POPtalk

Last week I gave my Keynote talk at the Global Education Conference.

“The conference is a collaborative and world-wide community effort to significantly increase opportunities for globally-connecting education activities“

I was honoured when Adina Popa, an award winning teacher, nominated me to give one of the keynotes at this incredible online event.

But I was nervous of accepting, given the value of some of the other names on the schedule – including one of my favourite voices in edtech,  Ewan McIntosh .

But fortune favours the brave so I said yes for two reasons:

1. I felt I had something I wanted to share and contribute to the global discussion
2. I wanted to get a reaction/feedback to those idea/thoughts

My talk was titled “Global Resources for Global Citizens – Teachers as Guides” and its essence was about the power of TeachMeets to break through many of the cultural and professional barriers that prevent 21st Century Teaching and Learning. This is how it was summarised, hopefully to get people interested enough to join in!

“In this short presentation, Eylan will demonstrate how BrainPOP’s experience of learning, in a range of global settings, languages and settings, has shown that there are key behaviours and lessons that can be shared to improve best practice for all 21st Century Educators. In the networks that BrainPOP takes part in, whether it be BrainPOPEducators, TeachMeets, BrainPOP Maestros, or in our PLNs, they talk to and understand the work that some of the most effective teachers are engaged in –using BrainPOP as the contextual hub. Eylan hopes to provide time and stimulus for debate – especially around the overuse of the word ‘Creativity’!”

Two other BrainPOPpers, from the US team, also contributed talks: Allisyn Levy (Director BrainPOP Educators) on The Value of Online Communities for Educators and Kari Stubbs (Vice President 21st Century Learning at BrainPOP) on Lessons Learned from the Chilean Miner Rescue .

I would urge you to listen to some of the other amazing speakers – the full listing of which can be found here. Thanks to all those who joined in at the time, and those that have watched since and for their kind comments.

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They’re not just rows of lamps. . . they light the way to the biggest celebration on the Hindu calendar!

In this brand new BrainPOP UK movie, Tim and Moby shine a light on the festival of Divali.

Find out why this five-day celebration is so important to people who follow Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Learn what the name “Divali” actually means, and see how the holiday reflects some of the most basic beliefs of the Hindu religion. Explore some of the Hindu mythology behind Divali, including the legend of the return of Rama and the worship of deities like Laksmi and Kali.

And discover many of the customs of Divali, from the lighting of lamps and fireworks, to the taking of ritual oil baths and making delicious sweet treats.

You’ll also find additional information about the festival in the FYI. And afterwards, why not check out this Divali for Kids page on Activity Village for arts, crafts and other Divali activities?

We hope you enjoy the movie and learn a lot. We’ll keep the lights on for you!

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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!)

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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.

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