Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Now you can try PbyP for free
We now have a demonstration site that allows you to send work to yourself for marking! Early reports are that explaining PbyP to people just got a lot easier.
One of PbyP's strengths has also been it's major weakness. Namely: the fact that it can be applied in so many different contexts makes it difficult to provide specific guidance.
We are finding that the most effective way of solving this problem is to let people loose on the site, safe in the knowledge that they can't break anything or accidently send garbage to a child somewhere in the world where they still believe teachers are faultless!!
Try it now
To try out the demo site. The password is rather predicatably 'demo' and you have three choices of username: 'learner1', 'staff1' or 'champion1'.
You can use all three to log in to the test learner site at http://wip.pbyp.co.uk but only the staff1 and champion1 usernames work if you try to log in to the teacher / admin site at http://wip.pbyp.co.uk/admin
Please note that the www usually found in web addresses is changed for wip in this case.
Request for help
The test site will be hard to maintain and we apologise in advance if you encounter errors or pointless test files while using it. We have not given Administrator access yet as this could cause a few more errors. You will also come across the odd missing tab and other restrictions here and there to help us reassure you that it is safe to try out.
Please use the site responsibly (we would prefer you uploaded blank or random files rather than attempts at humour as the site will not be monitored - we plan to simply refresh it regularly and delete anything which has been added)
Improved guidance
As a second initiative we have rewitten the guidance material and redesigned parts of the site to make it easier to use. Copies of the guidance material can be downloaded from the learner site and the admin site.
Supporting Advocates of PbyP
We have some outstanding advocates for PbyP who have been speaking on our behalf and explaining the concept to others all over this country and beyond. We felt it would be a good idea to offer you all a hand. We have developed a CD with everything you need to explain PbyP and how it is structured. The work is all in Powerpoint and you are free to remove slides at will to help in your own presentations. If you would like a copy then please contact us at
Sharing Practice Event: Free places
Finally, we will be inviting all advocates and schools involved free places at a sharing practice event in London in July. We will keep yopu informed in all of the newsletters but please let us know if you would like to be a presenter at the event or if you would like to produce a case study or host a discussion. We are looking for learner involvement as well as user involvement to help us all learn from each other one year on from the launch of PbyP