Pobble

London, United Kingdom

Want to make writing exciting?

Pobble makes writing ridiculously exciting. Its global community motivates children to write, by turning every pupil into a published author.

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HundrED 2018

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Overview

HundrED has selected this innovation to

HundrED 2018

Web presence

2013

Established

-

Children/users

10

Countries

Updated

September 2017

Using Pobble has been one of the most exciting things I have done in teaching, and has truly captured the attention of my class.

About the innovation

What is Pobble?

Teachers are under constant pressure to deliver high quality education that can be evidenced.

Teachers spend a lot of time and energy finding suitable literacy resources, and creating engaging lesson plans. What's more, it can be challenging to motivate children to produce high quality pieces of writing if they don’t see the task has a clear and inspiring purpose. And, finally, in creative subjects such as writing, it can be difficult to measure success.

Since 2013, Pobble has sought to improve global literacy by working to inspire writing and save teachers time. Pobble began as a teacher-led initiative with the philosophy that learning should be exciting and teachers should be freed from unnecessary admin. Pobble empowers them to spend more time facilitating learning in the classroom.

Using Pobble, teachers have access to great teaching resources, combined with writing samples to demonstrate to students what amazing writing looks like. In the lesson, pupils engage with the work of peers around the world for inspiration and to provide constructive peer to peer critique. Teachers upload each student’s written work to Pobble, where it can be shared securely with parents, friends and even other students around the world.

This motivates and excites children by giving them a purpose to write and an audience for their work. Pobble provides an opportunity to deepen understanding, refine skills and boost confidence. In the process, the online platform enables teachers to build an evidence bank for each pupil, enabling them to assess and moderate collaboratively.

Pobble provides a school support package which includes the development of a school action plan, staff training, assemblies, and writing and commenting workshops for students. This additional support provides the additional assurance that envisioned results will be realised.

Pobble is an award-winning innovation. Pobble recognition includes: winner of GESS Best paid-for ICT product (2017), winner of EdTechX Global Super League of Startups (2017) and finalist for a BETT Award in ICT Tools for Learning, Teaching and Assessment (2017).

Impact & scalability

Impact & Scalability

Innovativeness

Rather than focusing purely on optimising skills, Pobble puts excitement first. By generating excitement around writing, Pobble aims to encourage a different attitude and approach towards learning, which ultimately leads to motivated students and better results.

Impact

Schools are encouraged and supported to give writing a bigger profile; they do assemblies around Pobble to engage parents and local communities in the excitement of writing.

As well as improving outcomes in education, Pobble provides a platform for international and cross-cultural exchange. The security of the online platform allows children to explore online relationships in a safe way and to have positive interactions with children from across the world.

Scalability

Pobble is used mostly in the UK and Ireland, although educators across Europe, the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, China and Malaysia are also using the innovation.

While the platform is mostly used by English-speaking schools, international and bilingual schools also use Pobble.

Media

Remember your best day of teaching?

https://youtu.be/zA43iInbLW4

Implementation steps

Introducing Pobble to your school

Starting a whole-school initiative can be tricky. Pobble can provide support and advice throughout the journey.

Pobble can be used by just one teacher but it can also be integrated as a whole-school approach. To support the transition to a whole-school model, Pobble provide a single point of contact to provide advice and support.

Pobble offer CPD opportunities and recommend having an fun launch day filled with writing and assemblies to help teachers and children understand Pobble and to build motivation and excitement.

Some teachers may feel less confident than others when introduced to new technology and need time and training to use Pobble effectively. Educators may need to adapt the way they work in order to incorporate the Pobble model most effectively. Pobble provides training for teachers to ensure they are confident with using the tool in the classroom, implementing it with colleagues and using it for moderation purposes.

Getting started

Create a teacher account and set up your class

Visit pobble.com/join and follow the steps. Each account is verified by the Pobble team.

To set up your class:
Under “Pupils” click on “Add pupils”. Add pupils manually, or import them from your MIS.

Create your first lesson

You can search resources and exemplars to create exciting lessons

On Pobble you can find over 100,000 pieces of writing. Some of these are brilliant exemplars, or a great basis for a discussion with your class. When you find the piece your looking for, simply add it to one of your open lessons.

Pobble has partnered with some of the best providers of teaching resources. You can easily add those to your lesson plans. Click on "My lessons" and "From a teaching resource". Start your search and select a resource you'd like to add to your plan.

Time to publish!

Publish your pupils’ writing to a global audience

Children are motivated by an authentic audience. Pobble provides the opportunity for their work to be read by friends, family and an entire global community. Peer to peer commenting is encouraged and guided by the software to be helpful and meaningful.

As part of your lesson, you will upload their work. All work will be added to the evidence bank. We recommend publishing the work of up to five Published Authors each week.

As well as extra motivation for the children, uploading work to the Pobble platform provides teachers with a uniquely simple method of moderating work with teachers across the country.