Online – Zoom

23 October 2025

Online – Zoom

23 October 2025

Connect

Collaborate

Create

Register your place

Join us at MiniBash 2025, our learner- and learning-centric celebration of the most impactful and creative ways of using PebblePad. Together, we’ll explore how the challenges we face today can become a springboard for tomorrow’s opportunities by connecting, collaborating and creating simple yet powerful practices. 

Back to basics

Featuring some of Australia and New Zealand’s top educators, MiniBash 2025 will showcase the fundamentals of great PebblePad practice – reflection, simple templates and workbooks, ePortfolios and formative feedback – all powerful tools and workflows that help students to plan for, make sense of, and surface their learning and achievements.

We’ll think deeply about reflection and every part of the reflective journey, exploring how to support and scaffold our learners to make the very most of every learning experience – and ultimately, help them see the true value and impact of their whole university (or professional) experience.

MiniBash 2025 promises to be packed with inspiration and opportunities for delivering the best outcomes for those who matter most – our students.

Who should attend

Teaching practitioners and professionals, including:  

Senior leaders

Heads of departments

Academic programme leaders

Educational designers, lecturers, academic and support staff

Learning technologists.

Where & when

Thursday 23rd October 2025 – Online

New Zealand 12.00 pm – 16.30 (NZDT)

Australia East Coast 10.00 – 14.30 (AEDT) | 9.00 – 15.30 (AEST)

Australia West Coast 6.00 – 1.30 (AWST)

This event has now taken place.

Curriculum Transformation at the University of Edinburgh: co-creation and the relationship between local innovation and institutional change

Talk description: I will use the themes of reflection and experiential learning, skills development and assessment (including programme level assessment and changes in assessment practice) to explore this process in more detail. This includes the link between disciplinary and institutional curriculum reform, learning from local innovations and changes, and using this to inform University level changes and support.

Bio: My current position is leading the University wide Curriculum Transformation Project. This is a major and long term initiative for the University considering all areas of the University’s undergraduate and taught postgraduate curriculum. Prior to this Jon set up and led the Institute for Academic Development (IAD) at the University of Edinburgh. The IAD provides University level support for teaching, learning and researcher development, including direct support for students and staff, and support for enhancement and innovation in curriculum development, the student and researcher experience. Jon has a PhD in petroleum geology.

Mission Possible: The DNA of a bespoke professional development program

Talk description: The diversity of students in higher education dictates that there cannot (and should not) be a single ‘silver bullet’ approach to address the complex challenge of career readiness learning. However, the reality of modern university structures is that delivering bespoke experiences for each student is a challenge in and of itself.  And yet, all things are possible with creative use of PebblePad to streamline delivery (for the university) and make it highly personalised (for the student). 

Bio: Gayle Brent is a Learning and Teaching Consultant (Employability) at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. Gaye’s specialist area of interest is developing and implementing strategies to enhance staff and student understanding of employability in both curricular and extra-curricular contexts. She completed a Master of Education and Professional Studies Research to explore the potential barriers and challenges to embedding employability-based learning in higher education curriculum and is currently completing a Doctor of Philosophy exploring the impact of an extra-curricular employability program on the individual student experience.

Dr Melissa Highton. Assistant Principal, University of Edinburgh

Talk description: A journey through the stories told by wicca data. How a neglected research data set was used by students to overturn historic injustice and shed new light on the lives of women in Scotland.

Bio: Melissa has worked for many years in higher education at some of the UK’s finest and most ancient institutions. In each place she enjoys discovering the hidden histories and less heard voices which can be surfaced in new ways using the most up to date and open technologies. She is a champion of playful and curious approaches to engagement with audiences on campus and online, and is an invited speaker at events about dangerous women.

Education is an Experience That Should Be Designed

Talk description: We have any number of problems and opportunities as universities, and universities must adapt to help students from diverse backgrounds develop the knowledge and skills they need to thrive and make a positive impact in the world. Key to those adaptations is understanding that we provide students with an experience. We ought to design them with intention and purpose. This talk with take up this argument and ground it within a large educational transformation project at the University of Leeds.

Bio: Jeff Grabill is Deputy Vice Chancellor for Student Education at the University of Leeds. Prior to joining the University of Leeds, Grabill was at Michigan State University (MSU) in the United States for nearly 20 years. He served Michigan State University as the Associate Provost for Teaching, Learning, and Technology. In that role, he was responsible for facilitating innovation in learning and educator professional development via his role as Director of the Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology. Grabill’s research focuses on how digital writing is associated with citizenship and learning. That work has been located in community contexts, in museums, and in classrooms at both the K-12 and university levels. Grabill is also a co-founder of Drawbridge, an educational technology company.