What if you could create high-quality workbooks more efficiently, reducing workloads and development times? Product Manager Gareth Daley reveals how PebblePad’s new AI Workbook Generator makes this possible – and how the pioneering tool was created.
As a PM, the questions I ask most often are: How can we make our users’ lives easier? How can we empower our users to do their best work, faster and with less friction? Working with Toni Lavendar (CPTO) and Harrison Smith (Engineering Manager), this led us to the question:
“What if we could use AI to take an initial idea and turn it into a crafted workbook in a couple of clicks?”
So, we set out to create – and, as you’ll see, delivered – a solution that significantly speeds up workbook creation, slashes development times and massively reduces workloads, while also helping to flatten the learning curve for newcomers to PebblePad.
Crucially, one principle underpinned this ambitious plan – to protect the privacy of our users and customers to the highest possible standard because trust is at the heart of everything we do. We also wanted to give customers the flexibility to decide if, when and for whom the feature is enabled for.
From idea to prototype
Turning our vision into a reality was a collaborative effort across our product and engineering teams. We worked alongside a small group of Engineers, led by Harrison, who were passionate about working with AI to take us from our initial prototype and vision and build a robust product feature for workbook generation.
We also gained valuable input from a small group of customers, listening to their real needs and scenarios. This helped us to clearly understand what would be truly valuable to them, ensuring that our first prototype directly addressed their most important requirements.
Proven learning design
To ensure the solution is both powerful and practical, we have been training the generator on our extensive experience of creating world-class learning design. This allows the system to draw on proven design principles and best practices whenever prompted by users.
Such an approach means you can easily outline your audience and provide a simple overview of the workbook and its intended learning objectives, all via the intuitive prompt system. The AI then generates a comprehensive structure and recommends an effective content flow, empowering you to rapidly produce professional, tailored workbooks that deliver real impact.
We are particularly excited about how this new approach opens up resource creation to all levels of user, even those with little experience. Our feature enables users to quickly bring their ideas to life, providing meaningful, editable starting points and helpful suggestions. This support makes it easier to get started and explore possibilities, enabling everyone to create with greater confidence and creativity from the very beginning.
Iterating on what we had
We know from experience that the best products evolve through real-world use and honest feedback. That’s why we quickly moved to a Closed Beta, inviting more customers to put the feature through its paces. Watching how users interacted with the AI and listening to their suggestions prompted a series of important improvements. These included:
- Introducing a preview mode, enabling users to review and amend what the AI generated before finalising their workbooks; this allows for rapid, intuitive edits, ensuring workbook designs meet individual needs in a way only AI-powered tools can deliver.
- Refining the prompt system further, making it even simpler to get started by guiding users to specify their requirements more clearly, meaning workbooks generated by the AI are better tailored to users’ needs.
- Enabling AI to utilise more of the Workbook Builder’s common functionality, offering a greater breadth of learning and assignment designs, so resources are more closely tailored to specific learning outcomes.
Delivering exceptional outcomes
These updates have made the user experience faster, smoother and simpler, leading to significant benefits:
5x faster workbook creation
Internal testing with expert users shows that creating a usable workbook is now five times quicker than before.
The findings from one of our customers during the small Closed Beta were also significant:
50% reduction in development time
Lecturers with a clear project vision can start editing immediately, which could cut typical development time by more than half.
Up to 75% workload reduction
With an instructional template provided by the university, overall workload could drop by as much as three-quarters.
50% shorter learning curve for new staff
The Beta tool could significantly accelerate onboarding, reducing the time needed to master PebblePad’s core workbook processes.
The result? Initial findings show that users can potentially create workbook resources more efficiently, saving valuable time to focus on what truly matters: teaching and learning. Importantly, the AI Workbook Generator supports our goal of democratising resource creation for everyone.
Now available to all
To understand the full potential of the feature, we know this can only be realised through wider use and more diverse feedback. That’s why we are thrilled to announce that PebblePad’s AI Workbook Generator is now available to all customers. We can’t wait for you to explore the possibilities, share your experiences and help us make it even better.
Our journey is shaped by your needs, creativity and ideas. Together, we look forward to building the next chapter, using AI as a co-creator in education.
Want to explore for yourself?
Your system administrator can enable the new AI Workbook Generator for you.
