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.

One of the most popular movies on BrainPOP UK is our Blog movie. We love to blog too. You might have noticed.

In fact, we believe in it so much as a way to express yourself and your ideas that we’d like to showcase some real class blogs, or school blog initiatives & projects. Not blogs written by teachers. Blogs written by kids.

We want to find 4 classroom blogs to form our new blogging series: “Digitalk -- classroom voices”

We’ve seen some extremely interesting, passionate, engaging classroom blogging happening in UK schools and we want to spotlight your work on the POPtalk blog. We want to email interview and feature class blogs written and run by kids, of any age. Why? For fun and inspiration.

Or, if you’re feeling creative, you can present your work in any digital form/tool you like e.g. video, audio, presentation, animation…as long as we can embed it and write about it here.

This is an opportunity to tell the world about YOUR blog. For example:

• What sort of things do you blog about?
• What are the best/worst things about blogging?
• How do you decide what to write?
• What have been your biggest success stories?
• What’s the hardest thing about writing for a blog?
• How do you combine it with school work?
• Do you use multimedia or social networking in your blog? If so, how?
• If you could say one thing to an aspiring class blogger what would it be?

Your blog doesn’t have to be slick, cool or popular -- it just has to be authentic and interesting. Watch this video “What pupils at HeathfieldCPS think of blogging!”:

We will feature one blog a month between September and December 2010. Your interview (with any multimedia you can give us like screenshots, videos, podcasts etc) will appear here on POPtalk and will hopefully encourage our readers to check you out and be inspired.

Think your blog fits the bill? Does your class deserve to be one of the 4? Are you a teacher who would like to nominate your class’s blog?

Then email info@brainpop.co.uk and we’ll be in touch.

We think we offer one of the easiest and most flexible school subscription models around but we also are well aware that this is only an assumption! This article is intended to help establishments that are considering subscribing to BrainPOP UK.

Click to download our order form

This article covers:

• How to decide on the right subscription type
• Different school types
• Renewals
• International customers
  

Choosing the right BrainPOP UK subscription type is easy. You just need to answer these 3 questions:

1. How many users do you anticipate will be using BrainPOP UK (students, teachers, support staff etc)? Teaching staff only? Teachers & Pupils from a particular Key Stage? Year group(s)? A Subject? Whole school?
2. How will it be used?
   • Will it be used in school only?  Then choose the School hours only 8am-4pm option.
   • Do you want your teachers and pupils to access BrainPOP UK outside of school for revision, extension activities, lesson planning and so on? Then choose the 24/7 option.
3. How long do you want the subscription to last? Our standard subscription is 12 months – the price goes down if you buy 2 or 3 years up front.

So…no. of users + access time + length of subscription = the subscription that’s right for you. Have a look at our BrainPOP_UK_School_order_form to see the different subscription types.

A few examples:

1) Stuart, a Deputy Head at a secondary school in Manchester, asked his management team to review BrainPOP UK during his free trial. He got great feedback across the faculty, he had the budget so he decided to buy for the whole school. He especially noted its benefit as a homework tool. His no. on roll was 1376 pupils so he choose the Blue Whale (500+ users) with 24/7 access for 12 months. They paid £699.

2) Dawn is a Senior ICT Teacher at a Primary School in London who wanted BrainPOP UK just for KS2 pupils (she teaches Y5/6). There were 180 pupils in KS2. So she subscribed to the Lion (100-249 users) for School hours only. She also made the order within her trial period, thus securing an extra 10% discount on top. Her school paid £269.10.

3) Robert is a Geography teacher who loves BrainPOP UK resources but the school did not have the budget to buy it for all pupils. But that didn’t stop him – he used his departmental budget to buy a Single Teacher (1 user only) which gives him 24/7 access. He was invoiced for £99 and he regularly uses it as a front of class resource as a topic starter.

I want the School hours only subscription but my school is open 7am-5pm, not 8am-4pm.

We can be totally flexible and set the limits bespoke for your school, within reason. Just ask.

I’m a school and I want to use it in and out of school hours.

Then you need to purchase the 24/7 subscription type which can be accessed anywhere you can get to the Internet.

If I buy the 24/7 version how do my pupils log in outside of school?

BrainPOP UK is a single sign on resource. So buying a Lion licence does not mean 249 different user names! Everyone uses the same username and password. As the product is licensed to YOUR establishment you will need to provide out of school access or authentication details via a VLE, Gateway or protected page. You are NOT allowed to publicly display your log in details. We also can offer Shibboleth authentication and IP restricted access – contact us for details.

Can I buy BrainPOP just for e.g. Science?

Yes, but we don’t offer a segregated “Science” subscription, or limit which topics you can access. Think about it this way: it’s likely that your Science intake numbers will fall under the Monkey/Small size subscription (up to 99 users), or possibly the Single teacher (one user only).  Either of these subscription types will give you ALL the Science topics AND all the other BrainPOP UK resources.

Can I buy BrainPOP UK using a school credit/debit card?

Yes. All you need to do is stipulate that you want to pay by this method when you order and we’ll invoice appropriately. We’ll be in touch to organise a secure payment.

Can I upgrade or downgrade my Subscription?

It may be that you want more users to have access to BrainPOP UK later down the line, or indeed, less. We’re happy that you just keep BrainPOPping. You can upgrade your subscription type any time (we simply invoice you for the difference) but only downgrade when your current subscription expires. So get in touch and we’ll organise the shift.

Can I buy for multiple schools at once? Should I buy per school or add up the number of potential users?

Sorry not to give you a direct answer but this type of thing would need to be discussed with one of the BrainPOP UK team to make sure we build you the right subscription with the right access at the right price. It’s entirely possible though and buying for more than one school at a time will definitely save you money. We facilitate cluster group purchasing more and more these days.

I am buying for a virtual school  – how does this work?

Virtual schools are treated no differently to any other school in terms of how you choose your subscription and how we invoice. The purchasing organisation will be the licensed institution and will be responsible for monitoring access and managing any renewal.

I am an International school – can I buy BrainPOP UK?

Of course! There are many schools around the world that follow a UK curriculum. We may have a re-seller agreement in your area though so please contact us before placing your order. We would usually convert the subscription price to the current conversion rates between sterling and your local currency. Otherwise it’s business as usual and we can issue an invoice to your school.

How do I renew?

You won’t be automatically renewed – we want you to choose to continue. We will be in touch at several points via email, phone and by mail towards the end of your subscription period so you can plan and budget. Don’t worry about losing access whilst you organise the renewal – we’ll make sure your access continues, just ask.

How do I place my order?

Download the BrainPOP_UK_School_order_form > fill it in > post or fax it to us. Or just call us up. Or email us. Or Tweet us. Or come and see us at an exhibition. You decide! We’re very nice, promise.

Are there any questions we haven’t asked and answered? You can get in touch for a private reply or post your questions as comments below.

Remember, above all, it’s more important to us to be flexible and help you than anything else.

You might have noticed a new button on the home page of BrainPOP UK.

Click that button and you’ll be whisked off to a new BrainPOP service – www.brainpopesl.com

If you are reading this blog, you probably already know about Moby and Tim, but what you probably didn’t know is that Moby has lots of friends, including his newest buddy Ben, with whom he has recently started helping kids learn English.

BrainPOP ESL is an international resource, designed to be used anywhere in the world, as there are kids who want to speak English everywhere.

But why ESL? English as a Second Language is one of the many phrases that are used when introducing and teaching English to those who already have a language. There are many different terms, pedagogies and androgogies, but when it boils down to it – this is all about teaching kids to speak, read and understand English – as a living language.

For many readers of this blog, it is most likely that BrainPOP ESL would support EAL sessions with kids arriving in your schools from elsewhere in the world, without enough English to take part in mainstream lessons.  Whether they are from Pakistan, Peru or Poland – Moby can help them to get a firm grounding in speaking and using English with confidence – and have fun too!

This innovative program takes the student from the very beginning of English learning to a sophisticated level of English knowledge and competency. BrainPOP ESL has already won awards and been hugely well received. BrainPOP ESL offers comprehensive English learning content that is lively and engaging while providing rigorous, structured instruction. For further details see our BrainPOP ESL FAQs.

BrainPOP ESL is managed by the BrainPOP US team and they will handle all invoicing and payments. Cost of access for a year starts at £50* for home users, or £76.10**  for schools.

If you want to evaluate BrainPOP ESL simply sign up for free trial access .

If you wish to purchase a subscription to BrainPOP ESL , or have any further questions, please get in touch!

* (Family option, at current currency conversion rates. Please ask us when ordering for up to the minute costs)

** (Single Classroom option, at current currency conversion rates. Please ask us when ordering for up to the minute costs)

Hayley is the newest addition to the BrainPOP UK team and she’s mega keen on all things gaming and ICT-related so last week she popped along to Channel 4’s 2010 Education Conference.

The Conference “focussed on the latest Government policies and the Opposition’s plans; explored how innovators in education are responding to the challenges, and showcased some of Channel 4′s new education projects on citizenship, science and games.”

So, bearing in mind the large variety of topics covered on the day, e.g. “free schools”, here are some of the highlights from Hayley’s day…

I’d never actually been to the Channel 4 building before so I was more than a bit surprised when I saw their huge “4” sculpture made of umbrellas – just like their adverts!

As a bit of a self-professed geek, the part of the day I got most excited about were the presentations by Matt Locke and Alice Taylor. Matt talked about what Channel 4’s been up to over the last year like their 1066 game, which surprised them all with its popularity, and Science of Scams.

While last year’s projects are interesting, it’s what Channel 4 education is up to this year that I got really excited about.

One that stood out was “The Curfew”. Really intriguing, it’s a game that looks at surveillance and authoritarianism set in an Orwellian near-future Britain. Immersive and interesting, it certainly looks like something I’ll end up playing when it comes out later this month. Plus, anything that helps young people engage with politics is a good thing!

Author of Fun Inc, Tom Chatfield, gave a really interesting talk about the role of play in learning and how it transforms the notion of failure into opportunities, from “I failed” to “I haven’t done it yet.”

I’ll leave the final note to Zenna Atkins, Chair of Ofsted, who summed up the general feeling of the day quite nicely by saying (and I paraphrase),

“good teachers are absolutely vital and good teachers will use these instruments (new technology) to enhance what they are teaching.”

We’ll make sure to keep an eye out for the transcript of the conference which should appear on the Channel 4 website soon and we’ll post a link here when it’s ready.

Some of the keener eyed amongst you may have noticed that there’s a little football tournament happening in South Africa next week.

It’s Brazil vs England and during half time Tim and Moby give you their guide to the World Cup – the history, the fans and a couple of famous World Cup moments.

Thank you to all the BrainPOP UK fans who contributed their ideas to the movie – we couldn’t include them all although they will probably appear in the supplementary material coming in September. It’s clear that the beautiful game brings out your passion!

Here are the suggestions in full (minus re-tweets and general banter) from our wonderful @BrainPOP_UK Twitter followers when we asked them…

@teachology: Gazza blubbing; baggio pen miss; beckham late goal v greece; Zidane sending off; my dad falling off chair after 1966 winner!

@The_Recommender: Mexican Wave being invented Mexico 86. Nessun Dorma song by 3 Tenors Italy 90. Gazzas tears 90. Zidanes France 98. Pele scoring in 58 final age 17. Geoff Hurst hatrick in 66. Pele’s Brazil thrashing Italy in 70. Maradonna’s 2 goals vs Eng 86.

@dknights: You could have Moby crying reenacting Gazza’s 1990 moment.

@deerwood: Beckenbauer playing while wearing a sling and Andreas Escobar (example of football being taken too seriously?)

@Joga5: The addition of the word WAG into footballing lexicon, Hand of God, Pele and Moore hugging, Roger Milla’s dance when scoring for Cameroon, Lineker getting golden boot

@chrisleach78: Beckham’s red card, Gazza’s tears, Platt’s goal against Belgium

@Mark_C: Archie Gemmill’s goal vs Holland, Marco Tardelli’s goal and celebrations, Diego Maradona’s legit goal vs Eng and NOTHING 1966! OR Zidanes goals France 98, France vs WG semi final 1982, Italy vs Brazil 1982, Cameroon vs Arg 1990

@ianaddison: The hand of god/when they cheated?

@kenny73: Dave Narey ‘toe poke’ v Brazil. You can ignore the four that then flew past a stationary Alan Rough

@shalmaneser: When Lineker scored, Bobby belting the ball, and Nobby dancing

@dawnhalleybone: 66 bobby Moore, hand of god, 3 lions, Brazilian genius and Cameroon

@digitalmaverick you MUST put Archie Gemmel’s goal against Holland in there and Garincha’s dog

There are going to be lots of people writing up their experiences of #TMHants, held last night in Southhampton.

Ian Addison and Gideon Williams did an incredible job of pulling this event together – but it was really the attendees that made it so special.

Probably the most interesting thing about last night was that for 95% of the attendees this was their first Teachmeet! And they loved it! There was loads of passion, excitement and genuine gasps as inspiration was shared.

So rather than going on about the presentations, I want to share some of the  random conversations that I had – for a mix of selfish and more altruistic reasons! Sorry not to include everything but this is only to give a flavour of the power of the ‘unconference’ model.

I finally got to meet Charlie Dean – who was sporting a very rare VIB t-shirt – and who was very kind about BrainPOP UK. It was great to hear how much her class enjoy the movies. More than that, she introduced me to some of the teachers at her school, who were also great. For example…

I had a great talk with the deputy head at her school about the power of teachmeets, the problems with ‘normal’ CPD, and the barriers of ICT. I did not get her name but she was super keen to come along to TMFishbowl on the 17th June, partly because of the success of #TMHants .

After watching Jon Audain’s fantastic presentations, I caught up with him and Emma Goto, and we swapped iPhone apps, early years sites and realised that we were all Tiggers!

Finally, Kristian Still came to find me at the end of the event to say some very nice things about BrainPOP UK – a perfect end to the night. Kristian said (and I’m paraphrasing here – based on my rosy memory of his words!) that he was hugely impressed with BrainPOP UK’s commitment to Teachmeets, to having authentic conversations with teachers and kids, and that we had brought a great resource to schools. I almost fell over with gratitude, because that it exactly what we set out to do, and here was a fantastic practitioner in a normal school reflecting that back to us.

We then went on to discuss about how his Digital Leaders, kids trained to be expert in edtech, might work with BrainPOP UK to share some learning…another great unexpected outcome from this fantastic event!

Finally, as I drove home up the A34, I kept replaying the evening in my mind and found it rich in ideas, practical activities and relationships with people that I want to continue.

Tired as I was (and am), I went to sleep (once I was in my bed, not while driving) H A P P Y.

Nice.

BrainPOP UK badges are our favourite things to give away; it’s always a pleasure to see such little things bring so much joy!

You may have seen folk sporting our badges here and there and wished for one yourself.

We’re about to add a few new ones and POPtalk readers helped us make BrainPOP history by picking a new design for us!

There were three badge images we were undecided about:

a) Victorian Tim & Moby

b) Tim & Moby try their hand at bee keeping

c) Moby covered in starfish and barnacles

The winner, by a mere 6%, was Starfish Moby!

Thanks to everyone for taking part. Remember to keep your eyes peeled for opportunities to get your hands on new badges soon…

Visit the Spotlight on Sky Spirits.

If you’re unfamiliar with Delicious and feel you need some tips on how to use it, click here for some help.

PLEASE NOTE: We don’t have control over any external websites you may choose to visit from this blog/widget. You follow links external to BrainPOP UK at your own risk.

I want to promote another service. Normally, blogs from companies tend to talk about their own product. But, as you must have noticed, we are not a normal outfit!

In the past fortnight I have become increasingly impressed and excited by the opportunities that Skype offers us.

Skype is like a phone, but over the internet! You can video conference and share screens (so you can see what the other person is doing on their computer if they invite you). Skype is very easy to use, and has lots of free stuff (like BrainPOP UK ) and has even more useful premium features, at a cost (also like BrainPOP UK!)

I have already posted about our day in Shropshire, where Ann and I drove up to a hotel near Shrewsbury, and spent the day meeting attendees at a conference – in an exhibition area full of suppliers. Fun as the day was, we did travel 250 miles to be there at 8:30 only get  60mins when we were able to talk to teachers (30 mins as part of two breaks).

We believe that quality is more important than quantity of conversations when we do events, but that means that we don’t get to see everyone. This reduces the Return on Investment (ROI) we get on the event – because unless we need to get a certain number of people to pay for a subscription in order to pay for the costs of the event!  I guess what I am saying is that although the personal touch and chance to meet people in person is always better, there are big costs to consider:

• Internal Impact - cost of a day out of the office, costs to pay for the event, exhibition fees, printing charges, etc (BrainPOP UK pays!)
• External Impact – carbon footprint of a car journey (9 kg of CO2) and of stand (printing on paper, electricity, etc) and being just another ‘supplier’ at another ‘stand’ in another hall in another event – being part of the crowd reinforcing an old model. (Everyone pays!!)

Now, it was totally worth going to Shropshire – because we met loads of great people – but mainly as we did not have to ‘hard sell’  – as Steve Beard, a local ICT advisor, already loves us! As a result, we had lots of high quality conversations! Which was nice.

But making decisions about where and when to go when we are invited is not always so easy. The same week I had been invited to a new product demo day, to the LA advisory team in Doncaster. There was no real prior knowledge of BrainPOP UK, except that one of the team, Damian Ward, is one of the Yorks and Humber Teachmeet organisers, for whom we made a bespoke Teachmeet movie . We were to be one of many suppliers invited in to meet the team, show new stuff and then leave. The advisory team might buy BrainPOP UK for the LA – but this sort of decision takes months! More likely is that advisors are always looking for new resources to tell their schools about. This demo would give them the info to decide whether BrainPOP UK is something they wanted to recommend. This is not something we have the infrastructure to do all the time! We are a small team without a national sales force – so it is not as easy for us as other suppliers to get to meet everyone!

It would have been a 6 hour round trip from Oxford to Doncaster (20kg of CO2) for a 60min slot with 3 people.

This is where Skype came to the rescue! Thanks to the support of their excellent IT technician, Phil, we were able to get around the system blocks to skype, and get a video conference going.

OK, so the sound quality was not as good as it would have been if I had been there in person, and we did not get to shake hands, or really ‘connect’ on a personal level,…

BUT, we did get to meet the Doncaster ICT advisory team, demo BrainPOP UK, talk through their questions and concerns, discuss the subscription prices, and got some good feedback about the site! They asked for a trial, which I gave them, to evaluate it further with their schools. … Then it was time for the next presenter – my time was up – and I said goodbye.

All in all, I think we made the right choice about using Skype for this opportunity, and we’d like to do this more.

So – what do you think?

Would you be happy to have a demo of BrainPOP UK through Skype?

Are you able to access Skype from your school computers?