Hello, and welcome to the PebblePad ePortfolio System
Your first question might be “What is an ePortfolio?” There are different kinds of eportfolios but the PebblePad ePortfolio is, simply, an evidence-based web-publishing system. What this means is that you can publish things to other people across the internet. We often refer to the things you publish as ‘stories’ - they are stories of your learning. Some of these stories will be very formal because they are written for assessment. Some stories will be written to employers or recruiters. Other stories may be very personal and may relate to your hobbies or interests. The stories you publish will normally tell others something about your skills, abilities, experiences or ideas and these will always be more powerful when you add some evidence to back-up your claims. The evidence you use will normally be stored in your eportfolio and you will make links to it in the stories you write.
So, PebblePad allows you to record evidence which can be used on its own or linked together in more complex stories. Everything you record in your eportfolio is private and secure; no one else can see it. You can choose to share things in your eportfolio with other people and you can decide how long they can see it for and what they are able to do with what you share. The ePortfolio Code of Conduct explains what is acceptable material for publishing or sharing through the eportfolio and can be viewed from the links on the bottom of every asset you share – anything you store in your eportfolio is called an asset.
Once you have created items you can share them with others, you can link them together or print them. If your ideas change you can return to any of your assets to edit them. Alternatively, if you want to keep track of how your ideas have developed you can add reviews to assets.
I have written this WebFolio as an example of a particular kind of ‘story’ that can be created within this ePortfolio System; a concept that is worthy of further explanation. This ePortfolio System is a tool which allows, indeed encourages, users to plan for, reflect on and celebrate learning – however and wherever that learning takes place. Importantly the learner is at the centre of, and in control of their own eportfolio space. Increasingly, in the light of my work with learners in schools. Colleges, HE and CPD I am coming to think of PebblePad not as an ePortfolio System but as a Personal Learning Space.
The next page contains some example assets.
One of the processes common to most PDP or CPD regimes is planning. As with all of the record types in PebblePad the Action Plan tool provides a loosely scaffolded, wizard-like form that leads the user through the process of creating a record. I have written this example as a plan for an introductory teaching session with PebblePad.
This Meeting record is intended to represent the kind of record that a learner might make after meeting with a careers adviser. Often the adviser or tutor would record meetings such as these, mainly as a QA or audit activity, but where’s the learning in that for the student?
We used the term Thoughts instead of Reflections for two main reasons. The first was that thoughts is a less 'loaded' term that reflections and reflections often implies retrospection whereas thoughts allowed for recording 'forward thinking'. The second reason is that reflection is prompted throughout all of the records either explicitly or simply through the implicit structure of the records. This first example is a structured thought, that is it is written following the 4-stage record. The second example is a simple open thought - the type more often used for journal or blog entries.
This example is included for a number of reasons. One is that it was created by someone at school (not a university user); it records something that they believe to be a personal ability (rather than something they are recording as part of a structured activity); and it has two files attached as evidence. So, here's Greg's fishing ability
The final record added as an example is an achievement, in this case a reflection on the success of passing exams. Obviously users can add any sort of nonsense to their eportfolio and assets will vary in their credibility or authenticity. Some records will always be authentic because they arrive straight from another system into the eportfolio asset store and are not editable by the user. Other are self-penned and increase in credibility if they have other forms of substantiating evidence such as attached files or comments from a significant other.
We now have some considerable experience of getting people started with PebblePad in face-to-face situations but we have continued to struggle to help people who just want to browse a demo account. The problem that browsers face is that PebblePad doesn't demand anything of them; it doesn't work you through a 'building your portfolio' wizard. You have to enter the system with a purpose, whether that is to write an action plan, upload some scanned certificates or start 'storying' your experiences in a webfolio. I would suggest that you think about what you want to do and then go and see how to do it in PebblePad.
To help get you started I have created some very quick video tutorials. The first video explains how to create a record, how to save it, find it again and edit it. The second demonstrates how you can quickly and easily create a webfolio and make email, web and asset links. The third video shows you how to share an asset with other people and how to publish it to a gateway. There are lots of other tipsheets and help movies on the website but these three videos should give you a very quick start. If you start using PebblePad in your instituion we'll share all of the source videos and tipsheets with you so that you can easily customise them for your own users.
More Resources
I have used this page to offer a few resources that colleagues might find helpful. The first is actually a link to the work-in-progress of my very enthusiastic colleague Julie Hughes who is likely to ePort herself into an early grave such is the effort, enthusiasm and energy she is committing to the eportfolio revolution. Contact Julie for further information about her work and the work of her students.
Here is a very short paper I wrote about how ePortfolios were becoming personal spaces for learning. This is a short paper that describes the design of PebblePad and this is the accompanying presentation.
You have probably accessed this WebFolio through your PebblePad account which itself is accessed from the PebblePad home page. If so you’ll already know about the sample movies available here.
I hope you’ve found this interesting and helpful. It is now part of your personal asset store and you can decide whether to keep all or part of it. You can add to it or duplicate it and customise different versions. Or, you could be really adventurous and start writing your own story.
I’d really like to hear some feedback from you so please feel free to email me.
You have been commissioned to create a website for a small business. This will involve you planning and managing the project; meeting clients, researching hosting options and finding the right look and feel for the website.
In addition to developing the website you must demonstrate your project management methodology using the PebblePad ePortfolio system.
Within this WebFolio are pages where you will add your project work and show your planning.
All the initial information you need to get started is in the design brief which is attached here.
Managing your Project - Project Startup
There are four phases to managing your project work with the initial phase being the Project Setup. In this phase you need to evaluate your initial ideas and analyse their appropriateness, feasibility and any issues relating to the practical issues required to achieve your goals.
Use this template to add your own details on each of the areas below.
Justification
Outline the justification for the project, why is it worth doing, what are the benefits.
type your project justification details here
Defining the project
Highlight the main deliverable from the project by developing a rough work plan highlighting:
Do not go into too much detail at this stage, you are only trying to identify issues, more detail can be added at a later stage.
type details for your project here
Delivery Planning
Good delivery planning is vital for a successful project. This is the Phase when you will add much more detail to your project plan. It is a good idea to use some of the facilities in PabblePad to help you with your planning. For example you can record meetings, build action plans and store your ideas using the thoughts facility.
You should include
Use records of meetings to support your plans. You can also upload other files such a Gnatt charts, financial forecasts or any other files to help support your delivery plan.
Closedown and Review
The final phase is closedown and review here you will highlight detailsof any testing, obtaining customer acceptance and creating a final report.
Your final report should include a review of what went well on the project and what did not go so well. What are your recommendations for future work etc.
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This brief WebFolio supplements the paper I gave at ALT-C on the 06 September. The session was called ePortfolios: a personal space for learning and was a follow up to this short paper that I contributed to the Sara de Freitas and Chirs Yapp book 'Personalizing Learning in the 21st Century' published by Network Press
These are the slides I used during the presentation and here are the links to the various sources I used:
An Interview with Professor David Hargreaves by Futurelab
Jeremy Hiebert's Personal Learning Environment Model
Graham Atwell's take on Personal Learning Environments
and Mark Johnson's PLE report from the Plex work at Bolton
If you'd like any further info about PebblePad or its uses contact me at sams@wlv.ac.uk or take a look at the eportfolio pages at either the University of Wolverhampton or at PebblePad
This brief WebFolio supplements the paper I gave at ALT-C on the 06 September. The session was called ePortfolios: a personal space for learning and was a follow up to this short paper that I contributed to the Sara de Freitas and Chirs Yapp book 'Personalizing Learning in the 21st Century' published by Network Press
These are the slides I used during the presentation and here are the links to the various sources I used:
Hi I'm Shane from the University of Wolverhampton where I am studying fine art. One of the areas I need to develop is my essay writing particularly my spelling and grammar. Here is an action plan I have written to help me improve these skills.