Community reviews for PebbleGo

My overall opinion on PebbleGo is that it is a great website to use in the classroom and would be great to offer at home as well. I found that the students were always more engaged when they were able to use this website for their research instead of when they had to listen to me read them a book. My students who are not able to read were still able to complete their research with very little help since PebbleGo is able to read the sections to the students. I have also found that PebbleGo is very easy for the students to navigate and return to the home screen. Also, with their many areas of study covered on their website, the research topics were endless for my students. PebbleGo is very engaging and a great tool that I try to use in my classroom on a weekly basis. The students are always asking for PebbleGo!

Overall, I love PebbleGo as a teaching tool. It is used in my classroom on a daily basis whether it be in whole group, or during individual student computer time/literacy centers. I like that the students can get on the site themselves and easily navigate through it without assistance. They build a foundation for research skills and gain knowledge in a variety of topics. It aligns with my social studies and science curriculum, and allows for independent student learning. My school has a large population of English Language Learners, and I have found this site helpful for building language and early literacy skills. I like that it also appeals to a variety of learning types, by including text, audio, video and graphics. It is another way for students to learn content and be engaged, rather than just listening to me deliver information.

PebbleGo is an excellent source to introduce note taking and research strategies at a young age. I have found that this website works well with all students, regardless of their reading ability, because it has spoken-word audio, text highlighting, pictures, and audio/video media. The wide range of science and social studies content allows the educator to find articles that go along with common core instruction. The wide variety of topics also ensures that each student will be able to find a topic of interest. In addition to articles, videos, games and puzzles are available to keep the kids actively engaged. All of these components are perks to establishing research independence among each individual student. Although this website is easy to navigate for young readers, I do find that the level of context does not provide rigor for my higher level readers. By the end of second grade, the students read through each article more quickly and are eager to learn more about each topic. PebbleGo text provides more of an introduction and general baseline of information for each topic. It does not provide challenging vocabulary or rigor to the higher readers. Varied level text would provide support and enrichment, and allow teachers to differentiate the various levels of readers in their classroom.

I really like this website. It allows the learners to explore on their own or work in pairs or small groups. It also lets the learners work at their own pace. The learners can share their findings experiences with others through online writings or videos on class website.

PebbleGo serves as a great research tool for young learners who are in early elementary grades. The website makes learning fun. The multi-media (audio, video, text etc.) format appeals to multiple learning styles. The format is simple, interactive and easy to use. It is so engaging that students did not realize that they were learning high level research skills.

Overall, I love this database. It has made teaching Research Skills much easier. Everything I want the students to know about researching a topic is included in PebbleGo. Students are successful in locating information and are fully engaged in the process. My only complaint is that PebbleGo doesn't include author names to each of the articles. This would be valuable for me when I am teaching giving credit to authors or places.

This is a user-friendly site for primary students. It's great for different learning styles as it appeals to the visual and auditory learner. PebbleGo provides a great supplement for teachers. The printable pages provide a way for students to collect facts and use information to help write reports and share with others. Students can easily navigate around the site and quickly find information which is presented in a similar manner no matter what topic is chosen. PebbleGo makes research fun for students!

I wouldn't use this product as a teaching tool, but would absolutely use it as a resource for students to gather information. I like that this site reads the text to the students, and provides realistic pictures. This site would benefit the students even more if it provided even more information on the topics.

The information in Pebble Go is vocab rich, accurate, interesting, with main topics about animals, earth & space, biographies and social studies. Within each topic are subtopics. My school has paid for this for the past 4 years and I have used it heavily with students every year. I love how student friendly it is. It will read to the students and highlights vocabulary words. If you are looking for a tool to help your students research this is the tool for you.

My overall opinion of the PebbleGo database is that it is a very user-friendly resource for students doing research in the younger grades. I also think that it is a great way to introduce younger students to databases. I do, however, see some room for improvement. PebbleGo has increased the amount of content they offer through their suite of PebbleGo databases, but I still find that it is lacking. I also agree with other educators, who have reviewed this resource on Graphite, that the cost of the subscription could be prohibitive. I would love to see them make this resource more affordable. The cite tool only has a "print" button. I am currently having my students share the information they've learned digitally, therefore it would be great to also have a "copy" citation button. It is very challenging for students to click and drag then copy the citation text using a right-click or Ctrl+click function. Additionally, the videos provided with the articles have no explanation to go with them. It would be wonderful if students could know what they are watching. This could easily be solved with a voice-over description or caption that would be read aloud when hovering your cursor over the video icon. PebbleGo already does this with the tabs above each section of the article. It could also be addressed by having a voice-over explanation as part of the video itself. I would like to see more breadth and depth of content included in the articles, as well as in the quantity and type of topics covered overall in the database, without it loosing it's child-friendly appeal.