Many courses will create custom workbooks for you to complete; either for assessment, or to help you structure your learning and development.
You can also create your own workbook for personal projects or to help you gather your own thoughts, reflections and evidence on your learning journey.
A workbook is usually a collection of worksheets, but may also contain Activity Logs, Collections and Blog sections. You cannot edit the layout of your workbook (ie re-order sections or accidentally delete whole tabs).
The key feature of worksheets is that they are heavily structured – there are clear fields (text boxes, tick boxes, date pickers etc) for you to type into, and many will have sections where you're asked to attach supporting evidence.
They may also contain fields that academic or practice-based staff need to complete for you. These are called 'assessor fields' and can't be completed by students.
You may find that staff don't refer to your workbook as 'a workbook.' They may even refer to it as 'a portfolio'. This is especially the case when your workbook is being used to gather evidence of meeting professional standards on placement or practice-based routes. In these cases, you're more likely to hear an industry-specific name, which will vary depending on your course. This name will have been in use long before platforms like PebblePad became available when practice-based assessments were still completed on paper.
Some examples include:
- MYEPAD (Midlands Yorkshire and East Practice Assessment Document)
- PAD (Practice Assessment Document)
- MORA (Midwifery Ongoing Record of Achievement)
- CAP (Clincial Assessment Portfolio)
You can tell if the asset you're working on is a workbook by looking at the symbol that appears next to it in your Asset Store.
PebblePad workbooks have a square, orange icon containing the letters 'WK' in white.
Further guidance on workbooks can be found in the PebblePad help pages.
Additional support
If you're still unsure and need further support, please email PebbleHelp@shu.ac.uk or call our 24hr IT Service Desk on 0114 225 3333.