A BrainPOP school in Wales has very kindly translated our login poster into Welsh! If your school uses BrainPOP and has Welsh speaking staff and/or students please feel free to download and print it.
(The image at the end of the poster is still in English but is still useful as pupils will need to log in through our English interface).
Pob lwc!
BrainPOP login poster in Welsh
Tags: login poster, wales, welsh
BrainPOP UK and Norfolk Shared Services have partnered together to offer the UK’s first LA wide Google App integration to an educational resource.
“Norfolk is the only county in the country to have rolled out Google Apps for Education to all pupils and staff. Having nearly 150,000 accounts means that learners and teachers in Norfolk can realise our aim to enable anywhere, anytime learning in and out of school to create, share and collaborate.”
Jill Duman, ICT Advisor, Norfolk Shared Services
Having met a technical and curriculum criteria set by the Norfolk Integrated Education Advisory Service from today all Norfolk schools will be able to use their n6 credentials to access our resources and unlock our Google integration, blending BrainPOP assessment with their Google Docs.
This integration is free to all Norfolk schools that subscribe to or are evaluating BrainPOP.
After completing any BrainPOP UK graded quiz, students can choose to send their results to their teacher’s Google docs. Within the spreadsheet, each topic gets its own worksheet, storing students’ first, second, and most recent quiz score along with their names and Google App IDs. It’s simple assessment that makes the most of your Google technology.
It’s seriously cool.
BrainPOP has always been “in the cloud” and we’re very much supportive of this smart & contemporary move Norfolk has taken to introduce cloud services to their schools.
You can get more detail from the Norfolk Shared Services BrainPOP page.
HOW TO ACCESS BRAINPOP VIA THE NORFOLK CLOUD PORTAL
If you are a Norfolk school on a free trial or subscribe to BrainPOP UK please request our Google app to be enabled by logging a request via Shared Services. Once this has been completed you will be able to experience the Google/BrainPOP integration.
If you have any questions you are more than welcome to contact the BrainPOP customer support team:
Freephone: 0800 141 2404 (Mon-Fri, 9am – 5pm ex. public holidays)
Fax: 01865 243 893
Email: info@brainpop.co.uk
Tags: brainpop google app, cloud services, gafe, google, google apps platform, norfolk, norfolk cloud portal, norfolk shared services
Wednesday 21st November at 16:00 – 16:45 BST: Making your Interactive Whiteboard POP!
In this session, Danny will demonstrate hints and tips for making the most of using BrainPOP with the whiteboard tools available to you. Focusing on both Promethean and SMART tools, Danny can walk you through the very basics to some neat little tricks that even surprised us!
Danny Nicholson is an approved BrainPOP UK trainer with over 15 years teaching and training experience and has delivered training in Primary, Secondary and Special Schools all over the UK and overseas. He is an experienced trainer on both Promethean and SMART interactive whiteboards.
This webinar would suit any teacher who’d like a refresher or an introduction to using a whiteboard in the classroom.
How do I sign up for a webinar? Keep an eye on this page for the live links. These will take you to Eventbrite where you can register quickly and easily. You’ll receive an email confirmation from Eventbrite including the link to the webinar which you click when the time comes.
I’m not a BrainPOP subscriber, can I still participate? Of course! Our webinars are open to anyone interested in sharing best classroom practice and innovations in education. We do, however, recommend you take out a free trial in advance of any webinars so you can fully participate and contribute to any discussion: Take out a free trial. If you’ve considered taking out a trial or subscribing, the webinar could be just the guide you need to inform your decision.
Do you take webinar topic suggestions? Happily! Post comments below or email info@brainpop.co.uk and we’ll add it to the list for consideration.
Tags: CPD, danny nicholson, IWB, promethean, smart, tools, training, webinar, whiteboard
March 15th-24th 2013 is National Science and Engineering week.
“National Science & Engineering Week shines the spotlight each March on how the sciences, technology, engineering and maths relate to our everyday lives, and helps to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers with fun and participative events and activities. Any organisation or community group can take part and plan an event or activity to inspire their own audiences, and our theme for 2013 is ‘invention and discovery’.”
We were very excited to be invited to be sponsors of this year’s grand prize draw. Schools that organise an event or activity and register it online by 11 February 2013 will be automatically entered into the prize draw. 5 lucky schools will win a 24/7 annual school licence to BrainPOP UK worth up to £699.
We also love the theme of ‘invention and discovery’. To help you get started we asked Tim & Moby to suggest BrainPOP resources that they think will provide you a little bit of inspiration on this theme.
Ideas that changed the world
A great place to begin is to dive into our Spotlight “Ideas that changed the world“. In there you’ll find movies on the most significant inventions and discoveries of all time such as Natural Selection, Newton’s Laws and the Internet. Think big, BrainPOPpers!
“If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants” – Isaac Newton
All scientific discovery owes a debt to the great minds that have come before it. Learn about and be inspired by some of the greatest thinkers of all time:
From the atomic level to the Universe itself watch and listen as Tim & Moby introduce you to humanities greatest scientific inventions & discoveries!
So what are you waiting for, young Science geniuses? Get inventing and discovering!
Tags: competition, ideas that changed the world, National Science and Engineering week, NSEW
Wednesday 7th November at 16:00 BST: Brush up on BrainPOP
Join Jude on this BrainPOP refresher, we’ll discuss the basics, best practices, and creative teaching strategies so you can engage your entire class first thing the next morning.
Perfect for both newbies and veteran users alike, this webinar hands you the tools you’ll need to get the most out of your subscription.
We can provide certificates of participation upon completion.
How do I sign up for a webinar?
The link above will take you to Eventbrite where you can register quickly and easily. You’ll receive an email confirmation from Eventbrite including the link to the webinar which you click when the time comes.
I’m not a BrainPOP subscriber, can I still participate?
Of course! Our webinars are open to anyone interested in sharing best practice and innovation in education.
We do, however, recommend you take out a free trial in advance of any webinars so you can fully participate and contribute to any discussion: Take out a free trial.
If you’ve considered taking out a trial or subscribing, the webinar could be just the guide you need to inform your decision.
All past webinars will be available in an archive so, if there’s a topic you’re interested in and you can’t attend that day, keep a look out for the link to the recorded webinar appearing later.
Tags: brainpop, brush up, CPD, introduction, overview, run through, training, webinar, what is brainpop
After much discussion and debate over our favourite entries into the Get Cubed creative writing competition, we’ve narrowed it down to one winner.
The winning story stood out for being a very well thought out piece, with attention-grabbing paragraph starters, and wonderful use of colourful adverbs and dialogue. We also loved how well the story cube images were incorporated as plot devices: the Map, the Shark, and the Crown.
Without further ado, the winning tale.
THE LEGACY by Sophie Millward-Sadler
The pong of pig swill assaulted Kathy before she even opened her eyes. It was that bad.
Reluctantly, she opened her eyes to the sight of the rundown yard where she worked. A rotten fence ran round the animal enclosure. Over the gravel driveway was a rusty shed that was an aeroplane hangar, until the airfield was destroyed by a bomb.
There was a grunting sound from her left; it was her only pig, Betty. Groaning, Kathy got up and poured out some potato peelings.
“We need more,” she said. Betty grunted. “I’ll have to go to town and buy some.”
Kathy slipped over the fence and walked down to the town. It was cold.
She got to the potato stall fine. It was just as she was getting her money to pay when hands grabbed her. She was dragged down the street and onto a ship. Once onboard, she was shoved down below decks. It was dark and dank.
There was a clanking sound; the anchor being raised. A person appeared at the top of the ladder. He was bald with yellow teeth.
“Now luvvy. We aren’t gonna hurt as long as you do what we want. Agreed?”
Kathy nodded her head.
“All we want you to do is follow a map and dig something up for us. Agreed?”
She nodded again.
“Oh, and you’ve got to swim to shore.” With that, he left. Kathy slept.
When she woke up, the bald man was standing over her. Next thing, Kathy was teetering on the end of the plank. A shove from behind and she went tumbling into the turquoise water.
Gasping, she emerged and began swimming for the shore of an island that was a few hundred metres away. A leather bag hit her head. Kathy picked it up and carried on swimming. A few seconds later, she caught a glimpse of a silver fin cutting through the water towards her. It couldn’t be a shark-
It rose out of the water and its massive mouth gaped open, rows of menacing teeth gleaming in the sun.
Kathy swore that she had never swum as quickly.
When she reached shore, she was wheezing with the effort. As she recovered, Kathy opened the top of the leather bag and pulled out a map. A clichéd red X was marked just underneath a palm tree that was actually very close to her. A shovel was placed at the base of the trunk.
Sighing, Kathy began digging.
An hour and a small tonne of sand later, Kathy had a big chest next to her. It was open. Inside was an old document.
This document states that the first child of Edward Cross is the rightful heir of this island and all of its lands.
What? Edward Cross was Kathy’s father. That couldn’t be true.
Underneath this document is the crown of these islands. Wear it with pride.
Stunned, Kathy picked up the crown and placed it on her head.
She was a queen.
For her hard work, Sophie has won an exclusive piece of BrainPOP artwork (shown above).
If you’d like to try your hand at some creative writing, the story cubes are still available to download here: BrainPOP UK Story Cubes
Tags: competition, creative writing, literacy, story, story cubes, winner, writing, writing competition
In our experience BrainPOP classrooms tend to be very creative classrooms.
We are often asked for graphics of Tim & Moby that students can use in their projects and we try to help where we can.
In fact, it’s become such a popular request that we’ve created official “BrainPOP UK Image packs” which contain sets of images of our dynamic duo which your class can use with our blessing.
You can download the zip files below. All we ask in return is:
If there are any special Tim & Moby images you’d like please get in touch. No promises, but you never know, Moby just might agree to pose for you!
Tags: graphics, image packs, images
We’ve always had a blast in Glasgow at the annual Scottish Learning Festival.
Whether it’s Moby doing the Highland fling or bonny Scottish VIBs charming the crowds we never fail to enjoy our time with Scottish teachers.
Interestingly this year the cross curricular nature of BrainPOP especially seemed to resonate with Scottish teachers. We can see that the creative aspects of the (still pretty new) Curriculum for Excellence are really bedding into practice now. The structure and nature of BrainPOP got teachers excited by the opportunity we present to deliver the CfE in class.
It was also our first national festival where we got to show off the awesomeness that is the BrainPOP UK full access app. It helped that our wireless stayed up most of the time, not something one can always guarantee at an event 
A number of Local Authorities and schools are implementing mobile learning pilots or roll outs of mobile devices. Our app was excitedly scrutinised by visitors. The attraction seemed to come down to two things:
We delivered our very first presentation schedule and were knocked sideways at the number of teachers that appeared, seemingly from out of nowhere, to watch. We were in danger of blocking the aisles and becoming a health and safety concern.
On day two we met Michael Phillips, a visiting Principal from a BrainPOP school in Melbourne, Australia, who sought us out to say hi. What a pleasure it is to meet teachers from across the world who use BrainPOP. We added to his baggage allowance by loading him down with BrainPOP goodies for his staff & students.
Michael Phillips from Ringwood school, Australia at SLF 2012
It was a smaller show this year, no doubt about that, but the modern, thematic resource that we provide seemed to reverberate with the show attendees. There’s much love here for the positive, friendly crowd we meet every year at SLF. Alba Gu Brath.
We left with a smile and hope to welcome a new wave of BrainPOPping schools very soon 
Tags: #SLF2012, scottish learning festival, SLF, SLF12
Got a project or assignment? Then this bonus spotlight’s a good place to start! We’ve gathered together information on how to research, reference, prepare and get reading.
As well as an Internet Search Quiz, Online Sources Activity, and Research FYI, we’ve grouped together a collection of Humanities, English and PSHE topics that we think will be most helpful for students when learning how to organise their time and prepare classwork.
Tags: back to school, dictionary, digital etiquette, information literacy, information privacy, online safety, plagiarism, reading a newspaper, reading skills, referencing sources, research, spotlight, study skills, test preparation, thesaurus
Win an exclusive piece of BrainPOP artwork, inspired by your own writing!
As part of September’s Creative Writing spotlight we’ve created story cubes and we want you to use them as inspiration for our Get Cubed creative writing competition.
There are three different cubes to make. Download the PDF, print the cubes, cut out, and assemble.
Ask an adult to help if you’re having difficulty.
Click the image to start download.
It’s time to get rolling
Roll your completed cubes. Whichever three images land face up are your inspiration for some storytelling!
If you don’t like the images you get, you can always take another roll, we won’t tell anyone
And now for some creative writing
We want you to produce a piece of writing inspired by the story cubes and, whatever you create, we’d like to see it. Submit your finished piece for us to judge and we’ll pick a winner.
If you win, you’ll get an exclusive piece of BrainPOP artwork based on your submission.
Six runners-up will win back to school goodie sets.
We’ll also feature our favourite entries here on POPtalk.
Submission criteria
Submit your finished writing using the form below.
Tags: competition, creative writing, download, free, resource, spotlight, story cubes, writing
