx?webfolioid=40766. The template
is shared as a gateway resource so that it can be copied and personalised by trainees.
The template strives to balance the tensions between being a tool for authentic assessment of professional training and a learning tool. Feedback from trainees and tutors
suggests this balance is important. Our external examiner 2009 commented, “The electronic portfolio framework provided sufficient structure without negating the freedom for
students to construct their own personalised responses”.
A brief introduction to PebblePad has become part of induction to ensure trainees are
well supported from the outset. Further, instructional screencasts of each step have
been created and are hosted on the Virtual Learning Platform to support trainees in
building their ICT eportfolios. A range of audio and visual portable data capture devices
were available for loan to trainees to capture data and use with children whilst on school
placement (funded from 2007 TDA eportfolio research bid).
The issues
Child protection and safeguarding issues were a concern initially as video, photographs
and audio needed to be hosted by external sites; for example, Flickr and YouTube. A
significant problem was that trainees were unlikely to receive school and parental consent; thereby limiting the affordance of being able to include these digital assets. In the
early cycles this was overcome by using an in-house media streaming service which had
high secure default settings. We are currently trialling using the PebbleTray to host audio
and video, keeping everything within PebblePad and only accessible via ‘login’ to tutor
controlled gateways where all members are CRB cleared. We also have in place detailed
safeguarding protocols for all trainees to ensure privacy and confidentiality of contents.

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The result
In comparison to a paper-based model, being able to comprehensively assemble digital
case studies for web-based publishing allows a holistic portrayal of multi-dimensional
(textual, visual and aural) picture of the primary classroom. I feel it has led to a more
compelling connection between a primary aged child’s ICT learning, the practitioner and
fellow professionals, including the assessor.
From a trainer perspective, the opportunity to have media rich content, dynamically hyperlinked with narrative and reflective commentary has brought a greater clarity of insight
and understanding into emerging professional’s practice and in turn, informed my teaching. Fortunately our external examiner agreed,
“ICT’s use of an electronic portfolio was particularly impressive. Use of
multimedia data collection of children’s learning in school not only provided examples of the impact of the students’ teaching, but also exemplified how the students’ own use of ICT software had developed…” (PGCE
External Examiner 2008-2009).
From an anecdotal perspective, I have felt that the often cited developmental processes
ascribed to portfolio assessment; selection, collation, rationalization, evaluation and revision of artefacts, is carried across with an eportfolio. Assessing reflection is a controversial topic but something trainers are required to do by the TDA; the eportfolio reflective
commentaries have provided the trainers with useful insights into evolving ICT professional pedagogy as the project has a chronological structure. Twenty of thirty-one trainees (64.5%) from the 2008 cohort agreed that, ‘writing the reflective commentaries for
each case study helped them deconstruct and unpick their pedagogical beliefs about
using ICT to enhance learning’. Perhaps underlining the fact that the ‘power’, or learning
potential, lies in the task hosted by the technology and not just the latter.
In the words of a trainee,
“The eportfolio has been a new learning experience for me. It has provided
a useful, cohesive process to facilitate self-reflection and professional development” (2008).
A significant affordance of web-based eportfolios has been the ease of access and
asynchronicity for tutors and trainees alike. This enabled a more flexible approach to
peer-to-peer sharing, discussion and feedback than had been possible with existing
temporal and spatial limitations. Feedback from 55 PGCE trainees (2009 cohort) to an
online evaluation questionnaire provided some surprising insights; for example, 96.4%
of trainees felt that completing the peer review asynchronously via the PebblePad gateway had allowed them to ‘think through their comments more fully’ (40% strongly agreed
and 56.4% agreed). 54% agreed that they were ‘more honest giving peer feedback online than face to face.’
One possible explanation lies in that 76.4% of the group agreed that by ‘carrying out the
peer review activity online a useful emotional distance was created where they didn’t
have to monitor the reactions of the person and possibly modify what they said’.

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Also, 96.4% agreed that carrying out the activity this way meant the ‘evidence’ had to
stand on its own merit.
Beyond the scope of the directed peer review activity many trainees mentioned that the
gateway allowed them to ‘check how their work compared to others’ reducing anxiety
but also, hopefully cross fertilizing ideas.
2009 cohort responses when asked:

“Reviewing some one else’s work made me think about my own from a
more objective position” (2009 trainee).
The gateway feature extends the opportunity for these processes beyond what is possible in the classroom alone.
Nudging reluctant trainees to engage with new technologies to complete the eportfolio
has been a useful strategy from a trainer viewpoint. Likewise, the ICT pioneers have been
able to showcase their capability more effectively. For example, 31 trainees (2008 cohort)
were asked whether completing the two eportfolio ICT case studies on school placement
had encouraged them to be experimental in their use of technologies, either in what they
use or how they used it. Only 1 trainee stated they ‘only used technologies they were
already familiar with’. The remaining 30 trainees stated that they had tried one or more
new things; 64.5% ‘I tried 1 or 2 new things’ and 32.3% ‘I tried lots of new things’.
From an academic perspective it has provided a rich insight into primary learning technology trends across partnership schools and led to some interesting exploration of
emergent themes about the nature of trainee teachers’ thinking on this topic.
The learning
Overall, the eportfolio approach was popular with trainees and tutors. However, beyond
the technological affordances, for example, in facilitating peer evaluation, the primary
benefits are derived from the nature of the activities trainees are required to undertake
with ICT in the primary classroom for the assessment.
One aspect that seems to have worked particularly well was the capacity to carry out

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peer reviews of case study 1 via the shared gateway. This enabled everyone to receive
early formative feedback and simultaneously view and consider the work of others.
In a trainee’s own words:
“PebblePad has helped me to reflect effectively upon my successes with
ICT and has also helped me to identify areas for improvement in my practice. I did find it difficult to use at first and so was saving everything onto
my memory stick as I went along rather than putting it straight onto PebblePad. I then use copy and paste to add the commentaries to PebblePad.
However, looking back now I should have become more familiar with how
to use PebblePad before Christmas as now I am used to it I find it very
manageable, easy to use and a really helpful resource” (2008).
In brief
•
•
•

Sound pedagogy is as important as the technological tools available - probably
more so.
Keep it simple - initially I had webfolios embedded within webfolios…= too confusing!
Carefully embed within assessment and module/curriculum - it has to be ‘worth’
the effort from a learner and tutor perspective.

Resources
Moira Savage, 2009. Moira’s Primary ICT eportfolio 2009 [Online] (Updated 28 September 2009)
Available at: http://pebblepad.worc.ac.uk/viewasset.aspx?oid=40766. [Accessed 03/2010].

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs19.pdf

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20
Using electronic portfolios to demonstrate achievement of
professional standards in Initial Teacher Training (ITT): Effective and efficient?
Helen Bird
School of Childhood and Education, University College Birmingham, UK
The background context
In September 2004 the School of Education launched the PGCE Early Years Initial Teacher Training programme for 30 trainees. In order for trainee teachers to gain Qualified
Teacher Status (QTS) they have to produce a portfolio of evidence to demonstrate their
competence against a wide range of ‘Q’ standards (TDA, 2007).
In the initial two years of the programme trainees presented their evidence using a paper
based portfolio. Following discussions with staff and a questionnaire completed by the
students which showed dissatisfaction with this method, the possibility of using electronic ‘e’ portfolios was explored. Whilst many trainees will never enjoy gathering and
presenting evidence for achievement of standards, it was obvious that using paper based
portfolios was not particularly efficient or effective. The paper based portfolios were very
cumbersome to carry into college and schools every day and there was a lot of duplication of paperwork as the trainees also had files for teaching practices and job interviews.
Tutors also found the paper based portfolios cumbersome to take in and assess.
The challenge
There has been much research over the last five years into the benefits of eportfolios.
According to Murray et al. (2006) they ‘promote reflective learning and practice’, a key
skill for trainee teachers. They are also more likely to be valued as they promote ownership and personalisation. Transition and progression within learning is supported, with
trainees able to view distance travelled and plan future aims and objectives whilst keeping important documents safe and secure.
It was hoped that eportfolios would make the logistical difficulties of having to have a
portfolio which was accessible to many different people much easier, also that eportfolios would help trainees to be more reflective as they would have a wealth of tools within
PebblePad to assist them. This would then help the trainees to appreciate the value of
this reflective learning and encourage them to use their ITT portfolio as a working document towards future Continued Professional Development (CPD).
In a questionnaire completed by the 2005/6 trainees, 88% had a negative opinion of
the paper based portfolios and only 24% of trainees thought that they would use their
paper based portfolio as part of their Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) year and beyond.
Obviously this was a serious concern as it was not conducive to encouraging a reflective
approach to learning.
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As 92% of trainees said that they would prefer an eportfolio it was decided to pilot eportfolios from September 2006.
A lot of tutor time was wasted chasing up trainees who were not keeping their portfolios
up to date. There was also a problem with trainees not making their portfolios accessible to tutors on agreed dates – this was something that was commented on during an
Ofsted inspection.
The approach
ePortfolios were trialed during the 2006/7 academic year with much success. Trainees
attended a two day Summer School in May prior to the start of the course in September.
During these two days the trainees were introduced to the college Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and PebblePad. It is essential that trainees become competent users of
these as Priority 2 of the E-Strategy is to ‘ensure integrated online personal support for
learners’ (DfES, 2003). The E-Strategy also recommended that every school and college
provides a personalised learning space for every learner that can encompass a personal
portfolio by 2007/8. Clearly, many schools have not achieved this. It is our hope that the
trainees will be able to offer support in this area to schools when they begin their teaching career as they will be competent users themselves. During the Summer School the
trainees became familiar with PebblePad and were asked to produce a CV and some
reflections on their learning over the Summer. This meant that they came to Induction
with some knowledge of using PebblePad.
The trainees followed a two week Induction programme at the beginning of September.
This is designed to prepare them for the course ahead as well as encouraging a supportive atmosphere. The importance of trainees having access to a laptop with internet
connection, as highlighted in the Summative Evaluation of TDA’s E-learning Communities ITT Programme (Foster et al., 2006), is recognised by the College and these were
issued as required. Trainees also received a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) along with
appropriate training. We found that this equal access to appropriate technology was vital
to the success of eportfolios on our course.
The trainees were presented with a webfolio template of the Standards that they needed
to achieve. This included a page for each of the standards plus additional pages for
targets and feedback, review points and guidance. They then personalised their own
template and shared it on the Gateway. This meant that the portfolios were accessible
to others easily.
Trainees then began adding reflective statements to show achievement of the standards,
linking to evidence as appropriate.
Tutors were able to make comments on an ad hoc basis and also provide formative
feedback at key dates throughout the year. This feedback then fed into a final summative
assessment at the end of the programme to decide whether each trainee had met the
Standards.

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Difficulties were highlighted through practice, questionnaires, and discussions with staff,
trainees and external bodies. These difficulties were addressed the following year and
further improvements made.
The issues
There were some ongoing technical issues due to the size of some of the portfolios.
However, as a result of developing a good relationship with the eportfolio provider, this
was rectified. It is also essential that trainees have access to scanners so that they can
scan and upload important documents into their eportfolio. About half of trainees have
access to scanners at home. There is also extensive access to high specification scanners in college which makes the process of uploading paper documents much less time
consuming.
Initially there was some reluctance from tutors, particularly those who felt that they
lacked adequate ICT skills. However, after a few staff training sessions over the summer
the majority of tutors could see that the use of eportfolios would lessen their workload
and make access to portfolios much easier.
After a few initial difficulties when tutors mistakenly used ‘comments’ instead of ‘feedback’ they are all now using the system with no problems at all. No member of staff
would like to revert back to paper based portfolios.
The result
At the end of the second year of running an eportfolio system 84% of trainees found the
eportfolio easy to use and 94% thought that they would use it as part of their NQT year
and beyond as part of CPD – a huge improvement on the paper based system. These
percentages improve each year as we make small refinements.
A grant from the TDA was used to purchase PDAs for all of the trainee teachers during
the 2007/8 academic year to be used alongside the eportfolios. This further improved the
reflective process of gaining QTS. PDAs assist trainees with organisation, an important
skill to master if they are to be successful on a PGCE course. The PDA also acts as a
digital camera and electronic file storage device, allowing the trainees to gather data as
evidence towards achievement of the ‘Q’ Standards. Additionally, the PDA allows the
trainee to access their eportfolio from any location. Many of the trainees also use their
PDA with children in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning, a strategy fully
supported by BECTA in the paper Handheld Computers (PDAs) in Schools (Perry 2004).
Another new practice recently implemented was the use of eportfolios to enhance the
job application process, a practice that has been highly praised by many local headteachers. Trainees create their own mini portfolio, showcasing their key achievements,
make it available online and share the link with the headteacher in their job application.
During a recent visit from Ofsted our use of eportfolios was described as ‘innovative’
and ‘cutting edge’, leading to a judgment of a Grade 1 Outstanding Provider of ITT. The
research will be developed this year to explore the future advancement of eportfolios,

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including the use of mobile phones and netbooks.
Although our electronic portfolio is used to show achievement of the ‘Q’ standards from
the England professional standards for teachers (QTS), it would be valuable for any providers who require their students to produce a portfolio of evidence.
In brief
•
•
•

Successfully managing the change from paper based evidence portfolios to eportfolios.
Presenting this change to trainees, colleagues and outside agencies e.g. OfSTED.
Continually developing eportfolios in order to utilise current technologies.

References
DfES, 2003 Excellence and Enjoyment. London: DfES.
Foster, P. & Parsons, D., 2006 Summative Evaluation of TDA’s E-learning Communities ITT Programme: A Report for the Training and Development Agency for Schools. Sussex : HOST.
Murray, C., Pellow, A., Hennessy, S., Currant, N. & Higgison, C., 2006 User Perspectives on the
Pedagogical Differences Between Electronic and Paper Portfolios. London : Networked Learning.
Perry, D. 2004 Handheld Computers (PDAs) in Schools. London: Becta.
TDA. 2007 Professional Standards for Teachers: Qualified Teacher Status. London: TDA.

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www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs20.pdf

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21
ePortfolios for developing trainee teachers’ professional
learning though reflection
Geraldine Jones
Department of Education, University of Bath, UK
The background context
The Department of Education provides high quality Teacher Education (ITE) programmes
in secondary English, Mathematics, ICT, Physical Education, History, Modern Foreign
Languages and Science as well as Middle Years Science and English. The fundamental
purpose of ITE is to help students (trainees) develop the skills of critical reflective practitioners. Central to the training is the Professional Development Portfolio (PDP) which
supports the development of trainees’ progress in relation to the Standards set by the
Teacher Development Agency (TDA) for the award of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS).
The PGCE is a 10 month programme which caters for approximately 160 students. It
is an intensive experience and trainees are often challenged by the need to shape new
professional identities as they move between school placements and University study.
Typically there is little time to meet all assessment and monitoring requirements which
adds pressure to tutors, trainees and their work based mentors.
The Department of Education trialled the implementation of eportfolios using the PebblePad platform in 2008/09 with 80 trainees and five tutors from three subjects within the
PGCE programme. In the current year most subjects have opted to use eportfolios with
their trainees and an additional platform has been added with the ICT group choosing to
use a Web 2.0 approach.
The current practice
Previous practice required that trainees compile and present a paper based PDP of evidence of their professional practice for summative assessment. This process was supported and assessed by mentors (school based) and tutors (university based). Critical
reflection was and is an essential part of the process. When in school reflective conversations are stimulated by mentors’ observations of trainees’ teaching. These contribute
to fortnightly action planning discussions, where trainees are encouraged to review their
progress and set priorities for development based on recent performance. When studying at the University trainees are set reflective tasks that encourage them to make connections between theoretical aspects of the course and their professional practice.
Compiling a paper based PDP presented administrative and pedagogic problems for
both trainees and their tutors including:
•

collecting and keeping track of paper based evidence (trainees)

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•
•
•
•
•

the difficulty of identifying and selecting appropriate best practice evidence from
multiple sources of evidence; trainees tended to file large quantities of evidence
‘just in case’ (trainees)
text and paper constrains the type of sources that can be used for evidence
(trainees)
physically accommodating large numbers of substantial folders of paper (tutors)
focussing on the product (presentation of evidence) rather than the process (of
meaning making through review of the evidence) (tutors & trainees)
access to work in progress for monitoring and giving feedback (tutors & mentors)

The paper portfolios produced by trainees tended to appear as a collection of evidence
rather than as a narrative of development exemplified through evidence. The stimulus
for trainees’ critical reflection largely came from their tutors and mentors, with paper pro
forma as the basis for their audit trail. Taking ownership of the process was hard for some
trainees and some found it difficult to make connections with experiences in school and
at the University.
The challenge
We were particularly interested in exploring whether and how eportfolio tools and principles can:
•
•
•
•
•
•

encourage trainees’ orientation towards assessment for learning specifically
through taking a greater responsibility and ownership for their learning
balance the ‘conflicting’ requirements of learning through reflection and meeting
TDA Standards
encourage trainee reflective learning, critical thinking and creativity
encourage trainees to identify and select best practice evidence to demonstrate
progress in respect of Standards
further facilitate a reflective community of learners (peers and tutors)
demonstrate and experience the use of an e-learning tool and understand its
potential for use in schools with students.

Primarily this project was motivated by a desire to improve our ITE provision by researching eportfolio tools and principles appropriate for enhancing trainee teachers’ professional learning during their PGCE and beyond. We were particularly interested in encouraging a movement away from a ‘tick box’ approach to meeting the QTS and stimulating
a more reflective engagement with professional experience.
The approach
This research adopted a participatory approach to the development of a set of practical eportfolio based tools and guidelines for supporting the development of the trainee
teachers’ professional learning during ITE. A key feature of our methodology was regular
‘show and tell’ events for trainees where they presented and discussed their individual
approaches to the eportfolio work.

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Phase 1:
The project began in July 08 with an initial design workshop comprising representatives
from all stakeholder groups (trainees, University tutors, newly qualified teachers (NQTs)
who undertook ITE at Bath) who scoped and specified a tool set which was later developed by 2 tutors. The tool set comprised:
•
•
•
•
•

a structured webfolio designed to develop a narrative around evidence for each
of the TDA standards (mandatory)
individual blogs for personal unstructured reflection (optional)
group blogs for reflection on University teaching sessions (optional)
a structured webfolio for collecting reflective responses to set tasks (mandatory)
the activity wizard for short structured reflections (guided but optional)

Tutors were supported in developing their eportfolio skills through informal on demand
workshops prior to trainees’ arrival on the programme in September 08. These tools
were evaluated by a small group (12) of volunteer participant/researchers (trainees) and
their tutors over the course of their PGCE programme ending in June 09. ‘Drop-in’ support sessions for trainees were provided to support skills development with the technology. All trainees (80) involved in the project were surveyed prior to their eportfolio experience and then again at the end of their PGCE. All tutors (5) involved produced a reflective
report outlining their perceived benefits and challenges. As a result of these evaluations
the tool set was refined and adapted to suit individual tutor’s requirements. The structured webfolios remained a central component of the eportfolio but direct tutor support
of blogging activity was reduced. Forms were added to gather structured reflections and
support action planning. These mirrored the paper based equivalents.
Phase 2:
Trainees and tutors from three new subject areas joined the project and we narrowed
our focus towards eportfolio tools and principles for enabling trainee reflection. The ICT
group brought a new approach with their choice of Web 2.0 tools where each trainee set
up their own blog and wiki connecting to each other via RSS feeds. A similar approach to
the evaluation was taken (including both tutor and trainee perspectives) and featured our
previously successful ‘show and tell’ events followed up with a focus group discussion.
Phase two is due to conclude in Jun 2010 but there are plans to extend the project in
2011 with a focus on trainee transition to professional practice in the induction year.
The issues
During Phase 1 it was difficult to focus tutors’ and trainees’ attention on the processes
enabled by the technology rather than the technology itself. There was much talk about
how easy or not PebblePad was to use or access. Problems cited by participants included mainly technological problems (e.g. browsers, connectivity, loosing data). Some
of this might have been underpinned by levels of ICT literacy and/or tutor experience and
confidence with trouble shooting trainee difficulties. There were also some issues associated with school contexts e.g. firewalls blocking access and ‘paper based’ cultures.

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Time was also a constraining parameter both for tutors and trainees. Tutors typically had
no extra time in their contracts for developments such as this. We had to purposefully
fund extra time from our project budget. In a timetable already full with essential teaching
sessions there was little time to add eportfolio induction and support for trainees.
The result
Taking an incremental approach and involving all stakeholders we have successfully introduced an eportfolio system (PebblePad) in support of trainee teacher professional
learning across the majority (8 out of 11 tutor groups) of our PGCE programme. There is
some evidence that our eportfolio processes are transferable across platforms (PebblePad and a Web 2.0 approach).
The tutors’ perspectives
Tutors were convinced of a significant change in the quality of trainees’ reflections (and
reflective writing) and of this being evidenced earlier in the course. One tutor identified
much earlier in the programme where trainees were unable to reflect and they were able
to intervene and feed this back to trainees in comparison to a much later stage in previous year(s).
“Being really reflective… (this is) good quality” and in terms of quality and
volume “it’s so much better now (this year).”
“Trainees’ feedback via blogs is far more reflective than I expected it to be
… that has astounded me.”
“At this stage of the programme trainees’ eportfolio is more comprehensive and more complete than previous years.”
“Trainees, typically, are engaged with the standards for QTS at a much
earlier stage as a result of increased involvement with their eportfolio.”
“Trainees have reflected explicitly on the significance of the evidence offered (this was particularly lacking in paper portfolios).”
In addition tutors noted that:
•
•
•
•

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electronic links make it easier for trainees to offer a wider selection of evidence
including photographic evidence
it has been easier for tutors to monitor and provide feedback using the ‘gateway’
it has facilitated the sharing of practice and evidence across University and
school partners
a clearer route of progression has been evidenced as trainees develop through
the programme

Trainee perspective
Trainees reported organisational benefits from using an eportfolio system, e.g. ease of
keeping track of work, flexible access via the internet, and the facility to search and review. There were a variety of views with respect to reflection for example:
“… doing reflective writing makes you think about it and consider the importance of something (rather than it be easy to file things and think that
you have digested it).”
“[It’s] easier to get an overview of how far I’ve come and what I still have
to do.”
“The technology tends to record the reflection rather than develop it.”
“When uploading assets I try to put a couple of lines on the Reflection tab
– this helps to think about how useful the asset was!”
Blogging clearly had an impact on some trainees:
“The blog allows me to constantly see where I am and where I am going in
a very easy and structured way. This keeps the thoughts in my mind and
allows more critical reflection on further entries.”
“I feel that it’s helped me to reflect a lot on what I’m teaching and I think if
I’d … written it on paper I would possibly not have bothered, ... It sort of
helped me think about what lessons I’ve learnt each week.”
However there were differences of opinion regarding the role of the eportfolio system in
professional learning.
“The real learning how to become a teacher happens in the workplace …
PebblePad isn’t really where that happens. It’s just doing your best to put
that in a format that other people can assess.”
“I am really trying to use it as a learning tool rather than something I have
got to do to pass the test, … I’m learning more from doing it this way”
The learning
For us the introduction of an eportfolio system was an evolutionary process which required time to adapt existing practices and adopt new ones. This can be demanding
for tutors who are typically time poor. Our development was supported by the director
of ITE and championed by two tutors who had a vision about the potential benefits of
eportfolios. They were keen to drive the eportfolios project forward and this aided uptake
by other tutors.
Many factors seem to govern effective trainee use of eportfolio tools and principles e.g.

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trainee skills and prior experience, access to technology/connectivity, tutor and mentor
attitudes and beliefs about professional learning and work place cultures. The trainee
‘show and tell’ events were successful in sharing and amplifying good practices developed by the trainees themselves. Some trainees have experienced clear benefits connected with engaging with the process of portfolio development as supported by eportfolio tools and principles notably through stimulating critical reflection.
There were tensions associated with providing technical support for trainees in Phase
1. Some tutors wanted to take on the responsibility of technical support while others
felt less confident. The lunch time drop in support sessions (run by the e-learning officer) were clearly valued by those trainees who attended but queries relating to the
requirements of the programme were sometimes raised which could not be adequately
addressed.
Ultimately trainee teachers need to demonstrate that they have met the standards for
Qualified Teacher Status through supplying appropriate evidence. A focus on the presentation of evidence can constrain the form of the trainee portfolio and thus the tools
and principles implemented to support its development. This focus may conflict with approaches appropriate for stimulating reflection and thus more conducive to developing
critical reflective practitioners. Some trainees have been able to use their eportfolios to
strike a balance between efficiently presenting evidence that demonstrates that the TDA
standards have been met and learning from their experiences through reflection on their
emerging professional practice.
In brief
•
•
•
•

ePortfolios have the potential both to develop the quality of some trainees’ reflections and to act as a vehicle to present evidence that formal professional requirements have been met.
Tutor beliefs, levels of confidence and the nature of the support provided for
learning through reflection can influence the trainees’ effective use of eportfolio
tools and principles for professional learning.
Work place cultures and practices in the placement schools can influence the
trainees’ effective use of eportfolio tools and principles for professional learning.
The demands of the TDA to meet specific standards can create tensions by encouraging a focus on outcomes rather than the process of development.

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22
‘Life Support Provider’ accreditation by eportfolio
Harry Owen, Cyle Sprick and Lynne Sanderson
Clinical Skills and Simulation Unit, Flinders University School of Medicine, Australia
The background context
There are many reports from Australia, the US and Europe of many new medical graduates not having the competence or confidence to manage clinical emergencies. Also, we
had anecdotal feedback from local hospitals that some of our students were not work
ready.
Clearly we needed to ensure that all our students were appropriately prepared for the
workplace and able to care for patients who are seriously ill. The process for this needed
to be comprehensive yet efficient. It needed to include attainment of competencies to
the required standard and also show that graduating students could identify knowledge
and skills deficiencies and respond appropriately.
The Flinders Graduate-entry Medical Program (GEMP) students are taught at several
locations throughout South Australia and Northern Territory. Some may not physically
attend the main campus for a whole year. In the final year of the GEMP (Year 4), students
can be studying anywhere in the world.
The current practice
Traditionally, medical education has focused on the fundamentals of medical knowledge
to individuals with most clinical training taking place after graduation. Medical assessment has until quite recently relied mostly on knowledge displayed through written examinations and a small number of highly structured and brief clinical skills examinations.
An aggregate pass mark set by university policy meant that we could not be sure that
any particular student actually had all the essential clinical skills and knowledge. For example, Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Life Support (ALS) are essential clinical
skills. They are included in the curriculum but teaching was fragmented and assessment
was inconsistent. Content of BLS and ALS courses is recommended by peak resuscitation organisations but it is generic with teaching recommended as a single block. Learning from such courses has been shown to be poorly retained.
The challenge
We needed a way for students to be able to demonstrate they had the knowledge, skills
and attitudes in emergency care to be recognised as a Life Support Provider. This included showing they could identify their own learning needs and actively seek out opportunities to improve knowledge and skills as well as demonstrate they could provide
emergency care safely and effectively when required.

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Reform of medical education is driving change in teaching and assessment methods.
Until recently, the taught curriculum was used to assess medical courses. In new medical
education, students are expected to take ownership of learning, and outcomes are more
important. This includes patient safety and quality of care.
In the past, it was expected that patients receiving ‘free’ medical care in public hospitals
would have students and trainees learn on them. However, community expectations of
medical care have changed and patients are now much less tolerant of medical error. We
needed a vehicle to demonstrate that students were competent not just knowledgeable.
The approach
The usual approach to managing a perceived knowledge gap is to introduce more teaching or a new course. We could see that most of the required elements were already in
the curriculum and that we needed to help students learn this material. We investigated
if educational technologies existed that could usefully contribute to both documenting
student achievement and becoming a competent and reflective practitioner. It quickly
became clear that an eportfolio would be ideal but we could not find an existing model
of this for acute clinical care.
Stakeholders in the ‘Life Support Provider’ initiative
The University provided seed funding for a pilot study through a Teaching and Learning
Innovation Grant in 2007.
The GEMP Course Committee and Executive needed to approve the proposed change
in assessment. Some of their members were aware of eportfolio use in UK medical
schools and were very supportive. Using an eportfolio for logging activities and evidencing achievement over time and planning further study for performance improvement is
very sound educationally.
Student engagement for the pilot was initially obtained through an information session
and word of mouth. The Life Support eportfolio is now a part of the ‘Doctor and Patient
Theme’ of the GEMP.
National and international peak resuscitation organisations have not been engaged yet.
These bodies can approve specific BLS and ALS courses but this eportfolio-based accreditation of Life Support Providers is a significant departure from what they currently
recommend.

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Figure 1

Screen grab from the Flinders Life Support
eportfolio showing part of the skill set of section 4 Advanced Life Support. Users can move
through the profile using the navigation buttons. The self-rating scale is shown on every
page. A wide range of evidence of knowledge
and skills can be added, from personal reflection on a clinical case to video of a simulated
emergency.

The issues
We came across several barriers:
•
•
•
•

•

The geographical dispersion of our students in clinical placements meant we
needed a web-hosted solution that was reliable and secure.
Knowledge of eportfolios was generally poor among staff and students and this
required an education process.
Many students wanted to be told what to study and when. This underscored the
need to have an eportfolio to assist transition to independent learner but it meant
we had to educate students on personal learning planning.
Video files are a very useful component of an eportfolio but file size is constrained
by available bandwidth and storage limits. We needed to provide the hardware,
software and support to help students capture key moments from their simulation video.
Resuscitation councils in each country accredit BLS and ALS courses. The ARC
only accredits courses that follow its approved outline.

The result
We have developed an explicit curriculum in managing medical emergencies that progressively builds on prior learning, is mapped to the students’ stage of development,
integrates clinical experiences and can be adapted or extended by students.
Year 1: Basic Life Support (BLS) - care of an unconscious person and cardiac arrest
Year 2: Extended BLS – managing the most common life-threatening emergencies in
the community and in-hospital
Year 3: Advanced Life Support (ALS) – management of chest pain and in-hospital
cardiac arrest
Year 4: ALS in special circumstances, preventing cardiac arrest and ethical issues –
definitive medical care in emergencies and leading Medical Emergency Teams
(METs)

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Students now have a single ‘Life Support Provider’ profile that travels with them throughout the course and can be extended into postgraduate foundation training and beyond.
The students can use a wide variety of sources to evidence their achievements. One directly observed clinical performance report or video of managing a simulated emergency
can evidence several items in the profile.
Video of participation in simulations of medical emergencies can be obtained and uploaded to the eportfolio. An uncompressed video of beginning BLS (approx 3 mins.) was
30MB but the default file size limit of PebblePad was 10MB so some compression was
required. The ability to assess performance in the scenario from video was compared for
four compressed video file sizes. Only compression to 2MB was significantly different to
the uncompressed video (p<0.001) in terms of ‘assessability’.

‘Assessability’ of a 3min 15sec video of
Basic Life Support
Hayres K, et al. (2009)

We did not want students to have to learn video-editing so have an ICT specialist to help
students capture key clips and compress them. We found it was not hard to compress
3 minutes of video into a 10MB file. Having a limit prompts students to be discerning of
performance issues when extracting a short sequence rather than just submitting a video
file of a whole scenario.
We are currently investigating outcomes of our BLS and ALS teaching methods. Early
feedback from students has suggested that we are achieving our aims. Many students
from all years of the course and new graduates have reported being able to begin treatment of medical emergencies occurring both in the community and in healthcare settings. The major regional healthcare professional employer is now trialling the eportfolio
for trainee medical officers.
The initial focus was on adult life support but it is now being extended to include paediatric BLS and ALS.
The learning
An eportfolio profile can be a 2-way tool. It reveals the curriculum and informs students
of professional expectations. It gives students the opportunity to individualise learning
and identify the most appropriate learning opportunities for them.

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A video file size limit is good because it helps students focus on the important issues
they want to portray in a short clip extracted from a longer video. However, we had to
find a way to help students manage their video.
Video files may include other students, staff and standardised patients so a clear policy
on confidentiality is essential and an appropriate consent form is needed. Reflection is
core to the learning process but medical students do not get good teaching on becoming reflective practitioners.
It can take years for new ideas to be accepted and adopted. Whilst medicine is moving
towards ‘evidence-based’ patient care, ‘evidence-based education’ is still to be adopted.
In brief
•
•
•
•
•

An eportfolio is a good way for students to track progress throughout the medical
course and can assist learning and demonstrate improvement over time.
The structure of teaching is as important for leaning as the content.
There is widespread confusion between learning management systems and eportfolios.
File size limits for video-evidence in an eportfolio has a good side – it makes users
identify what is important.
Adding assets to an eportfolio over time can evidence important outcomes of
medical education such as becoming an independent learner, and professional
and ethical behaviour.

References
Hayres K, Owen H, Plummer J, Sprick C., 2009 Video compression and assessment of basic life
support skills, International Journal of Clinical Skills. 2009; 3, pp159-163.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs22.pdf

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23
Using eportfolios in Undergraduate Medicine to reflect and
evidence clinical competences
Maria Toro-Troconis and Ashish Hemani
Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, UK
The background context
ePortfolios address a current need in undergraduate medical education in which medical
students can collect, provide evidence and reflect on their clinical experiences. These
experiences can then be shared with Clinical Tutors and Firm Leaders within the students’ eportfolios.
The Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London decided to pursue the implementation of an eportfolio for Undergraduate Medicine in Spring 2009. The requirement was to
implement eportfolios in the clinical year and it fitted well with the Year 2 undergraduate
medical students during their first 3 weeks Clinical Attachment. This helped to develop
the culture of reflection on eportfolios during their early medical education. There were
294 medical students in Year 2 accessing the eportfolio.
The current practice
The role of Clinical Tutors and Firm Leaders is to provide feedback on the reflection of
students’ Patient Journey and Clinical Experiences forms. These forms encourage students to reflect on clinical cases seen at the wards covering the following sections: case
summary, what I learnt, what I did well, and what I will change next time. The Patient
Journey Form encourages students to select patients and follow them through all the
investigations and treatments they undertake during their stay in hospital. The students
are encouraged to add as much detail as they can, including timings of events, for example how long it takes the porters to transport the patient from the ward to X-Ray, how
the timings affect the treatment received, and the patients’ perception of the health care
received.
The Clinical Log Book originally used during the Year 2 First Clinical Attachment used
to be given to students as a paper based portfolio which the students had to carry with
them. The likelihood of students forgetting their Clinical Log Book or losing it was very
high. At the same time, any evidence registered in the Clinical Log Book by Clinical Tutors or Firm Leaders was compromised if the Clinical Log Book was lost or stolen.
Several eportfolio systems were reviewed in 2008. The requirements were divided into
ten different sections: curriculum related features, careers, assessment, publish/share,
analysis tool, access, customisation, technical information, staffing requirements and
costs. PebblePad was selected as the best option. It is LEAP2A, HRXML, IMS eportfolio
1.0 and HTML conformant, it has a wide community of users in the UK and complies with
most of the requirements specified in the evaluation.

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In addition to that, PebblePad offered an easy way to customise forms and profiles which
easily accommodated the Clinical Log Book. PebblePad also offered powerful and userfriendly tools at Enterprise level for creating and managing groups and Gateways.
The purpose
The main driver came from the top management of the Faculty of Medicine. The Faculty
had realised the need to provide an eportfolio to undergraduate medical students in
order to improve their learning experience as well as to introduce them to the concept
of eportfolios which is widely used at postgraduate level. ePortfolios will be part of the
student experience.
It is envisaged to introduce students to the use of PebblePad from Year 1 allowing their
eportfolio to grow with them as they progress in their undergraduate medical studies.
ePortfolios will provide a student-centred platform for students’ reflection and collection
of medical experiences and skills. It will also provide an easy way of sharing resources
and learning experiences.
The approach
In order to bring together all the parties involved, the ePortfolio Working Group was set
up. This group was lead by an Academic and a Technical co-ordinator. Different domains
were identified within the working group, e.g. clinical skills, assessments, clinical experiences, etc, and a representative for each domain was assigned. This helped the academic and the technical co-ordinators organise and prioritise all the information relevant
to the different domains in a systematic way.
The model implemented proved to be very successful with the implementation of the eportfolio for Undergraduate Medical education completed within 6 months. The 6 months
covered:
•
•
•
•
•

Consultation process.
Hosting and authentication implementation.
Design and development process.
Evaluation
Student and staff training.

The issues
Two main barriers were encountered. In the first place, accessing PebblePad from some
NHS Trusts was not possible due to Firewall issues. In order to manage these issues only
one NHS Trust (St Mary’s Hospital), in which there were no Firewall issues, was designated as the main site. Firm Leaders were trained to sign off students’ eportfolios at that
site. At the rest of the NHS Trusts, Firm Leaders could sign off students’ eportfolios on
paper and the students were encouraged to attach a digital copy of the sign off sheet as
evidence in their eportfolios.
The second barrier encountered was the lack of time for Firm Leaders to engage in any

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training opportunity. In order to tackle this issue several step-by-step video clips were
produced and made available via the Faculty’s Intranet as well as on YouTube.
The result
The eportfolio successfully replaced the original Clinical Log Book and it was successfully implemented across the First Year 2 Clinical Attachment. All the students completed
their Forms and Profiles and all the students at St Mary’s Hospital published their Forms
and Profiles onto the Gateways. 8 out of 10 Firm Leaders at St Mary’s logged into the
eportfolio and 4 out of 10 signed students off using the eportfolio.
The following are some students’ comments:
What did you like the most about using My ePortfolio?
“A good method to feedback on our clinical experiences during our placement, as it gives everyone a goal to work towards completing; and identifies the areas I feel I am strong at, and other areas that I will need to
improve on.”
“Easy way for students and consultants to present and evaluate activity.”
“Excellent user interface. Generally simple to use.”
“I felt typing up patient histories and clinical experiences helped reflect on
what we had done but only was useful if it was typed up the same day.”
“Allowed me to gather all my information in one place and store it ~ more
reliable than bits of paper.”
How could My ePortfolio be improved?
“It needs to be used and recognized by everyone, including the doctors
if they are to review or comment on our ‘assignments’. If we were encouraged to list all of our achievements, skills, and activities in there (of
relevance), it would certainly seem a more essential part of our education.”
“Nothing really. I felt very satisfied with the software.”
“Automatically load assets you know we need instead of having to find
them ourselves.”
“Making it simpler to navigate.”
“A timetable or something similar which lists what needs to be completed
on the homepage.”

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The learning
It was a very challenging experience to bring together a large number of clinicians and
academics and come out with finalised and concrete items to be incorporated into the
eportfolio. Having a working group with representatives from all the different areas involved was crucial and key to the success of this implementation.
The Gateway feature was extremely helpful as it allowed the generation of different
groups so Clinical Tutors and Firm Leaders can only see their respective students rather
than going through the entire list. Also, having limited and specific forms (fit for purpose)
played a very important role in the success of this implementation.
It was also extremely important to split the population into different sections as we did
with the NHS Trust where there were no Firewall issues. This helped us focus and tackle
more efficiently all the issues involved with the implementation.
In brief
•
•
•
•

‘Think big, act small’.
Bring key people together.
Have two main leads, Academic & Technical, and make sure they can work together!
Capitalise on the support given from above.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs23.pdf

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24
Using a webfolio to present an exercise training program.
Rhondda Tilbrook
Educational Development Unit, Murdoch University, Australia

Timothy Fairchild

School of Chiropractic and Sports Science, Murdoch University, Australia
The background context
This case study describes the use of PebblePad in the unit CHI225 – Essentials of
Strength and Conditioning, taught by a member of staff in the School of Chiropractic
and Sports Science. The broad aims of the unit are:
•
•

to advance the students’ understanding of scientific principles related to the
strength and conditioning field
to be able to transfer this knowledge into the practical setting

The Unit Coordinator worked with a staff member from the Educational Development
Unit to investigate how PebblePad could be used for a specific assignment and to provide information to students on the use of PebblePad.
The task for students in CHI225 was to structure an 8 week training program for a “client” described by the Unit Coordinator. The criteria to be assessed included, but were
not limited to: background evaluation and performance testing, program implementation, outcome measures and conclusions. The detailed exercise program was to include
information and video footage and/or a description of each exercise to be performed,
alternative exercises where applicable, and variations within the training program.
The final product was to be presented in PebblePad and made available to the Unit Coordinator through a gateway.
The current practice
This was a first-time offering of the CHI225 unit and therefore an assessment template
had not previously been developed.
The current practice for these types of assessments is to develop and write the exercise
training program using a word processing package. There are two broad issues with this:
i) It limits the thinking of students to designing programs for people whom they
are visually observing/training, as opposed to reminding them that the World
Wide Web can now be used to search for exercise trainers/clients on different
continents;

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ii) The material presented and interaction between client-trainer is often limited
in word-processing software. For example:
•
•
•

The program is pre-programmed and difficult to alter once implemented
therefore ignoring the training principle of individualisation.
The use of images and video footage in word-processing software to demonstrate various exercise routines is more cumbersome than in a webbased program.
There is limited opportunity for the “client” to dialogue with the trainer
using a word processing package (e.g. for feedback, posting of video to
show trainer how they performed the exercise etc.).

The challenge
There were multiple aims for the trial:
•
•
•
•
•

to evaluate students’ use of PebblePad and their feedback on the program (usability, suitability etc.);
to determine (subjectively by Unit Coordinator) the applicability of the webfolio
tool to implement a training program designed for a virtual client;
to gather additional feedback from the Unit Coordinator and students on PebblePad;
to provide alternative platforms for the development and implementation of training programs;
to enable students to consider the global opportunities that may exist in the exercise training business.

The assignment was set up to be presented in PebblePad so that initial feedback and
data could be collected about the use of PebblePad from both a staff and student perspective. This information can now be used to modify subsequent use of PebblePad and
determine the changes in satisfaction scores by subsequent students.
The approach
Prior to semester 2, 2009, the Unit Coordinator and I met several times to discuss the assignment/problem which was to be presented. We discussed the different ways in which
the finished assignment could be presented and decided that a webfolio would be most
suitable for the final presentation.
A short demonstration of PebblePad was provided to the students during a lecture early
in the semester. Within the online unit on the Learning Management System copies of
the PebblePad document “Getting started”, details on how to access Murdoch’s version
of PebblePad, and instructions on creating a webfolio were provided for the students. A
follow-up session was then provided approximately seven weeks later to address specific questions and ensure that students were familiar with the program. The final assessment was sent to the gateway during week 12 of the semester for grading.

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The issues
The majority of the students did not access PebblePad during the early part of the semester. As the deadline for the assignment approached the students found that they
were unsure about the use of PebblePad and how to structure their assignment to display as a webfolio.
The Unit Coordinator found that he was not able to address many of the questions that
students had regarding the use of PebblePad during the early stages of the semester.
He therefore created a sample training program webfolio for students and found that he
learnt a lot about the use of PebblePad in the process. A second session on PebblePad
was given in a lecture where the Unit Coordinator explained the criteria for the assignment and demonstrated his version of the training program. Student questions about
the functionality of PebblePad were addressed. One of the issues raised by students
was the creation of a training schedule as a table in a Microsoft Word document and
then an inability to copy the table into a page in the webfolio. While alternatives were
discussed, they were cumbersome and this issue was noted as a major technical limitation of PebblePad.
The result
The majority of students in the unit developed a training program and each webfolio
was strikingly different. Some students were very creative with their own templates and
graphics, while others adopted the basic styles within PebblePad. There was a range
of ways in which material was provided to the “client” – all text within the pages in the
webfolio, links to Microsoft Word documents, websites, and videos on YouTube including personally made videos of various exercises. The range of webfolios showed that the
webfolio tool could be used effectively to present the training program and it enabled
students to structure their assignment in a format which suited them.
The three examples1 below show the different ways in which the students presented the
training program for the ‘client’.
Example 1 – Each week of the training program set up as page within the webfolio. The
exercises were described in Word documents (listed under Assets and linked from the
individual Week pages) and there were separate links to videos to illustrate the exercises.
Example 2 – Training program set up as a webfolio within the main webfolio.
Example 3 – Page contains links to graphic files showing the days’ exercises and links to
a description and video illustrating each exercise.
When viewing the webfolios the Unit Coordinator noted that some third-party copyright
material had been included and permission for publishing videos had not been acknowledged.

1

View these examples in more depth in the electronic version of this case study.

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All students who used PebblePad at Murdoch in 2009 were surveyed for feedback on
their experience. Twenty-one of the students in this unit responded to the survey. 59.4%
found the webfolio tool difficult or very difficult to use and 40.6% found it easy or very
easy. We received some useful data from the survey and overall the data showed that
assets/items which had been used the most had been rated of lower difficulty compared
to the items which were used least.
Student comments included:
•
•
•
•
•

“The setup is useful.”
“I encountered problems with adding certain types of pages to my webfolio – eg
adding photos only to a page.”
“Trying to find a specific page or asset to edit sometimes difficult, but I have now
discovered the ‘search’ option making it easier.”
“It was a good way to break up the monotony of word and generic publishing
programs and provided a great range of formats. It personalised the content.”
“Some parts were easy but should be more user friendly like Word inputting in
graphs, tables etc.”

The Unit Coordinator will be using creation of a webfolio in PebblePad for the assignment in 2010. He will demonstrate PebblePad to the students early in the semester and
raise the students’ awareness about third-party copyright material, gaining permission
for publishing content and referencing correctly. The students’ first task will be to create
an action plan for the development of their assignment and submit it to the gateway.
Milestones will then be implemented to engage the students throughout the semester
with the aim of increasing student’s comprehension on the use of PebblePad. The webfolio and student queries will be answered during a class midway through the semester
and again two weeks before the assignment is due. He hopes that the students will be
able to test their plans in a subsequent unit.
The learning
PebblePad proved to be a useful tool for individual assignment tasks for students. Each
webfolio looked different as the program provides an environment where students can be
more creative and individualistic. Most students altered the template for their webfolio.
Instruction needs to be provided for students before they use the program and a question and answer session some time after they have used the system could be beneficial.
Accessible documentation should be provided. We have updated Murdoch’s student
help page for PebblePad to provide more documentation and Frequently Asked Questions. We need to encourage use of the email facility within a gateway to disseminate
information to students.
Unit Coordinators who want their students to use PebblePad should attend a hands-on
workshop and become familiar with the system’s capabilities before they introduce the
program to their students.

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It was concluded by both the Unit Coordinator and me that the knowledge of the Unit
Coordinator is likely to affect the students’ ability to use PebblePad and subsequently,
the students’ satisfaction with the use of PebblePad.
In brief
•
•
•

Staff need to become familiar with PebblePad prior to introducing it to their students.
An authentic and specific task (eg creation of the training program) should be set
to engage students in the use of PebblePad.
Provide instructions for students on using PebblePad in an introductory session
and have a later question/answer session where specific issues raised by students can be addressed.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs24.pdf

1

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25
A conversion among the pebbles? Using an eportfolio to support PDP with year 2 Electronic Engineering students.
Helen Sterne
Personal Development Planning Co-ordinator , University of Surrey, UK
The background context
The second-year Electronic Engineering undergraduate degree programme contains a
module called Engineering Design and Professional Studies. During the module students
learn to use PDP processes to plan and reflect on their professional development, and
prepare a portfolio for assessment. There are usually approximately 70 – 80 students on
this module – a significant number are international students.
The current practice
A generic template for a paper PDP portfolio had previously been designed, but it did
not fit closely with the learning activities in the module, and had the usual disadvantages
of paper as a medium – especially for students of Electronic Engineering who naturally
gravitate towards computer-based activities. This group became the first to pilot the new
eportfolio system when it was introduced in September 2007.
The challenge
Initially the aim was to pilot and evaluate the use of PebblePad as a tool to support the
development and assessment of PDP processes (as described above). With successive
years, the challenge has evolved into one of winning hearts and minds of both students
and staff who are minded to be sceptical about both PDP as a process, and the use
of proprietary software provided by the institution as opposed to creating their own or
choosing from a range of existing web 2.0 tools.
The purpose
As this group was the first to embark on the pilot of PebblePad, their experiences and
responses had a fairly high profile – the intention was to use lessons learned from this
pilot to inform approaches and models to be used in other contexts or disciplines. It follows that a negative response from students or staff would set us back, or at least make
us think again and perhaps question our assumptions regarding our current practice.
The approach
In the first year of the pilot, the focus was on familiarisation with the tools and functionality of PebblePad. Activities were converted from the existing paper portfolio template,
and students were required to submit for assessment a webfolio documenting their development. The outcome was reasonably successful in that all the students were able to

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create and submit their webfolios, and a number engaged quite creatively with the activity and presented considerably more information than the minimum required. The following year there was a change of module leader, so we could not build automatically on the
experience and expertise gained in the previous year. Despite this, a similar approach
to the first year was adopted, but the response from students and staff at the end of the
year was less positive, to the extent that the module leader was proposing to drop the
subsequent use of PebblePad. To prevent this happening, the PDP Coordinator invested
a substantial amount of time in redesigning the model used – the aim was to achieve
closer integration between the core learning activities in the module (based around an
enterprise project) and the use of PebblePad to support reflection on that learning.
The issues
Students on this programme have considerable understanding and expertise in technology, so there were few technical barriers – in fact the students were largely able to
teach themselves to use the tools in PebblePad, with the help of an initial demonstration,
printed help sheets and the online help. If anything, the issue was not that the technology was difficult to master, but that many of these students disliked being constrained
by an off-the-shelf system, where they would have preferred the challenge of designing
their own.
However, conceptual and cultural barriers were a different matter. Some students showed
distinct aversion to the idea of sharing explicit, structured reflection on their learning and
development, dismissing it as ‘not for engineers’. The earlier educational experience of
others had simply not prepared them for critical self-appraisal. The key issue, though,
was how to ensure that students saw this as a relevant, meaningful and useful activity,
and one in which they had some ownership, rather than a mechanistic process they engaged in to pass the assessment.
The result
The redesigned model sets out a minimum number of activities that students are required to do to pass this part of the module assessment – one of these is to complete
a form containing structured, reflective questions, the other is to submit a revised CV.
Over and above this, the students were invited to keep blogs of their experiences, and
to use the webfolio tool to create a more substantial account of their learning during
the module, on the basis that it would be a useful record for their own purposes when
applying for placement positions. It has been gratifying to see how many have chosen
voluntarily to do more than the minimum, some even creating quite elaborate presentations. Significantly, however, even where the submissions contain the minimum in terms
of number of documents, the quality of the reflection is generally pleasing and suggests
that the students have engaged with the activity in a meaningful way.
The learning
PebblePad allows both for the use of highly-structured models or templates pre-designed by a teacher, and for users to have complete ownership in the way they use the
tool (together with variations between these extremes).

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This might be seen as mirroring the staging posts in the development of an independent
learner – clearly there are contexts where more structure and support is initially needed,
to help students acquire skills or understand what is required of them. On the other
hand, if we want to encourage students to reflect in a genuine way on their learning and
we over-structure the activities that we set, we risk compromising the authentic nature
of their responses and also their sense of ownership and commitment. The challenge
is to find an appropriate balance to suit the needs of any particular learner or group of
learners.
In brief
•
•
•

Allowing students complete freedom to choose whether and how they engage
with eportfolio based learning is risky – some may engage and others not.
Requiring them to engage via a tightly-structured and possibly assessed activity
may result in resistance and less-than-authentic responses.
It is helpful to be aware of this, think it through in relation to learning outcomes,
and consider the options when planning how to use PebblePad to support learning.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs25.pdf

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26
Operability of PebblePad as a medium for assessment and
PDP development in second year computing students preparing for placement.
Scott Jones and Claire Bylo
Faculty of Business, Computing and Law, University of Derby, UK
The background context
The University of Derby is an institution proud of its teaching excellence. In this context it
is always looking to explore emergent technologies and new software capabilities which
will deliver added value to staff and students in terms of delivery, teaching, assessment
and development in a new and interactive format.
In September 2009, the School of Computing based in the Faculty of Business, Computing and Law decided to facilitate the use of PebblePad in its Personal and Professional
Development Module. The premise of the pilot was two fold:
1. to engage a 3rd year computing student in employment in administering the
pilot and provide them with a work based platform for the submission of their
Independent Studies module;
2. to utilise the capabilities of PebblePad to create a portfolio of work and personal development capable of initiating and securing a placement year for
second year students and being effective in showcasing a student’s skills
and capabilities after graduation to potential employers.
The current practice
Students are taught face to face. Technology is not used to facilitate teaching or capture
elements of PDP within the development process of students engaging in employability
and developing skills fit for purpose. C.V. production is paper based and involves large
scale administration to support the students in procuring placement. Paper based engagement does not fit with employer practises, which is largely electronically based for
job application purposes. Student records for PDP are not portable or accessible after
graduation.
Assignment hand in is a manual process and feedback is provided by a paper based
system. Feedback in this format does not allow for continuous summative assessment
or a portable record of formative assessment.
The purpose
•
•

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Student engagement with virtual environments provides a driver for this change.
Opportunity to utilise new technology and software in an assessed pilot programme.

•
•
•

•

Electronically recorded pro-forma of professional development, portable and accessible to students after graduation.
Integrated environment for academic work, professional development and access to social networking sites.
Engage with the student employability agenda by securing funding to employ
a third year computing student to administer the PebblePad platform and train
students in its use, ensuring timely access to materials and engagement with assessment criteria.
Provide the employed student with project management experience and a basis
for their 3rd year independent studies module.

The approach
Six months before proposed project start date in September 2009
- Dean’s approval was sought and gained for the project.
Four months before project start date
- visits were made to colleagues at other institutions to look at the feasibility of
the project.
Three months before project start date
- the Module Leader was presented with a project plan and the perceived value
and benefits of the project, and became a stakeholder in agreeing to allow the
preparation for placement module to be taught, administered and assessed via
PebblePad.
- funding was secured from the Student Experience Strategy Group to secure a
salary for the 3rd year student.
One month before project start date
- interviews of third year students were undertaken having first advertised the
post via the Student Employment Agency and via text to third year computing
students. PebblePad Administrator employed.
A model was created for co-operation between academic, administrative and student
communities via dialogue and project planning. Academic matters were to be agreed by
the Module Leader and structures were to be developed by the PebblePad Administrator. The Administrator was to be managed as a member of Faculty Administrative staff
and to be integrated into the team. The PebblePad Administrator was to work closely
with the student body ensuring access and skills sets of students meet required levels to
engage with the project effectively.
The issues
Some students showed resistance to the concept of handing in assignments electronically. However, with patient guidance and open and transparent communication, the
student body has engaged fully.
Some students who were unable to enrol fully at the beginning of term due to financial

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difficulties were unable to access the system in the first two weeks. Alternative manual
methods were used for this small group of students. There was no resistance politically
due to the University moving to electronic hand in September 2010.
The result
The Module is now fully functional in PebblePad.
Employers have welcomed the opportunity to engage with electronic submission of CVs
and portfolios of student’s work.
The PebblePad Administrator is essential to the project and being a student who has
been on placement and undertaken this module has been a big benefit.
The assignment brief and notes have been posted onto the platform to include the
required descriptors in order to meet the learning outcomes. Students have used the
PebblePad gateway in the facilitation of the assignment hand-in process. The system
has given evidential credence to correct hand-in within agreed formats and timescales.
Students have welcomed this transparency and the opportunity to hand-in work off site.
Feedback from this has been very positive. The Tutor has used the gateways to give
individual feedback and supply grades across elements of their work. The opportunity
to give more formalised and evidenced feedback has again received a very positive response both from the tutor and the students. Students have also had the opportunity to
clarify aspects of the feedback that require further explanation on their behalf.
Further informal use of the platform has been undertaken by students involved in project
work as part of other modules outside of the pilot module. Students are now confident
with its use and will continue to use the system when out on placement to record their
achievement and assessments.
The student who administers the project is using the web folio as a means to track his
development and the progress of his dissertation. The student is finding PebblePad very
useful as it allows him to collate his thoughts and ideas for future use via the use of the
mobile application. The student feels that there could be some improvement in the administration side of the PebblePad gateways, for example the ability to include support
for students with extenuating circumstances.
The student found that administering PebblePad was easy, clear and straight forward.
He felt that he was able to accomplish the resolution of any problems within acceptable time frames and was able to help fellow students with their uploading, sharing and
gateway access.
The process will be repeated for 2010/2011
The learning
•

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Essential that all stakeholders are fully engaged. Would have welcomed the opportunity to give the student body more notice of the proposal.

•
•

Employability of students can ensure that the student body has someone of their
own background available to answer their queries and effectively reassure them.
Some resistance to the authority of the student employee in the first instance.
Timescale for full functionality of a new project is around 9 months in total.

In brief
•
•
•
•
•

Students are resistant in the first instance and engagement should be sought
before the new academic year to ensure students fully understand the project and
its perceived outcomes.
Employing a student to administer the project technically is very positive both in
terms of the student body and the employability agenda. Can be added to HEA.
Employers welcome the electronic nature and access to the students’ portfolio
when access is granted by the student.
Students welcome the opportunity to manage the environment and have the opportunity to have an integrated social networking environment.
Project has provided a basis for a third year Independent Studies assignment.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs26.pdf

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27
Personal Development Planning and International Students
Christina Meredith
Business School, Oxford Brookes University, UK
This case concerns the use of PebblePad in developing reflective thinking and writing
skills with international students to enhance their Personal Development Planning.
The background context
A pilot study was undertaken with a small group of students from a cohort of 173 students studying a range of Masters programmes in the Business School, Oxford Brookes
University. The cohort consisted of predominately international students and the 39 students who participated in the case study discussed in this report included 37 international students and two UK nationals. The aim was to investigate whether PebblePad
would enhance the learning experience of international postgraduate students and also
help to develop their reflective skills for use in their Personal Development Planning.
The international students were a diverse group with a range of educational and professional experiences and varying abilities and fluency in English language skills. The students’ IT skills also varied as some students in the e-learning Masters were very competent and inventive when using PebblePad, whilst other students were not at all confident.
Without school based technical support the less able students relied on the more able
students to help them. Relevant to the background information is that PebblePad is not
used consistently across the University and the technical support was provided by the
module leader for this group of students.
The author is currently an Associate Lecturer in the Business School, Oxford Brookes
University and has been teaching Personal Development Planning (PDP) using PebblePad since September 2008.
The current practice
Before introducing PebblePad the postgraduate assignment for the module was paper
based, a written document using appendices instead of assets. Using PebblePad was
a new method of teaching and assessing PDP and it was also considered to be a more
interesting and efficient method for the students to record their achievements. The module traditionally achieves a low average pass mark and therefore the aim was to improve
student grades.
There does appear to be stereotypical views about how individuals from certain cultures
have difficulty in developing reflective skills and these preconceived ideas about the
students’ abilities may have been reflected in previous low grades.

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The challenge
The aim was primarily to encourage students to engage with PDP specifically in developing their reflective thinking and writing skills. How would PDP using PebblePad compare
for example with writing a reflective diary either in Word or a generic PDP ‘tool’?
It is sometimes challenging working with a culturally diverse group with different learning
styles and a range of educational backgrounds, technical skills and, as stated above, a
range of English language skills. Therefore communication must be very clear otherwise
there is the potential for misunderstanding.
Another challenging aspect was to use one introductory session to familiarise the students and also the staff with using PebblePad. We all met together with the module
leader in one of the computer suites and I learned alongside with the students how to log
on and navigate through PebblePad.
Reflective writing skills in the past have proved difficult for some students to implement
and understand. Throughout the university there are different methods of integrating
PDP in modules or, as in this case, a specific module for PDP. Students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, are often unaware of the transferable skills they develop whilst at
University. PebblePad allowed the students in the pilot study to record and update skills
they gained or developed during their journey on the Masters programme.
If PebblePad can be shown to be an effective tool then more staff may be encouraged
to use it. At the moment random groups across the University use PebblePad and part
of the rationale for the case study is to see whether PebblePad has the flexibility to allow
the diversity that staff require in terms of teaching and assessment.
The approach
PDP together with the use of PebblePad were taught in a series of workshops; 6 weeks
at the beginning of the first semester and four weeks at the end of the second semester.
The initial task the students were asked to complete during the first two weeks was to
write a reflective “thought” in PebblePad about one of the activities they had participated
in during the workshops.
They were shown at the end of the workshop how to send the ‘thought’ to me. This served
two purposes; first, to ensure they could log on and send the PebblePad ‘thought’, and
second, to see whether they described or reflected on the activity. Examples of activities
that students had the opportunity to reflect upon included Belbin’s (2004) Team Inventory, an employability day, workshops on networking, career management, and presentation skills, as well as extra-curricular activities relevant to their development such as
English language classes. Personal skills included their personal effectiveness, flexibility,
self-discipline and communication skills.
There were students who for various reasons were not able to log on and the module
leader was informed. Examples of why students were unable to log on included the fact
that the enrolment process had not been completed or they had deleted the email which

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included the PebblePad username and password.
The first assignment involved the students producing an Action Plan. All of the assets the
students generated were stored in PebblePad for use in the second assignment webfolio. The students were instructed to submit their assignments through the Gateway,
which tutors could then mark on line giving feedback.
The issues
A political issue is that as PebblePad is not being rolled out across the university there
will not be technical support. This means there is no sharing of good practice and no
discussion of adapting PebblePad for different needs or groups. The lack of shared information means that as a small group using PebblePad we lack the knowledge to progress
and develop different techniques.
Because of the lack of technical support, problems that occurred beyond the knowledge
of the module leader could not be addressed. An example of this was that we did not
know that PebblePad was able to upload videos, tables or webpages.
The result
It is planned that PebblePad will be introduced throughout the business school but not
the university. Currently it would appear that there will be no technical support; each
module leader will run PebblePad themselves.
Many of the international students found PebblePad easy to use and the computer literate students were confident to experiment with the different functions of PebblePad. The
‘steps’ help them develop their action plan or webfolio and writing down their ‘thoughts’
about various activities, and receiving feedback appeared to be helpful in developing
their reflective thinking and writing skills.
Online feedback was collected at the end of the module but disappointingly the number
of students who participated was quite low. The feedback from the students who did
complete the questions was mixed but generally positive.
An example of feedback included the following comment:
“I think writing some activities on PebblePad is very interesting, it’s like an
electronic diary to remember everything, although sometimes I was too
lazy to do it.”
The learning
1.

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While the module grades have improved there are still students who do not
engage with PDP, however, the better students showed creativity and imagination producing excellent webfolios. Reflective skills MUST be taught - it is
not enough to tell students, and in particular international students, to reflect
on what they have learnt (this does happen in some undergraduate modules

– there is no in struction on what reflection means). The students are encouraged to record their thoughts in PebblePad after each session and to revisit
those thoughts and add further reflection.
2. There must be a strong relationship between the subjects being taught and
the reflection. It appeared to be more successful engaging students with
PDP if they could relate the activity being undertaken to their core academic
subjects. This is important because it highlights the transferable skills the
students are developing and enhances employability.
3. The staff must have training or development on how to teach reflective skills
and how to give constructive feedback to students so that they can then
improve and develop their reflective writing. Currently there is not a system
in place to teach staff how to use PebblePad. It is a cascade method - if
someone knows how to use it they will then show another member of staff.
4. Feedback is essential in developing reflective skills and PebblePad allows
the students to share their thoughts and receive feedback quite quickly electronically. Students can record the feedback they have received in PebblePad and add their own thoughts about whether they agree or not with the
feedback given by tutors or fellow group members.
5. A more rigorous evaluation of PebblePad is needed to convince doubting
staff that it is an effective and useful tool. Perhaps in the case of PDP a
comparison between using a reflective diary and PebblePad and whether
the students find reflective skills useful. From my own perspective having
used both methods I found the structures in PebblePad, for example the
Action Plan, provided the students with a structure that was easy to follow
particularly for those students for whom English is not their first language. It
would be interesting and valuable to investigate different systems in order to
evaluate strengths and weaknesses of such systems.
In brief
•
•
•

Making reflective activity relevant to students is important for engagement.
Lack of technical support can be a significant barrier to progress.
Don’t assume students have IT skills or are able to reflect - these skills will need
to be developed.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs27.pdf

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28
Embedding eportfolios into an undergraduate degree program
Jenni Munday
Faculty of Education, Charles Sturt University, Australia
The background context
Charles Sturt University (CSU) is a regional university with multiple campuses in regional
cities in New South Wales and beyond. The University has identified itself as a University
for the Professions. The Faculty of Education is one of the largest in the country with four
of its six Schools focussing on Teacher Education.
The Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood and Primary) aims to develop graduates
who will work with children from birth to year 6 in primary school. It is ‘delivered’ on three
campuses – Albury-Wodonga, Bathurst and Dubbo – and the students tend to generally come from those towns and other smaller rural cities and towns nearby. There are a
mixture of school-leavers and mature-age students with very mixed pre-university experiences and skills, and their abilities with regard to technology are quite diverse. Across
the three campuses there can be up to 200 students coming into the first year level. The
academic staff members are campus-based, but plan the student learning collectively
via video- and tele-conferencing.
The current practice
In the former B.Ed program, eportfolios existed in individual subjects, and students also
created an eportfolio in their final year to showcase their abilities to prospective employers. They were created in a variety of formats, from paper-based to iWeb and PowerPoint
electronic presentations, and usually shared only with the individual markers.
The final eportfolio often proved difficult for students, as many valuable artefacts were
difficult to find from former years. In addition, as students often discarded their earlier
portfolios, there wasn’t a great deal of reflection on their development throughout their
degree.
The challenge
The designers of the new degree knew the value of the different purposes of eportfolios
and wanted to introduce the process of collection and reflection right from the very beginning. We wanted students to value their prior-to-university experiences, to encourage
them to undertake self-directed learning, and for them to document all learning, whether
within the degree or outside it. At the completion of their degree, we wanted them to
draw on these records and see the value of both informal and formal learning as they
reflected on their overall development as a teacher.
We also wanted consistency, and a way for their work to be shared across campuses,

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both between tutors and students. This was a great challenge, as some of the tutors
were highly familiar with web-based portfolios, while others remained tied to paperbased versions.
However, the main challenge was for both staff and students to see eportfolios as existing outside of individual subjects, and much thought and planning was needed to ensure
this occurred, while maintaining individual tasks and assessments within subjects.
The purpose
We wanted to embed the various positive eportfolio processes into each year level of the
program to give students the optimum benefits throughout their years of study, and build
progressively on the enrichment of artefacts and reflective practice.
Another strong driver was the growing emphasis on technology in the early childhood
and primary classrooms and the need for new teachers to be very familiar with the tools
of technology, the value of using them for learning, and the knowledge of how to implement them into the lives of young children.
There was also a desire to make things easier for the markers of eportfolios, especially
those who were used to hard copy portfolios.
The approach
We first spent quite a lot of time defining the type of graduate required to meet the demands of an increasingly complex role as Early Childhood and Primary teachers, and
used this vision to inform the design of the degree. Activities and assessment tasks were
devised for each year level to ensure that students were supported in their development
towards this goal, that their informal learning was valued, and that their archive of work
would be valued and consistently enriched by the students. This work was supported by
a CSU Flexible Learning Institute fellowship which was granted to one of the program
designers.
The overall structure of the four years currently includes the following:
1st year – Students reflect on their prior-to-University learning and experience,
particularly in relation to Graduate Attributes, in a PebblePad webfolio and complete a gap analysis leading to an action plan that involves self-directed learning
and skill enhancement. They also document and reflect on their progression towards course learning outcomes as part of the webfolio.
2nd year – Students use PebblePad during their first professional experience observations collecting artefacts of teaching and learning, and develop a webfolio
about their progression towards their own ‘knowing’ in the arts (including a group
documentation of planned performance using the meeting tool).
3rd year – Students begin a developmental profile of the New South Wales Institute of Teachers graduate attributes created in PebblePad, taking independent

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responsibility for collecting evidence during the final two years (four practicums)
of their planning and achievement towards these attributes.
4th year – Students complete a final showcase PebblePad webfolio, including
Curriculum Vitae, to highlight achievements and learning, specifically designed
for prospective employment.
In the early stages, there was still inconsistency in the technology used by students, with
each campus adopting their own tools. After the first year of implementation, CSU adopted PebblePad which provided this much needed consistency and stability, and staff
and students found it extremely easy to use in comparison to previous tools.
Even so, there still remained some inconsistencies in process, with different academics
asking students to submit in different ways, some using templates to help ‘get students
started’ on their webfolios while others started from scratch, and staff providing feedback via comments, a marking criteria form, or as a MSWord attachment to a comment.
The issues
The main barrier turned out to be the technological proficiency of staff, rather than students. Students on the whole appeared willing to work with the technology given the
time and support. But there was, and still remains, a divide in the level of technology
skill and comfort for those staff responsible for introducing PebblePad to students. At
times, these perceptions of being ‘all too difficult’ were conveyed to students, who also
adopted a similar attitude.
A large part of the problem was that many of the academics were learning the tools at
the same time as the students, due to the timing of the release of PebblePad within the
University. Some coped well, accessing support as required, while others delayed the
implementation, adding additional pressure on students which exacerbated any anxiety
they had about learning a new program. A system failure, resulting in the need for a
server upgrade, just at the time of submission didn’t help.
The result
PebblePad has now been embedded in the first two years of the degree program, and
the learning outcomes achieved have been immense and fabulous. Students are becoming used to collecting evidence of their learning and reflecting deeply as they catalogue
their artefacts – and they are developing a great deal of independence and responsibility towards their learning. The meta-cognitive learning is very evident to the academic
teachers who collect and assess the webfolios in each year level.
Staff are introducing PebblePad earlier in the semester, and using a range of support
strategies, including ‘drop-in’ computer labs where second year students act as mentors to the first years. They are also making more use of Learning Skills staff to assist
students where possible, ensuring that both staff and students feel more confident with
the technology. Initial technical issues have now been resolved as well, with a server
upgrade ensuring that last minute ‘frenzies’ don’t overload the system.

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Some academic staff are taking ownership of the tools, encouraging students to use
PebblePad in different ways beyond the course requirements, and many are doing so.
However, there is still a way to go until all students take the same ownership and see
PebblePad as a suite of tools for real independent personal learning. Most have further
developed their technical skills, not only in PebblePad but also in associated skills such
as image and video editing / compression. While some markers have found it easier, others found the constant clicking on links frustrating.
The students are now going into their 3rd year and the ePortfolio purpose and content
has been designed, but whether it will be implemented as designed will depend on the
comfort and competence of the academics involved.
The learning
While all course team members participated and agreed on the incorporation of eportfolios in the degree, this didn’t equate to equal acceptance of the technology used to
action that plan. Time is needed for academics to learn PebblePad first, before they are
required to teach it, so that the chances of resistance are lessened.
The technology is, in subtle ways, changing how some of the assessment items are
implemented; for example, a previous learning contract table has now become an action plan incorporating reflection and resource identification. It’s allowing students to be
more creative in how they present themselves, incorporating video and images, which is
really building confidence. It’s also driving some academics to provide written comments
on students’ work before submission where the feedback can be used to improve the
students’ work. We expect much more of this in the future.
We’ve also learned about the power of allowing students to reflect on both informal and
formal learning and the seen impact of this on their understanding of themselves as
learners, and also on their confidence in student practicums.
In brief
•
•
•
•

Give teachers time to learn themselves, before teaching others.
Value students’ learning and reflection – both within and outside the Program.
Technology can impact on the learning that occurs – make sure it’s the kind of
impact you want to happen.
PebblePad has assisted students to take responsibility for documenting their own
learning and flexibly showcasing it for various viewers.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs28.pdf

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29
Embedding eportfolios in an introductory educational technology subject
Jacquie Tinkler
School of Education , Charles Sturt University, Australia
The background context
Charles Sturt University (CSU) is a regional university with multiple campuses in regional
cities in New South Wales and Ontario, Canada. CSU provides a wide range of degrees
both internally and externally and has a particularly large number of distance students.
The subject that is the focus of this case study (Introduction to Educational Computing)
is taken by fourth year students studying in a range of undergraduate teaching degrees,
both primary and secondary, and across discipline areas.
This subject introduces the computer and related technologies as tools for the classroom teacher. Information and communication technologies in general are considered
and evaluated for their contribution to teaching and learning. It was recently rewritten to
specifically incorporate and expand on the use of Web 2.0 technologies and eportfolios
as teaching and learning tools. This subject is only offered by distance mode.
The current practice
ICT in education is a rapidly evolving field, and the subject had been dealing primarily with the development of ICT-based classroom resources and strategies that tended
to focus on application software as opposed to Web 2.0 and other online resources.
Students were required to submit the ICT-based parts of their work as a CD “folio” of
resources they had made and reflections about this work in a Word document.
The production of only application-based activities submitted on CD limited both students’ thinking and creativity when attempting to design educational activities for their
students to use, especially given the plethora of online tools and applications available.
Having the application and the reflection documentation as separate files also produced
“stilted” assignments which didn’t flow well in terms of the aims and outcomes of the
assignment, as well as making assessment difficult.
Activities related to the development of students’ ICT skills, experiences, and knowledge of the complex issues when applied to educational settings were primarily based
in the Forum tool of the university’s Learning Management System which did not give
students experience using a range of online tools or the opportunity to reflect and document their learning in creative or personal ways.
The subject did not specifically address eportfolios or their use as teaching or learning
tools – and this was seen as important given the growing interest and use of eportfolios
in schools.

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The challenge
The incorporation of PebblePad into this subject was designed to:
•
•
•
•
•

Encourage effective use by students of a broad range of thinking and reflection
tools that are provided in PebblePad to reflect on their development and planning
of ICT based learning and teaching resources to use in their classrooms.
Provide students with experience in the nature and use of eportfolios as a tool
they could use in the future for teaching and learning as practicing teachers, while
using it in a similar way themselves.
A tool for students to collect and reflect on a range artefacts of their learning
about ICT during the course of the subject, such as ICT skills goals charts, software evaluations, videos, photographs, quizzes, writing, and design.
A more comprehensive array of evidence of students’ learning of and about ICT
use in educational settings by encouraging students to submit a range of artefacts in a variety of ways.
Provide a scaffolding tool through the use of PebblePad’s more structured tools
to assist students to reflect on the artefacts included in their submitted work.

The purpose
There were a number of reasons for the development eportfolio aspect of this course.
One aspect was that in my previous role in a high school and as an eLearning Leader, I
was developing the use of eportfolios across our rather large school for students, and it
was clear that many of our teachers had little, if any, knowledge or understanding of the
role an eportfolio could play in their teaching and in their students’ learning. Our schoolbased project involved beginning with junior students and using PowerPoint as their
eportfolio tool, and scaffolded using a learning program called Building Learning Power.
We then progressed to using Elgg – a tool that incorporated the use of social networking
tools which greatly appealed to students.
On arriving at CSU I was pleased to find that we were in the process of rolling out
PebblePad and this provided an ideal opportunity to develop the use of this tool in the
context of pre-service teacher education, based on what I had learnt in the “real world”
of the classroom.
The other primary purpose for use of PebblePad in this subject was the need to provide
a “safe” and “scaffolded” way of helping students to better reflect on their learning and
experiences both within the confines of this particular subject, but also across their time
at the university.
The approach
My approach was primarily based on my experience of students and teachers at the
school I had recently come from. This meant a multitude of approaches was possible,
but I eventually arrived at a range of key foci:
•

To gently introduce to students “yet another” online tool to learn and use. (Given

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•

•

they were enrolled in an introduction to educational computing course)
To then develop a number of activities that exploited the structure of the PebblePad tools that would encourage students to use a range of tools for a range of
purposes. This was in order to give them an opportunity to find the tools that
suited both their original discipline area (for example maths, or visual arts) and the
way they themselves preferred learning. An example of this was the use of the action plan tool to develop what was previously called a “goals chart” that students
completed when they first begin the subject, and then at the end of the subject.
This charted the learning goals of the student in relation to their developing skills
in the use of ICT in an educational context.
I also wanted students to submit work in an electronic way, which allowed for
better feedback and to remove the need to be mailing CDs and wads of paperbased assignments.

Concurrently, as a new academic, I had to complete an induction program that was
based around the development of a project based on an area of my work. The area I
chose was a subject revision for this subject, and the focus was on the development of
an approach to the use of eportfolios. The end result of this process was the production
of an eportfolio board game, called “Graduate”, which was based around the idea of collecting a range of artefacts, reflections and communications which fed into an eportfolio,
and the winner of the game was the one to collect enough of the right sort of artefacts to
collect enough points to then “Graduate”!
The process of turning the eportfolio process into a “game” was quite illuminating and
meant that I had to think hard about the point of an eportfolio in the wider university
context, what sort of things went into an eportfolio and why, and what the value of each
of those types of artefacts was.
An overview of the game and eportfolio approach can be found at www.slideshare.com
(at jtinkler /CSUEd2009).
The issues
There were few barriers or difficulties. Any difficulties on my part were swiftly dealt with
by our eportfolio support team and online support tools. Students who had difficulty
were primarily students who had slow dial up internet connections, or those who wanted
to upload video. A few found using the gateway tool a little difficult, with a couple of
students emailing me often asking if they could just email their work to me instead.
My stubborn refusal paid off when they too were able to submit their work through the
gateway. This problem was primarily caused by impatience and the inability to persevere
with technology difficulties and want the easy way out – and of course this is a vital skill
in any situation that requires the use of technology – hence my insistence on its use. In
the process of teaching this subject I have begun developing my own help sheets for
students to guide them through these sorts of difficulties.
Another issue manifested itself in one of the tasks, where they were required to use a
blog to reflect on the learning resources they had developed. Academic writing went
out the window – some forgetting to reference and others paying scant attention to this

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aspect of academic writing. Spelling and grammar also seemed to be more in the “online
style” and this made me consider whether to structure this section of the assignment
differently, make standards more explicit, or to use a different tool (such as the webfolio
tool).
The result
Nearly all students found PebblePad easy to use and could easily see the multitude
of uses in their new teaching careers – both as a teacher for themselves, and for their
students as a tool for teaching and learning. I am now beginning to integrate PebblePad
into my other educational technology subjects – both as content (about eportfolios as
educational technology) and as a tool for their own teaching and learning.
The use of PebblePad has enabled me to better understand my students’ learning and
understanding, and has given them a variety of options to demonstrate their learning in
this subject. Most students were enthusiastic about the prospect of implementing an
eportfolio program at their schools in the future, as it was not difficult for them to see the
benefits for their own future students. A next step will be to begin introducing the idea
of using the eportfolio tool across the Wagga faculty – to enable all students to use the
tools across and after their time at the university.
The learning
I learnt that students are much more competent in the use of the eportfolio tool than I
expected. This may have been due in part to the fact that the students were enrolled in
an educational technology subject and were therefore more open to the idea, as well as
the fact that their eportfolio work was an integral part of two of their assessment items.
Overall, students needed little extra support. Students who had difficulties primarily
needed confidence to keep trying and a small amount of technical support. I think the
main thing to learn is to be clear and focused about what you are trying to achieve with
the use of the eportfolio and ensure your students are clear about this intent.
I made sure I encouraged students to use the tools that suited them and the way they
worked and learnt in the section of the eportfolio where I allowed them some open and
creative activities. This also meant encouraging students to use images, videos, websites, and other creative artefacts in their eportfolio. For the more scaffolded activities,
I had to ensure I had chosen the right tool for the job – what did I want them to demonstrate, and was this the best tool to allow them to do that?
In brief
•
•
•
•

Plan thoroughly and have a clear purpose for the use of PebblePad.
Allow students the opportunity to explore and “play” with the tools and the idea
of an eportfolio. Encourage creativity!
Ensure students are clear about the purpose of the use of an eportfolio and they
are clear about expectations of academic standards of writing where appropriate.
Have tech support available – even if it is in the form of self-help “how-to” sheets,
tutorial videos, etc.

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•

I imagine a new and much wider sphere of teaching and learning opportunities
will be available when an eportfolio is integrated across a course or at least less
subject specific.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs29.pdf

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30
Engaging Engineering: Introducing eportfolios into a first year
Engineering course
Meaghan Botterill
Faculty of Engineering, RMIT University, Australia
The background context
This case study is located in the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at RMIT University. RMIT University is a large, vocationally orientated,
multi-campus, dual sector university comprising both Technical and Further Education
(TAFE) and Higher Education (HEd) sectors. The Engineering faculty at RMIT consists of
four schools:
•
•
•
•

Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering (SAMME)
Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering (SCECE)
Electrical and Computer Engineering (SECE)
Engineering TAFE.

This case study is based upon work being undertaken across the three HEd schools,
specifically to introduce eportfolios into Engineering at a program level. In 2009, eportfolios were introduced into fourth year Aerospace. All Final Year Thesis Projects had to
be submitted in PebblePad, and students were also required to keep a blog across their
project. In SCECE, students entering fourth year had to complete a profile in PebblePad
for their Vacation Employment course, a mandatory, non-credit bearing subject. Students complete the equivalent of 12 weeks full time work experience in which they need
to evidence Engineers Australia’s Stage One, Professional Competencies in order to
qualify for professional accreditation. While a review of these pilot projects was generally favourable, it was found that students did not like ‘new’ assessment practices being
introduced in final year.
The general success of these eportfolio pilot projects resulted in discussions across the
three HEd Engineering schools as to how they could improve their programs, develop reflective practices in Engineering students, satisfy program accreditation standards with
Engineers Australia (EA), and provide students with opportunities and mechanisms to
evidence EA’s graduate attributes. Thus, the decision was made that eportfolios would
be introduced into all Engineering programs across the three schools starting in first
year in the core problem based learning course, Professional Practice 1, and specifically
related to the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) challenge project. This is the first stage
of introducing eportfolios across the program; in 2011, eportfolio use will be extended
into second year; then 2012 into third year, and finally fourth year. Therefore by graduation, students will have developed their eportfolios across their program and use this to
evidence their learning, skills and professional competencies.

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This particular case study looks at the introduction of eportfolios into Professional Practice 1 and the EWB challenge project in SAMME. This is a large student cohort, consisting of approximately 350 students, many of whom are school leavers and are commencing at university, facing all the usual transition issues accompanying the first year
experience.
One of the concerns for SAMME was student transition and supporting the first year
experience. Previously there was no formal school orientation process, relying on the
general university orientation program. Other issues were lack of opportunities for student engagement in reflective practice and building awareness of graduate attributes in
the curriculum, as well innovative ways to assess them.
The challenge
The introduction of eportfolios into a core course in first year is the first step in embedding eportfolios across a program. The challenges are many, but supporting both the
student and staff experience is integral to the successful use of PebblePad in this course
and indeed as the starting point for the program. It was therefore felt that introducing
PebblePad at the beginning of the course would make it purposeful for students and
position eportfolios as both a personal reflective space and one in which students can
evidence their learning and develop their professional skills and graduate attributes.
The approach
Professional Practice 1 is a multidisciplinary, first year core course that introduces students to problem based learning and the EWB challenge project. The course is also a
starting point for exploring and developing EA’s graduate attributes. The course runs for
12 weeks and in SAMME it is delivered in first semester. The course co-ordinator was
especially chosen and, in conjunction with the school’s Director of Learning and Teaching, a hand-picked tutor group of seven people was selected. The importance of the
teaching team was acknowledged as pivotal to the successful introduction of PebblePad
in the course, and thus the program, as this required a fundamental change in assessment practices. This issue was clearly demonstrated in 2009 in the Final Year Thesis
Project pilot, where there was some resistance by teaching team members, especially
older staff, to adopt new assessment practices with the introduction of PebblePad in a
traditional thesis course.
The first change of practice was to trial a new orientation program. SAMME developed a
two day, school-based, orientation program in conjunction with the university wide program that included site visits to other campuses, and included an induction to PebblePad as an organised orientation activity. Secondly, due to the limitations of the traditional
lecture and tutorial system in providing insights into large-class student cohorts, it was
decided to use the form builder in PebblePad to develop an orientation form for the Professional Practice 1 students. Students were asked a range of questions covering areas
such as their interests, their life goals, motivations for wanting to study in their chosen
field, what qualities they think a professional in their chosen field needs to have and how
they will develop these, what they were looking forward to at university, and their understanding of sustainability.

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Two concurrent PebblePad induction sessions were held in computer labs as part of the
orientation program, although not all students had access to a computer because of the
large student cohort. There were specific induction materials written to support students
to log into PebblePad and access the orientation form. The form was set to automatically publish responses to the gateway. This was a hurdle task: students were given approximately 2 weeks to complete the form. Any student who successfully submitted the
orientation form into the Professional Practice 1 gateway received 5%. Additionally, there
was a staff induction session so the teaching team knew how to use PebblePad and the
various functions, e.g. forms, blogs, gateways etc. that would be used.
The Professional Practice course has used PebblePad across a range of assessment
tasks. Students had to complete a Myer Briggs personality test and write a response/
reflection about their personality type. They had to write an action plan using the Action
Plan wizard to identify a professional practice skill they wished to develop based upon
their Myer Briggs profile. Tutors gave feedback on both of these, and students were then
required to write a weekly blog entry reflecting upon how they were progressing against
their action plan, their general skills development, and how they found working in teams
in the EWB challenge project. All of these assessment tasks are directly related to EA’s
graduate attributes and are firmly embedded in PebblePad.
The issues
There were no institutional barriers in this particular case study as this had the support
of the Head of School, the Associate Pro Vice Chancellor (T&L) in the college, and the
directors of Learning & Teaching within the schools. The support of the key stakeholders
has been very important. However, this is just one of three Professional Practice courses,
and this has been successful due in part to the hand-picked teaching team and the willingness of the co-ordinator to embed PebblePad into the curriculum. This will not be the
case in one of the other schools.
The results
The results so far are anecdotal, as the official Course Experience Survey (CES) has not
yet been conducted. The CES will take place in week 11. This has been a deliberate decision to ensure that students have had a chance to adapt to university life, problem based
learning and teaching practices, and working in multidisciplinary project teams. There
will be a question directly related to PebblePad in the survey. However, the absence of
any comments around PebblePad in the staff and student consultative committee meetings has been seen positively as students see PebblePad as the ‘status quo’, unlike in
the fourth year Final Year Thesis Project meetings.
The results from the teaching team have been very positive. They have been able to
actively engage with students in ways that have not been possible before and have been
able to give students targeted and regular feedback. The use of the orientation form gave
the teaching staff great insights into their students, their motivations and how they were
settling into university life. Additionally, they have seen a definite improvement in student
reflective practices and their conceptualisation and evidencing of professional skills. As
a result, the PebblePad question in the CES is directly related to the development of

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professional skills. It will ask: I like the way that PebblePad can help me develop and
demonstrate my professional skills.
The learning
The use of an orientation form allowed the teaching staff to gain good insights into their
student cohort, to monitor student engagement and thus identify potential transition and
first year experience issues. Students will generally adapt to assessment regimes (because they have to). However, this is not always the case with teaching team members.
It is important to have good teaching team members in any change process.
In brief
•
•
•
•

The earlier an eportfolio is introduced into a program, the better the student response will be.
If possible, eportfolios are best located at a program level to allow students to
connect disparate courses into a holistic program and professional career direction.
ePortfolios need to be embedded in the curriculum, purposively used within a
context and be a meaningful experience for students.
Capability development of the teaching teams is important, along with ongoing
support.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/cs30.pdf

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Part Two
§
Student Perspectives

1
Will Varnam
Graduate, War Studies
University of Wolverhampton, UK
During my time as a student at the University of Wolverhampton, I must admit that my
personal experience with PebblePad was limited. When I first began studying four years
ago, I underwent a short, optional introductory training session (given by the school of
Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences) on PebblePad. At the time I thought there
was little or no use for an ‘eportfolio’ in my chosen subject (War Studies) because it was
a fairly traditional ‘pen and paper’ subject. But looking back, I must highlight my own
ignorance. However, I continued to study and did not use PebblePad for the duration of
my degree which was mainly due to the lack of integration with my subject area and there
were few enthusiasts wanting to use an eportfolio. In addition, I did not have enough time
to familiarise myself with PebblePad due to personal study commitments.
I now find myself working for the Institute for Learning Enhancement at the University
of Wolverhampton, which was the first institution of its kind to have a full site license for
PebblePad and also was involved with the pilot projects. Working in such an environment
and being surrounded by elearning, it was much easier to see how I could personally
benefit from using PebblePad. So, I started out with a blog.
Just over a month later I now have almost 40 assets in my store, a blog that I use to track
my progress and aid my research on a daily basis, and even a couple of webfolios. Even
though I’ve only been using PebblePad frequently for several weeks, it’s fair to say that
I’ve become an eportfolio addict, and have never looked back.
So what do I find most useful with PebblePad? Well, it gives me the chance to selectively
record and reflect on significant events and link them with other data from the institution
or my own research. I can also share particular assets with my line manager so she can
track my progress too. PebblePad puts me right in the centre of my PDP and allows me
to work how I want to, when it suits me.
I like how PebblePad puts you in the driving seat, but let’s you do the driving. In my current environment, which is primarily a research one and includes attending a variety of
conferences and HE events, I’m able to keep track of the people I’ve met and the knowledge I’ve gained. Oh, and it’s even easier with the PebblePad iPhone app, which would
have been really useful as a student!
With the introduction of the ‘graduate attributes’ to the new undergraduate curriculum at
Wolverhampton (with digital literacy being at the fore) and the emphasis of employability
in the HE sector, I feel confident that all our students will see the benefits of PebblePad
like I have, because they will recognize the need to distinguish themselves from others
in an increasingly competitive job market. It’s no longer just subject specific knowledge
that students get from a degree, it’s the additional vocational skills too that employers

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want. I believe PebblePad will play a vital role in this process and it’s also a great opportunity for lecturers and academic staff to enhance the modules they teach and howthey
teach them.
1. What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you first started using
PebblePad?
I wish I’d seen the potential of PebblePad whilst studying, in the sense that I would have
been able to collect information relating to my course and use a webfolio to store that
information and in turn collaborate with other students on my course. This would have
made information sharing much easier and convenient for us all.
2. How would you sell the idea of PebblePad to new students?
With the current focus on employability within the HE sector and even the wider economic climate of the country, students are increasingly having to present more than ‘just
a degree’ to potential employers. With rising numbers of people entering HE and going to
university, employers need to see evidence of students going that extra mile to develop
personally and professionally. With PebblePad, students are able to reflect and evaluate
their own PDP and in turn evidence their skills and knowledge that they have gained
whilst studying, to employers. This is a really crucial part of making sure our students
gain employment after they have finished studying and the message needs to be cascaded down from academics into the student body.
3. What advice would you offer to lecturers (or course designers) thinking of using
PebblePad?
PebblePad is an easy way to monitor and keep track of a small or large group of students. For instance, lecturers and academic staff could utilise PebblePad when designing a formative assessment for their students. The lecturer could ask their students to
design a webfolio around a particular topic area which they would contribute to throughout the year. This piece of work wouldn’t have to be graded and could be used to track
engagement and a student’s understanding of the particular subject area. In addition,
PebblePad is an easy way for those staff members who might not be ‘digitally literate’ to
learn how to use technology in a fun and simple way, in order to enhance their students
experience in and outside of the classroom.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/ss01.pdf

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2
Sandra Stewart
ICT in Education
Charles Sturt University, Australia
From the outset my journey with PebblePad has primarily been one of emotions; beginning with frustration, then cautious familiarity and leading to what I believe is the start of
a long and enduring partnership.
Background
I proudly turned 50 in 2009, returning to tertiary study for the first time in 24 years. My
computer skills were above average and I had enjoyed teaching computer to primaryaged students. When introduced to Pebble Pad, I was in my second semester of a
Graduate Certificate in Information Communication Technology Education by distance
at Charles Sturt University. The subject was EMT501 (Educational applications of educational technology).
The group was large, diverse, international, some in their first semester of a graduate
certificate and others in their final semester of a Masters degree. There was an age range
of 30 years, and we came from many different educational backgrounds.
Our second assessment item involved creating an eportfolio to evidence the achievement of our own learning goals. We were able to use any electronic application, but
PebblePad was just being rolled out at CSU as its personal learning system, so that was
given as an option. Reflection on our learning was encouraged.
Initial challenges
My first challenge was just to get my head around the concepts I was being asked to
engage with. What was PebblePad? Wasn’t a portfolio something that an artist, not a
teacher put together? A webfolio, I assumed, was a collection of ‘things’ that was put
together on the web, and reflection meant thoughts that went around in my head when I
had done something wrong and was trying to sort out what had happened. At this stage,
with so many unanswered questions, I was considering pulling out of university and
forgetting further study, but I persevered and, although I could have used other applications, I decided to give PebblePad a try. Little did I know what I’d started…
Meeting my foe
On first logging in, I was overwhelmed. Although I had read about eportfolios and
watched some of the PebblePad videos I was still unsure about the end product. The
task and the tools made me feel inadequate…as if there was just too much to learn. I had
been assured by the subject tutor that PebblePad was quite intuitive, but that was not
happening for this intuitive introvert.

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My next challenge was to conquer new concepts and resources. The CSU resources for
PebblePad were not set up at this stage; had they been available, my journey would have
been easier. One of the problems was that I initially thought that PebblePad was only an
eportfolio tool. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Getting to know each other
I started by uploading some assets. I sought help from both Carole Hunter and the
subject co-ordinator, and had two sessions where I was linked into their computers to
follow what was happening. They also sent me an example webfolio, so I had a better
idea about the final product. It was only then that I finally realised that a webfolio was
one part of PebblePad which I could use to complete the assessment, along with the
support of its other tools.
As it appealed to my creative side, I decided to set up PebblePad to suit myself using the
‘Tools’ menu and going to ‘My Settings’. I experimented with using the blog tool, created
an achievement, an action plan and a thought as well as learning how to personalise
PebblePad and my own webfolio by inserting pictures and designing the format of new
pages. By this stage, I was able to help other students in my course who were also having difficulties with aspects of PebblePad.
As the semester rolled on, I started to realise that I was spending so much time learning
about PebblePad that it was impacting on my other work, so I made learning PebblePad my third learning goal. I think this was one of my main strengths – that I didn’t give
up. I completed my assessment webfolio with a sigh of relief. PebblePad had given me
places to reflect and I was learning to reflect not only on the negative but also on what
I had achieved. In the end, I’d achieved something, but what’s more, I now understood
(and really believe in) PebblePad’s potential to be a powerful personal learning resource.
I have put together a video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-afi6yGKec) in
which I talk a bit more about why I now believe in it so much.
The end (or so I thought...)
Extremely grateful that my journey with PebblePad was over, I fondly said good-bye and
looked forward to a PebblePad-free life. I was yet to realise that PebblePad and I were
merely having a break in our relationship.
For 10 years I had been trying to complete my Certificate IV in Veterinary Nursing, a two
year vocational course. My notes, assignments, workplace records were scattered over
several hard drives and piles of paper on the floor. I started thinking about the possibilities of using PebblePad to organise myself.
I began uploading assets and placed 10 years worth of veterinary nursing theory and
practical experiences into one area. As if by magic, a story was unfolding and, with it, the
realisation of both the amount and quality of the work I had completed.
Initially, this ‘working portfolio’ had an audience of one – me. Yet as I went along, I could
see how much work I had done and that it was an achievable goal to complete my certifi-

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cate this year. I later chose to submit my webfolio via PebblePad to the coordinator of the
vet nursing course so that she could assess my recognition for prior learning. This gave
her a better understanding of my knowledge and skills, as she could see examples of my
work rather than just a list of marks. As a result, my prior learning has been recognised.
For my veterinary nursing, I am now using the Action Plan tool as if for the first time,
perhaps how it is meant to be utilised. I add comments and build on the resources as I
journey towards the goal. I use the activities tool to record my workplace experiences
and I have just been taught how to use an activity log.
PebblePad for me now is a platform for learning and reflection in both my personal and
academic life. It has introduced me to and taught me how to set up an action plan and
SWOT analysis. I use it several times a week for my personal journal, my veterinary nursing, a blog for several animals in my care at our Wildlife Refuge, working portfolios for
my subjects this semester and other ongoing projects. This means I have records of the
various journeys and commitments in my life, and I feel much more organised and on top
of things. I also now know that I can refer back to past events and achievements when
I need to, rather than them becoming lost on a random piece of paper somewhere, or
just in my memory.
Helping others on their journey
I’d like to see teachers and subject co-ordinators using PebblePad more widely than just
as an assessment tool. Students need to use it more widely for managing all aspects of
their learning. It’s also essential that, before introducing PebblePad, the students have
access to information to help them understand the concepts behind webfolios and reflective learning. For some students, this type of learning will be foreign and PebblePad
will not feel natural at first.
First time learners should be guided in some of the essential tools before encouraging
them to ‘play’. It’s tempting to just ‘add on’ PebblePad as an option, and therefore not
provide the same support as if it was compulsory, but that just makes things hard for students. It would have been helpful to have contact with more advanced PebblePad users
to share my efforts for discussion, suggestions and co-operative learning. Unfortunately
only three people in our course shared their final products, and I believe that this was a
lost opportunity for us all. It should be encouraged! I do not know of any other students
that have continued to use PebblePad, but I hope that they do.
The relationship today
I have learned that PebblePad was worth the tears and perseverance, but that with a
better introduction much of the negative emotions could have been avoided. PebblePad
has become part of my life’s journey, and I’m still learning, having barely tapped its potential. Only the other day in passing it was mentioned to me that when you are using a
webpage you want to do things with as few clicks as possible. This was another ‘ding
dong’ moment for me; yes, I was creating a webpage! I currently only use what I have
become comfortable with, but there are other tools that I wish to learn about and make
part of my learning.

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PebblePad gives me a place to reflect. I would love it to give me a few more cues with
the type of questions and thoughts I should try to answer when reflecting. My reflections
have helped me understand how I learn. A big picture can overwhelm me and I need to
chunk it into manageable parts. PebblePad helps me to do this.
Even today, my journey with Pebble Pad is more about feelings than academia. I know
that I have a private place for my records. I have a purpose for being there and the knowledge that it is my choice what I share with others through PebblePad. I see our relationship as ongoing. PebblePad is no longer a foe, my greatest nightmare. It is a friend and,
like all true friendships, my learning and understanding about PebblePad will continue to
grow as I work with its various tools.
Resources
YouTube, 2010. Sandra Stewart - PebblePad interview [Online] (Updated Unknown)
Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-afi6yGKec
[Accessed March 2010].

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/ss02.pdf

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3
Sarah Lewis
Radiography
University of Derby, UK
The PebblePad software was introduced at the start of the 2009 academic year as an effective way of evidencing work and time that students would be spending on placement
within the hospital. An important part of becoming a qualified radiographer is to maintain an accurate account of continuing professional development. This includes training undertaken at University and evidence relating to commitment to ongoing training
programmes, achievements and professional training. My personal experience of using
PebblePad is as follows.
The system was new for me as a first year student but also for the health professionals in
the hospitals across the east midlands. During the first practical use of PebblePad there
were a few teething problems experienced by all. It was clear that training had been offered to health professionals but due to time constraints and limited access to the computers in the departments it was a difficult task to be undertaken. Some of the difficulties
that were experienced included accessing assets received from students, locating the
comments box, and general access to a computer in the department.
To resolve some of these issues I showed the radiographers how to comment and access the comments form but despite my best efforts the sheer volume of work that was
coming through the department made this difficult. To adapt to the hospital’s way of
working I therefore obtained comments and feedback using a paper version that I then
later scanned into PebblePad as a file. Although this isn’t the preferred method of obtaining information it still works as an alternative method. The feedback I have received from
the radiographers who have been using the electronic system has been very positive and
once familiar with the system the majority felt confident in using this with the additional
help that was being provided.
In terms of my own use of PebblePad, after the initial learning introduction I have used
this facility as I would a normal filing system, tagging assets into individual folders to try
and keep myself organised. Two examples are provided below:
Comments & Feedback
Whilst working in the hospital I complete a weekly progress sheet discussing how I feel
that I have improved, things I have learnt and areas that I still need to work on. At the end
of each week I then email this to the supervising radiographer to comment on my performance during the week. This is emailed directly from PebblePad and can be opened as
an attached file, commented upon and then submitted.
Uploading Files
Sometimes it is not possible to email weekly reports to the radiographers as discussed
above and it is therefore more appropriate to complete a paper based copy and upload

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this onto PebblePad. I have used the file upload facility to include competencies, weekly
reports and even department protocols into my web folio. To undertake this I simply
clicked on the upload file facility in PebblePad and then saved the document as an asset
which I can then link into the webfolio.
For some of the course modules it is a requirement to produce a well presented and
evidenced portfolio and I have therefore used the webfolio facility to keep coursework,
referencing and also evidence that I have obtained whilst working on placement. Therefore being able to create thoughts, action plans, blogs and also attach independent files
has made this task much simpler for me to undertake. As a student this storage facility
enables me to effectively organise my completed work, gain feedback from lecturers and
health professionals, and also safely store information for use at a later date.
1. What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you first started using
PebblePad?
How simple and efficient PebblePad is for storing and creating files....
From my own personal experience I have found that an alternative to health professionals having to log onto the system and add comments is to email the document directly
to their email address. This provides a quicker and easier method of returning feedback,
which I can then upload into PebblePad. If I had known this initially it may have made it
easier to explain to the professionals what a good system this is and how simple it can
be to use.
2. How would you sell the idea of PebblePad to new students?
Firstly I would emphasise how it prevents you from losing any loose pieces of paper, and
how effectively work can be managed and maintained using online folders. You can keep
track of your study progress, store completed essays for reference to at a later date and
also use action plans to help you focus on developing your skills. I would also explain
how important this facility is for health students as a way of maintaining a compulsory
portfolio of evidence upon graduation and the ease with which this can be maintained
using PebblePad.
3. What advice would you offer to lecturers (or course designers) thinking of using
PebblePad?
This facility can make submission of essays simpler for your students to do and you to
access. Marking can be completed online and you can provide more in-depth feedback
to your students without necessarily meeting up to discuss this in person.
Have a play with the facility and see what it can offer. Familiarise yourself with the system
and talk to the makers of this to see if there is more scope to improve and develop the
facility to meet your personal needs. I have already used this with great effect and I am
sure that there is still a great deal more that I can use this system for whether it is to store,
use templates or create documents.

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To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/ss03.pdf

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4
Claire Fellows
Applied Psychology and Sociology
University of Surrey, UK
PebblePad has been a key part of my life now for 9 months. I am currently on placement
and have found it to be an invaluable tool.
I have made a webfolio specifically about my placement and created pages that illustrate my different projects. I regularly update specific blogs about the work I am doing,
the things I am learning and how I am developing. Tagging my thoughts has proved extremely helpful! I recently wrote an interim placement report outlining what I have learnt
so far; this could not have been easier! All I had to do was skim through the thoughts I
had tagged and then had an endless list of skills and abilities but also specific examples
I could refer back to! This will be a life-saver when it comes to the next CV or application
form I write!
I also use PebblePad to store examples of the work I have actually produced. At the start
of my placement I designed a flyer advertising an event the organisation was holding,
which I uploaded to have access to at a later stage. I recently compared it to a current
design. The difference was quite astounding! A key example of how much I have developed throughout the placement so far, yet without having a resource such as PebblePad,
this important realisation would have been lost. I would not have had a record of my past
work or skills and so would not be able to make a comparison to my current situation.
The things that I now take for granted as common procedures were not originally as obvious to me but this would have been long forgotten!
Having granted my manager access to my webfolio, we use PebblePad as a mentoring
tool. She keeps updated and makes comments to aid deeper reflection. Sometimes it
takes others to point things out for you, so this ensures I am not missing anything important!
As I have found PebblePad so useful in my professional life, I have also started to branch
out to use it in my personal development, keeping a record of all the activities and experiences I have outside of my placement.
PebblePad has so far been useful mainly as a record of my achievements and as a tool to
be able to reflect upon them. However, I am gradually becoming more experimental and
am finding new things I can do with it! For example, making action plans! This is something I want to be able to do but would not know where to start! Having the capacity to
make one through the series of stages is a learning resource in itself. I am sure that when
I have made a few I will feel confident in making them more frequently and will then have
the resources to enhance weaker areas that I want to develop.
Overall PebblePad is making me more employable as I am developing both personally

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and professionally and I am sure there are other ways it can help me which I am yet to
discover!
1. What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you first started using
PebblePad?
I wish that when I first started using PebblePad I knew just how much I could do with it.
I was only introduced to making webfolios and blogs but I have since found out about
making CVs and action plans, and the functionality of gateways. Having known about
this earlier, I would have been able to make better use of it as a development tool.
2. How would you sell the idea of PebblePad to new students?
If I were to try selling the idea of PebblePad to new students I would focus on the benefits
to their personal development and therefore also their long term career progression. I
would discuss how they can keep a record of the experiences they are having, document
their learning and plan for how they can make improvements. They will not only have a
record of what they have achieved, but also be more equipped to apply for jobs through
the wealth of experiences and skills they can write about on their application forms and
their CV.
3. What advice would you offer to lecturers (or course designers) thinking of using
PebblePad?
I would advise lecturers (or course designers) who are thinking of using PebblePad to
take the time to explain the benefits to their students. For it to be really effective students need to feel the value of using it and have ownership over what they are creating.
If lecturers can successfully convince their students of how useful it can be as a personal
development tool and aid them in their applications for jobs later on they will be more
likely to invest the time in making the most of it, rather than if they are forced to use it as
part of their course. In the long term students need to have the motivation to continue
using it, which they will not have if they see it as just a part of their course requirement!

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/ss04.pdf

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5
Claudia Herfert
Germanistik
University of Potsdam, Germany
My name is Claudia Herfert and I am 27 years old. I am a Student at the University
of Potsdam in Germany. My studies are in Germanistik (German) and Erziehungswissenschaft (Educational Science). This year I am writing my thesis about eportfolios to
become a Bachelor of Erziehungswissenschaft. So, to learn more about eportfolios is a
very personal interest for me.
I heard about PebblePad first at the University. It was an element of a project the Student Developers Group (SDG) started. We wanted to learn more about eportfolios and
its potential for learning processes at the university. The SDG was looking for different
eportfolio software to learn more about the differences between them and how to use
them as an element of seminars and courses. In this way we heard about PebblePad.
After exploring different eportfolio software solutions like MOSEP and Mahara, we determined that PebblePad is the Software which satisfies our needs best. But we also had
to recognize that PebblePad only existed in an English version. So the first step for us to
plan a course with PebblePad has been to translate it. So my first year with PebblePad
was a year of translations. We sat together and had many discussions about what would
be the best translation and we learned a lot about the difficulties of finding the right German words for the little spaces the English words left behind. But we made it and now
there is a German version of PebblePad available. Obviously it should be refined upon.
When the translation was completed, we started to create a seminar about planning
and organizing our studies using eportfolios. We used the form builder in PebblePad to
create a study book. In this study book the students can compile notes for the different
seminars and courses they attend. They also can attach evidence for the seminars and
courses in this book. This element was chosen to train ‘organizing competencies’.
Another element of the seminar is to let the students write protocols of some of their
courses by using the reflective journal in PebblePad. This element was chosen to train
‘planning competencies’. We believe that reflecting on the content of a seminar offers
you new interests and gives you ideas for further courses or themes. For this element
they have to write down the important facts of the weekly lesson, and they have to try to
reflect upon the content of the lesson. We realized that for many students the reflection
is very new and exciting, but also difficult. And how we solved this problem and what
happened besides, I would like to tell later on…
Finally I would like to tell you about my personal use of PebblePad. At the moment I am
trying to write my Bachelor thesis with PebblePad, because it is the best place for me
to get everything together. It is my personal working space. I can collect all my interim
results and I can see all my steps of thinking.

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For me the action plan is a great tool to start working. I can use it everywhere I am, and
not only at my own PC. So it makes learning and working easier for me. The only problem
that I have is that my lecturers do not use PebblePad, so I have to export my files to show
them. But I hope that in the future working with eportfolios and working with PebblePad
will have a bigger role at the German universities.
That was my short abstract about experiences with PebblePad. I hope it was interesting for you and you would like to know more about using PebblePad at the University
of Potsdam. In April our seminar starts for the fourth time, so there is much more to tell.
1. What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you first started using
PebblePad?
My only wish was to know the programme much earlier. When I first recognised the
existence of PebblePad my studies were almost over. But I did not have any problems
using it.
2. How would you sell the idea of PebblePad to new students?
I would tell them that PebblePad is an all-round talent. You can collect all your personal
and institutional documents there. And you are also able to share your ideas and documents with all other users, if you like.
But the best point is the wonderful choice of tools. With these tools you can create nearly
every document you need, like an action plan or your personal CV. So, with PebblePad
you get a new way of learning, which is more concerned with the process than just the
results of learning.
3. What advice would you offer to lecturers (or course designers) thinking of using
PebblePad?
PebblePad is a wonderful programme to create courses in every kind of theme except
mathematics. You can use it for all items of your course. With PebblePad it is possible to
let the students work on their own or in groups. You can create different kinds of forms
for your students and you can communicate with them very easily.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/ss05.pdf

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6
Katie Archer
Radiography
University of Derby, UK
As a first year radiography student, I was introduced to PebblePad at the beginning of
our course in September. The aim was to use it as a tool to produce eportfolios that can
also be used to chart our learning curve over the next three years and also to base our
CPD around it throughout our careers.
We have been using the eportfolio to document our time at the different hospitals that
we are on placement at, as we are away from the university for long stretches of time.
We use a variety of forms that have been created for us by the lecturers and these allow
us to reflect on activities that we have seen in the departments. I also use the blog tool
to inform my personal tutor about how my week has progressed and if there have been
any issues.
Rather interestingly, as students we have been able to teach the staff at the hospitals
how to use PebblePad and I am a ‘Pebble Mentor’ for our course, which means I can
offer help to the staff as well as the students if they are struggling. We send the staff
weekly forms that they can verify for us, to show our tutors that we have been engaging in clinical practice. As the clinical staff were not initially very keen to move over to a
computer based system of assessing us, occasionally we have seen some difficulties
with attitudes and also the system itself, which made some of them even more reluctant.
Many of the forms were not working because there was no email link or others were just
not able to find the speech bubble to comment on the work. However, I have slowly seen
the attitudes change towards it, especially when I take the time to sit with them and show
them how to use it.
The staff are now really beginning to embrace PebblePad which will help future students
and some are willing to even purchase their own accounts so that they can use it for
personal and professional use also. I am personally very proud that out of my placement
group I am the only one who has managed to have all my competencies so far done on
PebblePad rather than paper based, which I feel is testament to the effort I have put in
with the clinical staff.
1. What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you first started using
PebblePad?
If I had known to tag all my assets at the beginning I would have found forms a lot easier
to recover when creating webfolios. I wish that I had also known how to use the different
ways to send my forms to non-PebblePad users, which would have made my time on
placement easier from the beginning.

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2. How would you sell the idea of PebblePad to new students?
I also find PebblePad useful for personal purposes as it allows me to share any pictures
or documents with other students and to be used as a tool for my Personal Development
Planning. I regularly forward my Action Plans to the other students, and they send theirs
to me. I feel we have created our own ‘community atmosphere’ with the use of PebblePad and it is a brilliant platform for sharing work to over 35 of my classmates. If I were
to sell the idea to new students, I would tell them that it is a really useful platform for not
only sharing any work that they produce but it can also be used for personal issues and
ideas, by using the blogging tools especially.
3. What advice would you offer to lecturers (or course designers) thinking of using
PebblePad?
If I were to offer the lecturers any advice, it would be to ensure that people don’t initially
believe it is going to be easy. I believe students often revel in a challenge and therefore
when they are told it is easy and they don’t understand it, they feel stupid. I would also
encourage lecturers to begin using it with students as soon as possible and enforce it
because they need time to adapt to new ways of sharing and presenting work.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/ss06.pdf

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7
Ann Marie Killeen
Psychology
University of Wolverhampton, UK
My introduction to PebblePad was as a task to be completed as part of my first year in
university. PebblePad was presented at a lecture as a tool to aid my study experience.
Specifically the task was to complete an action plan, self rating different skills and identifying areas for development. This action plan was then submitted via the university
gateway and feedback was provided on the quality of the plan. Completion of this task
was mandatory and a deadline and workshop were provided.
On completion of the task I found myself returning to PebblePad to explore further. For
me the idea of having an easy to access, non-paper based area to dedicate to my journey through university really appealed. It was like having a personal diary but for university and I could pick and choose what I wanted to add, record and share. The assets I
use most are the thoughts, experiences, achievements and my original action plan from
way back in 2007.
The pace of learning at university is so fast, so many new ideas and theories are revealed
in just one lecture alone, that you can forget the train of thoughts triggered by new information. I usually log on to PebblePad at the end of my university day, before I hit the
hectic journey home, and record thoughts. I set reminders and deadlines to keep me on
track of any actions from the recorded thoughts. This works especially well for areas I
want to research and read up on that may be outside the core material of the course.
The volume of assignments and constant deadlines also drive the pace of student life
and sometimes you’re performing activities which you may never have heard of before,
for example, carrying out a discursive analysis of a conversation. Once the project is
completed and submitted you move on to the next assignment and discursive analysis is
a distant memory. I like to use the experiences and achievements assets to capture what
I’ve been doing, not in detail but as a prompt for later recording. Its important to me that
on completion of my degree I have a record of my experiences and achievements – not
just for CV purposes but also for personal satisfaction.
1. What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you first started using
PebblePad?
•
•
•

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The limited time for reflection on new learning due to the pace and volume of
work.
The competitiveness of and limited positions within the market post degree and
therefore the need to capture experiences and achievements in real time to use in
interviews and job applications later.
Its simplicity of use.

•

Its flexibility – you don’t have to use it in a set way, you can use it to suit yourself –
for example an asset can be what you want it to be irrelevant of the naming in the
software. So an experience asset can become a record over time of a developing
skill, or a thought can become a research lead etc.

2. How would you sell the idea of PebblePad to new students?
More emphasis on benefits that are tangible/real life. Using the interview after university
example, PebblePad puts you in a strong position to handle questions such as: What
are your most memorable experiences (academic, obviously!) and in what way does that
experience make you more employable than another student? Tell me about your top
three achievements and in what way they are important to you? What skills have you
gained and which did you enjoy most? What difference did you find in your approach to
study year one compared to year three?
3. What advice would you offer to lecturers (or course designers) thinking of using
PebblePad?
Integrate the software as a tool or thread that runs over the course of the degree and is
part of the process of either submission of work, communication with staff or connected
to specific tasks. My experience was one of an isolated piece of software and as enthusiastic as I am, my use of the functions available is limited.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/ss07.pdf

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8
Benash Nazmeen
Midwifery
University of Bradford, UK
My name is Benash Nazmeen and I am a 2nd year student midwife at the University of
Bradford. Our midwifery course at Bradford University has often been called “Do it yourself midwifery” by staff and students because it is like “being thrown into the deep end
of the water when you don’t know how to swim.”
PebblePad is used in my course a lot because it is the basis for a module that we have
to be graded on called Life Long Learning. In this module we have to update action
plans, thoughts, and peer reviews to show our personal and professional development
throughout the year. My Module Leader for PebblePad remembers me for describing
PebblePad as a “weight that has been tied around my ankle”. Now if you imagine me
“being thrown in the deep end of the water at the local swimming pool, without a single
clue about how to swim and this weight tied to my ankle” you might just be able to visualise my scenario. This was my first year!!!
However, I’m happy to say that I am now in my second year and I have made PebblePad
my own. I have edited my homepage and also any action plans and webfolios, and so
now I want to visit it and want to return to it to add more stuff and update. This year I have
done the “compulsory stuff” needed that has been specified in my module brief (like last
year) and lots more (unlike last year).
Whereas before I was scared of using different assets, now I like to challenge myself. I
have made a blog for my Problem Based Learning peer assessment and add to it regularly. I have also learnt how to add my own peer reviews by my other group members.
I now use PebblePad to communicate with my classmates and share work and have
them comment on it, thereby improving my quality of work. Recently I have had to set
up an action plan for my debate group at university and this was a great success. I gave
everyone collaboration rights and we all edited our individual areas and managed to read
everyone’s work before our meeting - and may I say my group won our debate!!
PebblePad, when used appropriately, allows one to plan ahead, form action plans and
set goals. It also allows you to give yourself deadlines and reminds you of them, thus improving the quality of your work and your own time management. Now I can say that the
very Module Leader who remembers me for describing PebblePad as a “weight that has
been tied around my ankle” has now used me twice to demonstrate PebblePad and its
assets to the first years and also during the new cohort interviews. I have learnt a lot from
PebblePad and am now using it to “float in the water” rather than let it weigh me down.

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1. What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you first started using
PebblePad?
That I could share, copy, and even collaborate on my work on PebblePad with others.
2. How would you sell the idea of PebblePad to new students?
I would outline how, if used appropriately, it can improve time management and help
develop the IT skills of each individual.
3. What advice would you offer to lecturers (or course designers) thinking of using
PebblePad?
Give yourself an hour, maybe two, but enough time to fiddle around with it. I would suggest you go through and open each individual asset and see how it works and what you
can use it for, and also definitely edit your homepage so that you feel welcome each time
you open your PebblePad. If you’re confused or unsure click on the Help question mark
which is very useful.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/ss08.pdf

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9
Lucy Cave
Pedagogical Research
Aston University, UK
How and why I use PebblePad, including its limitations and benefits
I am currently in my second year of a part-time PhD in Pedagogical Research into Plagiarism. As my PhD needs to fit around a full-time job as a researcher at Aston University, it
is important for me to organise my PhD work easily and efficiently. For a research student
like myself, PebblePad is a helpful tool for recording my thoughts and reflections, and
more practically it provides a record of meetings and the work that needs to be done.
Initially, my use of PebblePad was similar to that of a diary or reflective journal in which I
would record my thoughts at the time of writing. Wherever I was or whatever I was thinking about my research, I would be able to write it up in PebblePad instantaneously. The
nature of my full-time job allows me to ‘dip in and out’ of PebblePad in the office or whilst
working remotely. This ease of access is a distinct advantage over my previous way of
working, such as in Word. With PebblePad, I can access my research ideas wherever I
go without worrying about saving my work to USB. In addition, as a part-time student
it is reassuring for me to know that I can use my time efficiently as and when I find the
opportunity.
One concern of mine as a research student is to know when to stop reading and having
the discipline to stay focused. With my references and thoughts recorded in PebblePad,
I feel confident that I can return to a point of reference at a later date and it will not get
lost in a file full of paperwork. My diary style entries also illustrate the chronology of my
thoughts and the development of my research ideas. As I am beginning to write up my
literature review, PebblePad has provided an invaluable record of the mental thought
process of my research over the last year. Similarly, PebblePad has provided a visual
representation of my research activity over the last year, giving me an indication of when
I have been, and when I am most likely to be productive in my work.
PebblePad also provides me with a portfolio of my writing and smaller scale literature
reviews. Whilst I do not use PebblePad as the sole means to record my notes from the
literature, I do use it when writing useful summaries of the key points of my literature
review. Further, this compliments my own personal electronic bibliographic database.
In the future, research students like myself would find an application such as a bibliographic plug-in useful just as it is currently possible to plug-in to Word files.
PebblePad is currently my only method of recording the minutes from my research supervisions. As yet, I have not shared this information with my supervisors but should
this become a requirement of the supervisory process, I feel confident I can access this
information retrospectively. Moving forward, I intend to link my assets to create a summary of my research over the last year.

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1. What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you first started using
PebblePad?
I now know how to link my ‘thoughts’ together using the webfolio tool. When I first
started using PebblePad I taught myself how to use it but I did not link my separate
thoughts into a webfolio. I have a great number of stand-alone assets but I would have
liked some more guidance on how to link these together or examples of how other research students have done this.
2. How would you sell the idea of PebblePad to new students?
I would strongly recommend they use PebblePad as a tool for reflection and providing a
chronology of their research ideas. By starting early, it makes the writing up stage a lot
easier and far less daunting.
3. What advice would you offer to lecturers (or course designers) thinking of using
PebblePad?
Encourage research students to use PebblePad from the start of their degree. PebblePad has been extremely valuable in illustrating my thought process, this is something
which is not done so easily in retrospect.

To view this case study in an electronic format please visit this link:
www.pebblepad.co.uk/pp2010/ss09.pdf

163

Index
A
accreditation VI, 4, 25, 26, 33, 34, 44, 46, 101, 102achievement VI, 10, 17, 18, 19, 21,
33, 44, 53, 67, 68, 70, 73, 75, 91, 92, 93, 102, 120
Archer, Katie 156
Ardron, Kevin 12
assessment VI, VII, 4, 5, 6, 9, 14, 17, 18, 20, 21, 25, 27, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 44, 46, 47,
48, 49, 50, 54, 58, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 77, 78, 82, 86, 87, 88,
89, 90, 92, 95, 96, 101, 102, 105, 106, 110, 111, 115, 116, 118, 119, 123, 144,
145, 146, 147, 160
asset 6, 41, 50, 61, 64, 99, 113, 150, 159, 161
Association for Information Technology in Teacher Education 13
Aston University 162
Austin, Lilian 8
B
Becta 13, 94
Bird, Helen 91
Blackboard 12, 46, 72, 74
Blended Learning 5, 23, 39, 40, 42, 63, 64, 67, 68, 70
Blog 6, 10, 41, 46, 59, 64, 65, 82, 83, 97, 99, 143, 160
Botterill, Meaghan 135
British Educational Communications and Technology Agency 13
Bylo, Claire 118
C
Cave, Lucy 162
Challen, Rachel 39
Charles Sturt University 48, 58, 145
Chesney, Sarah 44
Chmielewski, Robert 80
Clarke, Ian 76
Clark, Libby 58
Co-generative Toolkit [Co-genT] 25, 26
collaborative 5, 64, 65, 69
Communication 36, 58
Coventry University 67
Continuing Professional Development [CPD] 4, 21, 25, 46, 53, 68, 91, 93
Currant, Neil 17
curriculum 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 33, 64, 77, 90, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106,
143

165

D
Doolan, Lyn 8
E
Early Professional Development [EPD] 52, 53, 54, 55
Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory 26, 28
Elgg 131
Employer-based Training Accreditation 25
F
Facebook 72, 84
Fairchild, Timothy 110
Faulkner, Margaret 33
Felce, Alison 3
Fellows, Claire 152
Firewall 107, 109
Flickr 87
Flinders University 34, 101
Flourish 44, 45
Framework for Higher Education Qualifications 25, 27
G
gateway 6, 19, 40, 41, 60, 64, 84, 87, 88, 89, 98, 110, 111, 113, 120
Graduate Diploma of Education 9
Gravestock, Phil 25
H
Haigh, Jackie 17
Hardham, Greg 58
HEFCE 45, 73
Hemani, Ashish 106
Herfert, Claudia 154
Higher Education Academy 3, 68, 73
Higher Education Funding Council for England 45, 73
Holmes, Debbie 21
HRXML 106
I
Imperial College London 106
Initial Teacher Education V, 12, 52
iPhone 143
ITTE 13

166

J
Jenkins, Martin 25
JISC 3, 4, 14, 15, 25, 44, 45, 54
Jones, Geraldine 95
Jones, Scott 118
L
La Trobe University V, 8, 11
LEAP2A 106
Lewis, Sarah 149
Lifelong Learning 25, 26, 28
M
Mahara 74, 154
Masters, Jenny 8
McNair, Dr Victor 52
Meredith, Christina 122
Microsoft 45, 78, 112
Midwifery 17, 19, 21, 34, 160
mobile 18, 19, 76, 94, 120
Moodle 33
Munday, Jenni 126
Murdoch University 110
MySpace 84
N
Nazmeen, Benash 160
NHS 19, 107, 109
Norrington, Peter 30
Northumbria University 12, 72
Nursing and Midwifery Council 17, 21
O
Ofsted 92, 93
outcome 9, 10, 18, 19, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 30, 33, 37, 51, 52, 53, 56, 67, 69, 70, 73, 76,
78, 100, 102, 104, 105, 117, 120, 121
Owen, Harry 101
Oxford Brookes University 122
P
PDA 92, 93
PebbleTray 87

167

pedagogy V, 3, 4, 5, 22, 35, 37, 88, 90
Pedagogy V, 3
Personal Development Planning [PDP] VII, 20, 30, 31, 54, 68, 73, 75, 82, 83, 95, 115,
116, 118, 122, 123, 124, 125, 143, 144, 157
personal learning system 44, 46, 48, 50, 145
PgCert 70
Poole, Trisha 48
Purnell, Emma V, 3
Q
QTS 12, 13, 14, 86, 91, 94, 95, 96, 98
Qualified Teacher Status 12, 16, 86, 91, 93, 94, 95, 100
R
reflection VI, 5, 8, 18, 19, 20, 22, 27, 36, 52, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 63, 65, 76, 78, 81, 83,
86, 88, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 103, 106, 107, 116, 125, 145, 147, 152, 154, 158
RMIT University 34, 135
RSS 97
S
Savage, Moira 86
Skills 54, 71, 101, 105
Sterne, Helen 115
Stewart, Gillian 52
Stewart, Sandra 145
summative assessment 4, 6, 9, 67, 68, 70, 86, 92, 95, 118
Sutherland, Shane V
SWOT Analysis 69
T
TDA 12, 13, 87, 88, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 100
Teacher Development Agency 95
Te-PNI 52, 53, 54, 56
Tilbrook, Rhondda 110
TotoTroconis, Maria 106
Towers, Paul 63
U
undergraduate 8, 9, 12, 14, 17, 33, 34, 36, 64, 67, 76, 106, 107, 115, 123, 124, 143
University College Birmingham 91
University of Bath 95
University of Bedfordshire 30
University of Bradford 17

168

University of Cumbria 44, 46
University of Derby 118, 149, 156
University of Edinburgh 80
University of Gloucestershire 25, 26
University of South Australia 33, 37, 76
University of Surrey 115
University of Ulster 52
University of Winchester 25
University of Wolverhampton IV, 3, 21, 39, 63, 143, 158
University of Worcester VI, 25, 86
V
Varnam, Will 143
VLE 46, 73, 85, 92
W
Web 2.0 50, 95, 97, 98, 130
Weber, Delene 76
webfolio VI, 6, 35, 40, 42, 46, 48, 49, 51, 59, 60, 61, 84, 86, 87, 92, 97, 110, 111, 112,
113, 115, 116, 124, 145, 146, 150, 152, 156
White, Alan 72
Wilson, Louise 67
work-based learning 5, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28, 76
workshop 9, 49, 97, 113, 123
Y
YouTube 6, 80, 87, 108, 112, 148

169