• 08 Feb

    It started with a chat.

    A teacher from Menston Primary took some time to talk to a BrainPOPper at our stand at the BETT exhibition in January.

    He liked what he saw so he took out a free trial to explore the product and see if it was a useful and valuable resource for his school. So far, so normal.

    But how he and his class went about evaluating BrainPOP UK was rather special.

    He turned BrainPOP over to his Year 3/4 class and asked them to express their opinions about our resources. Essentially he created a lesson out the evaluation and kindly sent us the results as he thought it might interest us. We’re so glad he did as you will see below.

    To start with he used a tool called “Primary Pad” to request written expressions of their favourite BrainPOP movies, Tim & Moby, what they learned and how they felt about BrainPOP. Primary Pad is a wiki – it lets multiple people contribute to the same document, in real time. It’s collaborative writing.

    Here’s some of their quotes:

    • “hi we have just watched the calculator video it is really good you should watch it .We would love to have brain pop on the computer.this is really usefull for doing homework because if you are learning about floods there is a video for floods and it tells you lots of things so you will have a good peace of homework.”
    • “we watched the video about new year celabratoins it was really good it was good to find out how different couyntries celabrate new year and what they do on new years night because different countries celabrate in differet ways. We found out that in china they all wear red and they dance with a chinease dragon and they have chinease lantans and have a big dinner party.”
    • “WE FOUND THAT COCO~BEEN TREE LIVES IN AMERACA AND A FEW OTHER COUN eWE WATCHED A CHOCOLATE VIDIEO AND IT MADE OUR MOUTHS WARTER I LOVED IT!!!!!!!llllll”
    • “The good bit about the drawing is that it shows you what order to draw the things in!!! It also tells you if you can use pens,pencils,chork,crayons or paint to draw.The cartoons of Tim and Moby are really funny and cool! It tells you neally everything you want to know about the thing that you search for and it is good that you have a choice of what type of quiz you do.”
    This is a Wordle “word cloud” of their responses

    But wait. It gets even more awesome.

    He then asked his two of his pupils to use an audio recording tool called “Audioboo” to interview each other about their experience of BrainPOP. He sent us the MP3 and we just LOVED it. In fact, we thought it was so great we animated it (with the school’s and parents permission). You can see it embedded below.

    Thank you to Menston Primary for sharing your experiences of BrainPOP with us, and special thanks to the two pupils who recorded their interview.

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  • 20 Oct

    Step 1. “WEAVE A TALE” AND CREATE YOUR STORY

    First things first. Watch The Writing Process movie so Tim and Moby can take you through the process of writing, step by step.

    Start to build your plot. Makes sure it has structure – a clear beginning, middle and end. Make sure your plot has a purpose and that your characters are interesting.

    Watched that movie? Have an Oscar worthy story and plot? Good. Now onto Step 2.

    Step 2. PUT THOSE WORDS INTO SOUND & MOTION – ADAPTATION

    Next you need to adapt your story so it can be filmed by creating a script and storyboard.

    Script writing

    Writing convincing dialogue is one of the toughest aspects of script writing. We suggest you get some great script tips from the Writing Dialogue movie.

    Remember: the script should include stage directions too. You should consider what you will need to bring your script to life – try to think of props, actors and settings. Don’t forget to include the time of day (midday and midnight are tonally two very different times!), set the location, and actions of the characters in the scene.

    This is an excellent guide to creating a professional looking movie script: How to format a screenplay .

    TOP TIP! You can learn about what it takes to make a movie from our Film making movie.

    Storyboarding

    When the script is ready, a storyboard can help you set out the main parts of the plot to record. We use storyboards when we make a new BrainPOP movie.

    TOP TIP! Download and print this blank storyboard to get started: BrainPOP UK storyboard.

    Step 3. EQUIP YOURSELF – TIME TO GET TO WORK

    There are a few ways you could choose to approach this.

    1. Live acting: You’re going to need a camcorder or phone with a camera function to record your movie, actors, a studio space and costumes. And find someone to shout “CUT!”
    2. Green screen: You might also want to use chroma screen technology (here is a guide to using chroma key with Windows Movie Maker and a great blog post by Sheffield South Learning center).
    3. Stop motion animation: You could use claymation like Wallace and Gromit, papercraft like “Star Wars in 2 minutes” or using physical objects like the amazing “Dot. The world’s smallest stop-motion animation“. Have a read of this wonderful guide to stop motion animation for beginners on Photojojo.
    4. Audio play: If you don’t have access to a camera, you could just record your script as a podcast play – a fun challenge on its own! Try Podium.
    5. Digital animation: There are lots of amazing animation tools online. Try Anithings (animations), Zooburst (3D pop up ebooks), Xtranormal (you type and the characters talk) and Comic life (make a comic form your images) and many more. Or you may be a Flash guru.

    Do you have any tips for aspiring young Spielbergs?

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  • 04 Jun

    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 :-)

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Wed May 22nd
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