POPtalk

We’re about to welcome a brand new feature to BrainPOP UK: The FYI.

FYIs contain astonishing facts, figures and information, to be used as extension material to the BrainPOP UK movies. Every movie will soon have its very own FYI.

And, just for fun, we’re putting together a little viral movie that we want YOU to star in called “How many ways are there to say “For Your Information“?

It’s very simple.

1. Video yourself or create an image saying/displaying the phrase “For Your Information“.
2. Say it, shout it, whisper it, sing it, sign it, synthesise it. Write it on a blackboard. Create it in alphabetti spaghetti. Ask your parrot to repeat it. Any way you like (be creative but no naughtyness please).
3. Submit your video or image using the form below or by email to info@brainpop.co.uk

Some last things:

• It has to be your own original work. Don’t include any commercial music or anything as we won’t be able to use it.
• The final edit will be going on our Youtube channel as an embeddable, sharable movie.
• The best/most creative/funniest “For Your Information” will win a 6 month subscription to BrainPOP UK. Editor’s decision is final. Everyone who submits an entry will have a sneak peak at some of the FYIs in advance.
• The cut off date for submissions is 5pm 9th September 2010, so you’ve only got about a week to join in. Its premiere will be 13th September, alongside the FYIs.

So go for it! Tim, Moby & The BrainPOP UK team cannot wait to see what you can do.

Up for a rescue mission? Taking responsibility to reboot, recycle and reuse with this Spotlight on your world.

Topics included in Reboot, Recycle, Reuse include:

• Air Pollution
• Energy Sources
• Extinction
• Fossil Fuels
• Natural Resources
• Nuclear Energy
• Fighting Hunger
• Global Warming
• Greenhouse Effect
• Organic Food
• Population Growth
• Recycling
• Water Pollution

We put a request out last month for any recycling ideas you’ve used in school so we were really pleased when David Rogers (@daviderogers), Curriculum Leader for Geography at the Priory School in Portsmouth, sent us this super cross-curricular recycling lesson idea. Let us know if you use it!

David Rogers’ Recycling Lesson Idea: “We do this at my department, and are always really surprised at the fantastic ideas!”

“This lesson aims to get young people involved in changing their school community. Through a geographical enquiry, pupils will investigate the current state of recycling in the school and suggest improvements to the Headteacher.

To start: Investigate the ideas behind recycling. A good introduction is the BrainPOP UK movie on Recycling.

It would also be a good idea to follow up the idea with the POPquiz.

The key question to consider is whether recycling is a good idea.  Use the Learning Event Generator to give the class some random choices of how to present their argument.

The next stage is to discover whether recycling goes on in your school. This takes the place of a Doorstep Geography investigation.  Expanding some of the ideas covered in the BrainPOP movie, pupils work together (getting in some nice PLTS action) to create a questionnaire and data collection strategy.

For example, pupils could:

• Count the number and type of recycling facilities that the school has
• Find out what local facilities for recycling there are. You could even organise a trip to a recycling centre or get a guest speaker to come in. This is important, as different local authorities have different approaches to recycling.
• Speak to key staff such as the catering manager, curriculum leaders, senior leaders…
• Question their peers about recycling habits

After this, the class should be able to crunch the numbers in order to present their data.  What have they found out? Is your school good at recycling?

I then give my classes a number of options.  In order to link in to Citizenship, we give each class a real budget in order to run a campaign.  This could be either a campaign to reinforce the recycling message, or to suggest how the school could do better at recycling.

Get the class to decide on ideas. For example, will they create posters or send emails to the Head? The budget covers things like photocopying and gives a realistic insight into enterprise – how effective will their campaign be? Pupils may find that staff do not recycle because of a lack of facilities at school.  They could campaign for better facilities.

This is a simple idea that extends some of the ideas behind the BrainPOP movie and empowers students to take an active interest in their community.

By learning about responsible protest, they become better citizens!”

We’d love to hear the ideas your students come up with. If you’re not based in a school, try this idea out at home. Instead of suggesting improvements to the Headteacher, how about suggesting improvements to parents?

To encourage you to get started, we’ve produced a Reboot, Recycle, Reuse poster especially for this Spotlight:

Download and pin it up at school or at home so you always remember Tim & Moby’s tips on being green.

PS: You will need a PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the poster. Download the latest version here: http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/

We recently asked on the Edugeek forum if anyone would be willing to help us research integrating BrainPOP UK into their school VLEs.

The response from the Edugeek community was amazing (a dedicated blog post about that another time). We’re still collating the research but we wanted to show you an example of how generous and helpful some people can be.

The below are two screencasts made by James May, ICT Manager at St Margaret’s CE Junior School. They are evaluating the Its Learning VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) platform for their school.

Obviously one of the major considerations when buying a VLE is ease of use and ability to integrate the products you know and love. Our request was just the excuse he needed to apply his growing Its Learning skills.

The first movie shows how he inserted our new POPbox (our POPbox shows the current featured movie and can be embedded into a webpage):

The second shows how he linked BrainPOP UK movies directly into a “discussion” page, using an iFrame technique (using an auto-login URL we supplied so the user doesn’t need to login to BrainPOP UK to access the resources). iFrames can show “a webpage within a webpage”. This is useful as the teacher can link directly to an individual movie, invite comments and the pupil doesn’t need to necessarily leave the VLE.

Huge BrainPOP UK thanks to James for his time.

What does this tell us?

1. BrainPOP UK is pretty easy to integrate into your VLE. The techniques James showcases here are fairly standard and could be replicated in the vast majority of VLEs. We’re building a set of “How to” pages for each of the major VLEs in the UK. If you are unsure, let us know and we’ll help.
2. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. We are very grateful to the EduGeekers for their support and experience.

POPboxes are another brand new BrainPOP UK feature for 2010.

A POPbox enables you to embed our Featured movie right into a webpage! This is what it would look like:

Sounds pretty fun, doesn’t it? So every time we update our free featured movie it will appear as if by magic in your webpage. Or classroom blog. Or VLE. Or intranet. Or School website…

Now, we only want it to go to deserving homes where Tim & Moby will feel comfortable spending a bit of time. We will have to approve any requests for a featured movie POPbox. That’s the golden rule.

So if you want to “POP a POPbox” on your website go to the POPbox request page and fill in the small form. We’ll then be in touch with the code and the rest is up to you.

How does it work?

The POPbox is a code snippet that you need to copy and paste to the body of your HTML page. Saving and publishing the page will make it show up.

What if it doesn’t show up?

We’ve found that some VLEs, or web platforms e.g. hosted WordPress.com blogs, will block Javascript being displayed via a security setting in the browser. POPtalk is a self hosted WordPress blog (www.wordpress.org) so we can control what gets shown and what doesn’t.

Getting security settings changed is a matter for your Support technicians or VLE Manager. It might be (although we hope not) that you cannot display our POPboxes at all due to technical restrictions. Sorry.

Can we choose our own BrainPOP movies to show?

No. The featured movie POPbox will change automatically every time we update it so it will remain refreshed. But we decide what and when. It can only show one movie at at time. If you have a special educational event, research announcement, promotion or similar that you think would benefit from a BrainPOP UK movie/POPbox to accompany it we may be able to help – just get in touch.

Does it come with the POPquiz?

Sorry, it’s the movie only. To use the POPquizzes you will have to be a subscriber. There is a button in the movie player to make the POPboxes full screen though.

Do I need to be subscribed to BrainPOP UK to get a POPbox?

Nope. But you do need to agree to place it onto an appropriate web space. And we reserve the right to allow or deny a website access to a POPbox. As to what is deemed “appropriate”… we hope it can be informed by old fashioned common sense. But if you’re not sure add your questions as comments below or ask!

We’ve thought long and hard about how we can make being a BrainPOP UK subscriber even more beneficial than it already is. On that note (drum roll please) we’d like to introduce you to a brand new feature: Spotlights.

Being part of BrainPOP UK  should be rewarding, providing a sprinkle of inspiration each time you log in. So a subscriber-only space where we bring together movies, additional content, and fun stuff all in one place seemed to be just the ticket.

The main aim being? To create a place of inspiration for teachers and students alike and ensure you get the most from being part of BrainPOP UK.

Hence, Spotlights. We’re unveiling them this week. But, what are they?

Spotlights bring together hand-picked movies relating to a central theme. They also provide additional content in the shape of fun experiments, info sheets, lesson plans, links to handy Spotlight-related websites and POP Spot; a special Spotlights area of POPtalk.

We’ve come up with a different Spotlight for each month of the year so hopefully you’ll find something useful for lessons.

To help you plan, here’s what’s coming up:

Spotlight on…stupendous structures and oustanding construction. Gravity, compression and tension at work.

Spotlight on…wet, windy and wonderful weather. Eyes skywards for some cloud spotting with Tim & Moby.

Spotlight on…your world. Up for a rescue mission? Taking responsibility to reboot, reuse and recycle.

Spotlight on…growing up. Can you blame it all on the hormones? Yes you can! Tim & Moby help with a few growing pains.

Spotlight on…the human body. It’s an amazing machine. Learn how it works, and how to look after it properly, with Tim & Moby.

Spotlight on…a galaxy far far away. Tim & Moby journey into Space, avoiding the Death Star, to investigate planets, stars, galaxies and more.

We’ve made our first Spotlight accessible to all to start with so that everyone gets the chance to try Super Structures on for size.

Your feedback is like gold dust to us so let us know what you think – any suggestions welcome!

We’re doing much nail biting in anticipation (eugh!)

Today we launched our “Free stuff” page. It does exactly what it says on the tin.

This one-stop-shop brings together ALL our free movies in every subject. And they will stay free for the forseeable future. So you can link directly to them if you want to highlight a movie to your students or collegues in your VLE, on your blog, etc. We’ve even made the weblink easy to remember.

http://www.brainpop.co.uk/free_stuff_from_brainpop_uk

We think, collectively, they represent some of the best things about BrainPOP UK. You may or may not agree with our choices but we love each one of these movies.

We are pleased and proud to introduce Deep Beep – our shiny new curriculum matching tool.

What is Deep Beep?

It’s a tool on our website that enables a teacher to find BrainPOP UK movies that match the objectives in their planning. It’s as simple as that.

Deep Beep is in beta, for now, whilst we gather your feedback. It should all work pretty well but we also know how easily stuff can slip through the net.

We need feedback and ideas on how to grow Deep Beep to be as useful as it possibly can be. We are absolutely dedicated to making every aspect of BrainPOP UK as insanely great as the movies and quizzes. Please place any comments here – or by twitter (@BrainPOP_UK) or all the old fashioned ways!

How does it work?

We have painstakingly tagged every movie in BrainPOP UK to not only the English curricular guidance…

…but also to Scotland’s 5-14 National Guidelines and the new Curriculum for Excellence .

You click through the selections until you find the objective you need and we should have a movie that complements it. Then just click the movie icon and you’ll be taken straight to it. You also might want to save the movie URL as a bookmark or cut and paste the URL into a lesson plan for later.

What’s next for Deep Beep?

It’s kind of up to you – what suggestions you have. This is only Deep Beep version 1. We’ve built it in such a way that we can add curricula, or functionality, fairly quickly. We intend to iteratively improve it over time.

It’s also built in Flash so there’s a possibility that when we come out of beta it can be embedded in VLEs, as a stand alone BrainPOP UK search and browse tool.

One last thing – why’s it called Deep Beep?

There’s two parts to that answer.

1. We spent a long time wrangling with complicated and prosaic titles that tried to describe what it did. Some rejected names included “Movie match maker”, “POPmovie finder”, “BrainMaPPer” and “Unit to Movie Linker Gizmo” (we were getting desperate by this point). So we took another direction instead and decided we could “name” it and sub head it with what it did. Much more fun.
2. It’s a gentle homage to Deep Thought, the Super Computer, created by Douglas Adams, one of the team’s favourite authors. We do love him so.

Maths has multiplied at BrainPOP UK – we have uploaded 25  brand new maths movies!

This is our excuse to mention as many of them as possible. So here goes…

Fractionally, there are almost double the amount of Maths movies  we used to have (I did a bit of Rounding there). Your feedback told us that this Multiplication was necessary to solve your Maths Problems.

So, Factoring in Distance, Speed and Time to bring these to you has meant that there has been no Division in our attention.

This Transformation to our list has shows that, from Polyhedrons to Calculus, Proportionally we have XLV of the best Maths concept animations you’ll ever see.

Hi! How are you?

I don’t believe we’ve met before. Let me introduce myself – I’m Preview Page, though friends call me Viewy. Really nice to meet you. At last! Heh.

What do I do? Well, it’s my job to give you more information about a movie.

You’ll see me whenever you try to view a movie without being signed into BrainPOP UK.

The old guy, Login Page (a relative of mine), stood in for me whilst I was learning the ropes. He fancies retiring and he advised me, well, insisted if you have to know, that it’s time for me to step up.

So I’m here and ready to do my duty, yessir.

What do I do that Login Page can’t? Good question! For one thing, I will tell you all about the movie. And because a picture speaks a thousand words I’ll show you a screenshot too. I’ll even let you know about related movies you might be interested in.

If you want to see the movie itself then I’ll bid you farewell because once you log into your free trial or subscription you’ll be whisked off to see it, no questions asked.

One thing that’s worth remembering about me: I love to dress up so I’ve made an effort to be different for every single movie in BrainPOP UK. You should see the size of my closet.

To give you an idea why don’t you check out some of these links?

Don’t I just look fabulous?

Science > Asteroids

Humanities > Volcanoes

English > Personal Pronouns

Maths > Adding and Subtracting Fractions

The Arts > Jazz

PSHE & Citizenship – Puberty

Design and Technology > Online Safety

If you visit BrainPOP UK in the next few days it may act a little…freaky.

You may see a few empty categories or movies that appear or disappear rather randomly and some new and unfamiliar sub-categories.

This blog post is to let you know that you’re not going barmy; it’s us making some long over due enhancements to the website. We’ve spent the last few months completely reviewing all our curriculum tagging on BrainPOP UK.

The most immediate change is to improve the findability of movies via the homepage using language the classroom teacher is comfortable and happy with. So we’re changing or adding brand new sub categories.

For example:

• “Cell Structure” will be changed to “Cells” and placed into a new sub category called “Life Processes”.
• “Weather and Climate” will be added to the sub category “Geography” under the main category “Humanities“
• “Using and Applying” is a brand new sub category.

Instead of taking the whole site down we thought we’d do them one by one over the next week or so. We hope it won’t effect your experience but if you can’t find a movie or quiz in that time then come back later and it will probably have returned. You can always use the keyword search at the top of the screen as the movies themselves are not going anywhere. Also if you link to any categories you may need to change the URL after it’s moved.

PS: We’re also re-vamping our Curriculum Planning tool (which we’re simply calling the FIND tool for now) and adding lots of new movies. LOTS of new movies. There’s a whole separate blog post coming soon about them.

PPS: You are going to be blown away with all the BrainPOPpy goodness that’s on the way.