POPtalk

Announcing a MAJOR upgrade to our popular Featured Movie app.

Subscribers can now access every BrainPOP UK movie and POPquiz through an iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch*.

This is available to every subscriber – school & home – no questions asked. If you have a username and password you’re in!

BrainPOP UK app on iPhone and iPhone

What’s the benefit of full app access?

BrainPOP is designed to make the integration of learning and technology a seamless and simple experience. Schools that employ iPads or iPod Touch devices in class will be able to bring BrainPOP into mobile learning strategies – with high quality pedigree content that’s highly visual, short and impactful. It will deliver an unsurpassed breadth and depth of animated educational content.

Out of school access - if your school subscribes to BrainPOP you now have a terrific way to blend our content into your parental engagement strategy. Some parents will have Apple devices – encourage them to get the App. It’s free to download! We’ll be building support for schools who want to extend their BrainPOP use to their parent community.

• Every movie is fully subtitled
• Every movie can go full screen and can be paused and scanned easily (pausing is a great way to stop and discuss what’s happening and engage)
• The app has “predictive search” which means we try to guess what word you’re searching before you finish typing it!

Logged in to BrainPOP UK on the iPad.

If you already have our app simply update it through the iTunes App store > Updates. If not, go and get it or search iTunes App store for “BrainPOP UK”.

Got it? Good! Now here are your options:

“I am/We are already subscribers…”

All school and home BrainPOP UK subscriptions include full mobile access, at no extra cost. To access any movie or quiz that requires you to be a site subscriber simply enter the same username and password you normally use to access the BrainPOP UK website.

“I am/We are NOT subscribers…”

If you aren’t a BrainPOP UK site subscriber you can still browse the app and check in every day to watch the free Featured Movie and its related quiz. The 21 extra free movies will remain free too.

“I/We want to subscribe to access all the movies…”

Go to our website store and order your subscription type. Once your subscription has been activated you will be able to log in and view all content.

“I literally cannot wait to experience all the movies on the go BUT I’ve forgotten my username and/or password!”

Oops. Please visit our password reminder page. If you’re still having trouble email us at appsupport@brainpop.co.uk and we’ll get back asap. We’re open 9am-5pm, Mon-Fri. It would also have been sent to you on email when you subscribed. As login details are often shared you cannot change it via the website.

BrainPOP UK full access app - choosing a movie on an iPad

*iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

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Today we’re welcoming ICT subject leader and seasoned BrainPOP educator, Dawn Hallybone, to POPtalk. She’s guest posted for us on how she’s used BrainPOP “on the go”, as a classroom teacher and parent.

She’s been discovering new ways to interact with BrainPOP resources and has kindly shared some tips below, that you could potentially implement tomorrow.

What is Mobile Learning?

MoleNet defines it as:

“…the exploitation of ubiquitous handheld technologies, together with wireless and mobile phone networks, to facilitate, support, enhance and extend the reach of teaching and learning.

It is the words in bold that particularly appeal to me as a teacher and as a parent, and BrainPOP, always at the forefront of educational innovation, have stepped into mobile technology. Kids shouldn’t wait for it be ‘school’ time to access learning – they should have access to learning wherever they are.

The first thing to know is that the BrainPOP App for iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads is free – a huge bonus for teachers and parents. It features a movie of the day as well as another 21 movies that can also be accessed, 3 from each of their 7 curriculum categories.

It looks as clear on an iTouch as it does on an iPad. This potentially enables the learning  to be supported and enhanced both at home and in school, as there’s a good chance some homes will have one or more Apple mobile devices.

And I’m not the only one to think that this app is rather good as it has just been included in Tap magazine’s 100 Greatest Apps of All Time in the ‘Learn’ category!

The app can be used in many ways, but here’s a few ways I’d recommend you try to get started with a mobile version of BrainPOP:

1. Watch the movie of the day in the morning – very often these are chosen to combine with items in the news.
2. Find one movie that interests you, watch it and share with a partner – what did you learn, what made you choose it?
3. Ask children to use it to research a topic – use that to perhaps produce a talk or presentation.
4. Share a movie at home with a family member – the movies can be played on the TV via a Wii or Playstation 3.
5. What would you ask Tim and Moby to explain? Send your questions to Tim & Moby, care of the BrainPOP team. All questions on the site come from children.

There are obviously many more uses – the POPquiz option at the end of a movie is a great way of assessing learning and children can take this quiz on their own device and keep trying to improve their own score.

But “mobile learning” could also come under a “multi channel” approach e.g. accessing resources where the pupils want to interact with it.

As well as the app, BrainPOP UK have also created “POPboxes“. These are elements for a webpage (free again!) that feature the movie of the day that can embedded into a webpage, blog , VLE, intranet, school website etc – you do not have to sign up to BrainPOP to access this either and it automatically updates the movie every day.

We have installed these on our school blogs and year group blogs – another way for the children and parents to access this fantastic resource and use at home.

So if you haven’t got the app or the POPBox – what’s stopping you?

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Completely brilliant news! We’ve been included in Tap magazine’s “100 Greatest Apps of All Time“.

Please forgive us if just this once we put to one side our traditional British modesty and say “that’s OF ALL TIME,  folks, by the way, in case you missed it”

We have been chosen alongside 9 other incredible and well known Apps such as TED, Google Earth, IMDB and Jamie Oliver in the “Learn” category. Being included amongst such prestigious company is humbling to say the least.

If you don’t already have our Featured Movie App for iPad, iTouch and iPhone (hey, go and download it – it’s free) it shows a different BrainPOP movie and quiz every day. It also includes our 21 free movies, 3 from each of our 7 curriculum categories. Tim & Moby can help you learn something new every day, in class, on the go or even from the comfort of your living room.

We are strong and committed supporters of mobile learning and have such exciting plans.

The full list of “must have” learning Apps can be found below. Do you agree with their selection? What essential learning Apps would you have added to the list?

1. TED – all the TED videos for free
2. BrainPOP UK – you know
3. Intro to Letters – recognise shapes and sounds of letters
4. Epicurious – 30,000 recipes
5. Jamie’s Recipes – Jamie Oliver’s famous cooking App
6. Google Earth – zoom around the world
7. IMDB – Internet Movie Database – every piece of film and TV data you could ever want
8. The Elements for UK & Ireland – beautiful Chemistry App
9. World Dictionary – real time visual language translation

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HOT OFF THE PRESS: BrainPOP UK has launched its Featured Movie App, available on Apple iOS devices such as iPad, iPhone and iTouch.

Today we announce the launch of a UK version of the incredibly popular BrainPOP educational app for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, bringing our animated educational resources directly to kids’ fingertips. The original version of the app – launched in April 2010 – has been downloaded more than 425,000 times and recommended by leading publications such as The New York Times and iPhone Life magazine. It has also been featured multiple times on iTunes.

Learn Something New Every Day – Free!

The BrainPOP UK Featured Movie App is downloadable from the iTunes App Stores in Ireland and in the UK – where it is already No.1 in the “New and Noteworthy” section in the Education category!

The App delivers a new animated movie and related quiz every day. Topics are timely and contextual, covering current events, historical figures and milestones, holidays, and much more. It also contains 21 other movies from across our subjects, each with it’s own POPquiz.

BrainPOP UK iPhone app subjects section

It also records your scores so you can track your progress.

We love this App and we think you will too. So if you have an Apple mobile device – what are you waiting for? It’s FREE! Download it !

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BrainPOP UK are part of a very special new evening event at BETT 2011 – Collabor8 4 Change

BrainPOP UK have long been fans of the unconference / BarCamp model of event, such as TeachMeets and Fishbowling.

This year we were kindly asked to join Merlin John , Apple, Rising Stars & Dave Smith of the Havering ICT team to create a new type of event for teachers.

Collabor8 4 Change is the result – an unconference focused on School Leaders.

So what is it?

• Share best-practice ideas that you can take away and implement in your school
• Collabor8 with like-minded, award-winning ICT innovators that are willing to share
• Join discussion sessions that will challenge thinking and inspire change

What would I get from it?

All attendees will benefit from the experience and conversation with leading ICT practitioners as they openly share best practice use of hardware and software, with an emphasis on the impact on pupil outcomes and making effective use of existing ICT resources.

With an impressive, thought-provoking, mixture of exciting table-based sessions and focused mini-note presentations from ICT experts such as:

• Hannah Jones (Former Special Projects Director at NCSL)
• Steve Bunce (CPD Leader at VITAL)
• Bob Harrison (Consultant with BECTA and the NCSL)
• Adina Popa (Educator, VSTE Innovator of the Year, Staff Developer, #globaled10 Regional Chair, Speaker, Writer)

And it’s completely FREE!

So, what are you waiting for? Follow any of these links to find out more:

• Sign up at the official Collabo8 4 Change web page
• Linked In users can sign up here for the Collabor8 4 Change event page
• Become a Fan on Facebook

Date: Thursday 13th January 2011

Time: 6:00pm- 9:00pm

Venue: The Apex Room, BETT, Olympia, London

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