POPtalk

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!)

For our first Spotlight we’ve come up with a few fun activities you can try with your students.

Activity 1 – Virtual lego

Get your class to create their own virtual lego super structures!

Download the Lego Simulator here. Tim & Moby aren’t too pleased with our sorry attempt…they think you can do better!

Activity 2 – Design a super building

We’d love it if you and your class created a Moby-related super structure but you could start off easy, draw Tim & Moby a house.

Tim & Moby House Blueprint

We used free software from SmartDraw but you could just as easily use Paint, Microsoft Word^©, Paint.NET or good old paper, pencil, ruler and rubber.

Activity 3 – Get building!

Why not build a lego super structure together as a whole class activity? Look at what Zoe POPpette achieved!

Activity 4 – Spotting super structures

Why not pretend it’s Spring already and head out with your class to take photos of local super structures? Here’s a very famous super structure local to us BrainPOPpers, Hertford Bridge:

Whether you draw, build or photograph a super structure, please send us the results.

Try and find at least 3 reasons your structure is so super. Who will use your super structure? Can people live in it? Any environmentally friendly features? Any robot friendly features?

Here’s what we said about our photo of Hertford Bridge:

1. Our super structure was completed in 1914
2. It is often referred to as the Bridge of Sighs because of its supposed similarity to the Bridge of Sighs in Venice but it actually looks more like the Rialto Bridge in Venice
3. It is called Hertford Bridge and is part of Hertford College

Not very exciting but perhaps your pupils come up with a super structure that:

1. turns orange when the sun shines?
2. recycles grey water?
3. knocks at least one of the world’s tallest buildings from the top ten?

Email photos and files to info@brainpop.co.uk with “We’ve got a super structure” in the subject line.

We’ll upload everything you send us to this Spotlight blog and, at the end of the month, Tim & Moby will pick their favourite.

Thanks to everyone who came along and helped make a success of the West Lothian BrainPOP UK demo at the West Lothian Education Centre yesterday.

We’re really glad so many teachers attended and were keen to have a shot!

Thanks especially to all who took part in our mini-competition.

Congratulations to t-shirt winners, Kirsteen, Jennifer and Ms. Ferguson! Your Mobylicious prizes are heading northbound today so keep an eye out for a pretty orange package popping through your letterbox…

Last night, something rather special happened. Teachers came together from all over Oxfordshire to transform the way that they plan at the first ever TeachMeet Fishbowl.

This all began in a meeting between James Bird (Oxfordshire Primary LA Advisor) and me (BrainPOPper), at the Rusty Bicycle, where we talked for a long lunchtime (over soft drinks!) about the joys of being inspired by innovation, at events like TeachMeet, and the challenge of making that transferable to the schools and teachers we worked with.

James had the idea to use an adult training method (andragogy) called Fishbowling, where a small group take on the role of ‘experts’, and engage with a real life problem, whilst a wider group watch and contribute. This is how it was set out (see the annotated version on Flickr courtesy of Leon Cynch for more detail):

This event needed to focus on the one aspect that all the TeachMeets, conferences, and workshops we had been to sometimes lacked: practical steps to improve planning.

How could we change that moment when a teacher sits with a blank sheet of paper – and turns it into a plan!

We hoped for three outcomes:

1 – That participants would be able to get engaged with planning in a way that they could take away ideas to apply to their schools immediately

2 – That we would inspire each other and share new ideas, tools, resources

3 – That we would create a local and powerful learning network which would have life after the event.

James has written more about what we planned and hoped for in a blog post:  TeachMeet Fishbowling

I set up a Ning space, we invited folk in, most of whom had not really used online spaces in this sort of way. Fishbowls are not about ICT or technology led. We made the event invite only and kept the proceedings closed (not streamed) because we wanted to test this model and allow people to be open and honest, without fear of colleagues, parents or looking daft!

I invited Tom Barrett and Dawn Hallybone to help us, as great friends of BrainPOP UK (they are both VIBs!) and experienced TeachMeeters (Tom was so inspired that he filmed himself at the beginning of his planning process for his Superheroes topic last term) and Leon Cych, of Learn 4 Life offered to come and video the event.

We were also lucky to be joined by Mark Berthelemy who has years of experience making CPD work, both on and offline.

The hardest thing to do in any walk of life, is to bring about behaviour change. Even in those who want to change, or believe in it, acknowledge that making change happen is difficult and rare.

Last night we got some talented and skilled practitioners to share, think, and do in a slightly different way. We set in motion something that was unique in all our experiences of CPD.  Questions of how we sustain this, and the ways this fits with policy and in practice are hard. But I have no doubt in the abilities of the people in that room to find the answers – together!

Is this way ‘better‘? Can I make a value judgement of the efficacy of this model, just because people did something different from normal? I know that we captured the ‘Aha!’ moments that make traditional TeachMeets so inspiring, but also grounded them in practice. We demonstrated the power of social learning – something we all believe in with children – and established network based on trust.

BrainPOP UK was involved because we believe in local CPD networks. Which is why we support TeachMeets.

There are lots of great posts already, talking about last night, if you want to read more about it, try these starting points:

• http://twitterfall.com/?trend=%23tmfishbowl!%231F3547
• http://buzzinged.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/reflecting-on-teach-meet-fish-bowl/
• http://www.learningconversations.co.uk/main/index.php/2010/02/25/reflections-on-the-oxford-teachmeet-fishbowl?blog=5

Finally, can I thank:

• Oxfordshire County Council who supplied the the venue
• Tim & Moby for providing the food, drink and nibbles.
• Joe, Victoria W. ,  Lizzie, Rebecca (who came despite being in the middle of an Ofsted inspection), Mike, Row, Joan, Dawn, Mark, Tom, Nick, Matt, Leon, Carol, Carolyne, Victoria S. , Amy, and James (did I miss anyone?).

Fairtrade Fortnight begins on 22nd February and, as Fairtrade is an issue us BrainPOPpers care quite passionately about, we’re taking part in the Fairtrade Foundation’s Big Swap.

We’ve always been Fairtrade tea drinkers but we got coffee in on Monday too…

The BrainPOP team may be all about the caffeinated drinks (and bananas) but there’s lots of stuff the Fairtrade Foundation suggest you can swap.

Why should you swap?

“Fairtrade believes that developing world producers should be in control of their own lives, by getting a better deal for the work that they do. This is a different way of doing business. It’s a way that puts the poorest of the world first.” (http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/thebigswap/why_you_should_swap/)

We registered our swap here – it’s pretty cool getting to see it in all its swap glory.

The Fairtrade Foundation are trying to get one million and one swaps registered over the fortnight so we’d like to encourage you to join in the fun. Schools, towns and even islands can be Fairtrade.

To show your support and learn more you can follow the Fairtrade UK twitter feed or become a fan of their Facebook page. They’ve also got a Flickr group where all sorts of people are posting funny massive inflatable coffee mug pics. We don’t think our photo qualifies in the amusement stakes. ..

We hope to be adding more to the Fairtrade Big Swap list throughout the fortnight so we’ll keep you posted via twitter.

In the name of social research, and the fact we can’t stop thinking about delicious pancakes for Shrove Tuesday tomorrow, we thought we’d conduct a little poll:

Just in case you’d completely forgotten about pancake day, here’s a little recipe from the matriarch of the British kitchen herself, Delia Smith.

Some tips from the BrainPOP UK office:

1. Melt plenty of butter in your frying pan before you add the batter. This prevents your pancake from sticking. A good frying pan always helps here too.
2. Don’t use too much batter – stodgy pancakes ahoy! You’ll be surprised how far a couple of large tablespoons of batter can go.
3. It’s all in the flick of the wrist. Try not to toss your pancake too high – it’s never nice to eat food that was once on the ceiling (or the floor for that matter!)

As we’ve noticed from year to year, it’s usually a case of trial and error…then ending up too full to eat your final perfect pancake.

If you want to learn from the year-in-year-out try-hards, here’s how the Blue Peter team suggest you go about it. And, can anyone find a clip of Yvette Fielding and her pancake attempt on Blue Peter around about 1988? Please send us a link! We found one here but it’s not the best…

Good luck to all of those who plan to toss a pancake or two around the kitchen tomorrow. Hats off to you if you manage frying and flipping in the classroom with your students! Wherever you’re cooking, we hope your pancakes taste delightful.

The pains and pleasures of pancake day. We can’t wait!

In light of it being Safer Internet Day we thought we’d post a little reminder that BrainPOP UK is a totally safe place for kids to hang out – that’s why Tim & Moby hang out here so much!

There’s a lot about keeping kids safe online in the news today but we’re always concerned about online safety! And that’s why our Online Safety movie is always free. Watch it with your class today to learn Tim & Moby’s easy-to-follow top online safety tips.

For other movies about keeping safe, online and off, have a look at our PSHE and Citizenship subject area.

Also, if you happened to miss him, Eylan BrainPOP was demoing BrainPOP UK and ActivExpression on the Promethean Planet stand at BETT this year. Because it’s such an important issue, he chose to demo Online Safety. If you’d like to learn how it all came together, Liam O’Marah’s written a great blog post about it.

Happy safer internet day!

Hello! I’m Ann BrainPOP (@carterwins) and I’m the BrainPOP UK marketer (be nice).

I’ll confess: This was my first ever BETT show. Yep, I was a BETT newbie. And a first time TeachMeeter too.

My personal highlights include talking to what felt like millions of teachers (not sure if this was typical of all stands but I’m not ashamed to admit there were queues off our stand at points), attending my first ever TeachMeet and getting to hang out with a big orange robot (see above).

I also wanted to find out what it was like for a teacher to go to BETT and TeachMeet for the first time.  Oliver Quinlan, a teacher at Robin Hood Primary School, kindly obliged to answer a few questions about what he learned first time presenting at TeachMeet BETT2010.

Oliver started following the TeachMeet buzz in 2009. After attending a Midlands event through the flashmeeting he said he “was left buzzing with ideas, and keen to go to one in person.” Months later he jumped at the chance to present at BETT…

Hi Oliver. Why TeachMeet and BETT this year in particular?

Oliver: I was keen to go as soon as I heard about it as it was the first one I knew I would be able to go to and share some of my classroom practice, as well as learning about others as I had done previously. Luckily my colleagues are very supportive and gave me the time out to go down to BETT and the TeachMeet.

How many people have been in touch with you about your presentation since?

Lots! I am really happy to see quite a few people have taken some ideas from what I’ve been doing and used them with their classes, which is what TeachMeet is all about really. I’ve also had lots of support on my blog from people who saw the talk and have started corresponding with me and commenting on other issues I’ve been writing about like my MA, which has been really beneficial.

In your blog post you mentioned a few of the presentations you enjoyed - have you managed to try any out with your class already? Or even passed on to colleagues?

I passed Helen Myers details on to a colleague straight away, as I know she has been thinking of using Second Life for language learning in our school, and could benefit from the experiences shared. Miles Berry’s work on Scratch is also something our new technologies team are keen to integrate into our curriculum. Ian Usher’s teachers as writers project has made me think quite deeply about my own interests and how I can link my teaching to authentic experiences I am involved in outside of the classroom.

Do you think you’ll be getting more heavily involved with TeachMeets from now on?

Certainly, I am looking forward to this year’s Midlands event already and planning to rope in some of my colleagues this time. One of the things I love about my present school is there is a real culture of teachers as learners, and TeachMeet really fits into that as it is about developing yourself as a teacher through sharing in the innovations of each other. Next time I would like to present on something that doesn’t have a technology focus, because I think this grassroots ideas sharing model is so good it should be about way more than just technology.

Up for organizing #TM2011 if there is one?

I’m certainly up for getting involved!

Good news for anyone who possibly found the organisation a little stressful! There’s no mistaking that TeachMeet is set to shake up, and possibly shape up, the BETT shows Oliver and I visit in future. I certainly look forward to attending another if the opportunity presents itself.

So, what to take from this for BETT 2011? Know your stuff inside and out and if you don’t know the answer, find out immediately! Get involved in what teachers are talking about and are clearly passionate about. Next year, I hope to have tried out a few of the things I heard about at TeachMeet and I hope to buy Oliver Quinlan a coffee.

BrainPOP UK has been invited by the lovely Promethean Planet team to share some of the Tim and Moby magic with visitors to the Promethean Planet stand (B30), at BETT2010.

We have been given a slot every day from 3pm-3:30pm to demo how well BrainPOP UK and Promethean resources work together.

So, apart from being able to meet the BrainPOP UK team at our own stand (S46 on the Upper floor above the main hall), why not come and see us at the Promethean Planet Stand too?

So what will you see if you come along?

• A presentation flipchart based on our Online Safety movie, accompanied by one of our VIBs ( Vickie Bacon from Hurstpierpoint college ).
• A sneak preview of a very cool new way to bring BrainPOP UK quizzes and Promethean tools together.
• You will also have a chance to win a full annual subscription to BrainPOP UK!

So come and say hi. You don’t have to be a Planet member but it’s well worth signing up to be part of the frankly staggeringly huge community of almost 500,000 people and check out the 16,000+ resources compatible with their ActivBoards (or even other IWBs using the Flipchart Viewer).

At BrainPOP UK, we are huge fans of Promethean, mainly because they ‘get’ that teachers should be the focus of what we both do. Promethean have been at the forefront of building communities around their customers and their products in the UK.  They have demonstrated that this helps teachers get great value from their investment from both the hardware and software solutions.

We are proud to stand with Promethean at BETT2010 and hope to see you there.

We are very lucky and privileged to regularly get Tweets and emails from our customers telling us what they think about BrainPOP UK.

A while ago we received a letter. A real letter on real paper from a real person. This is actually a pretty rare occasion in this digital era.

It was from Vickie Bacon, a Maths Specialist and Enrichment co-ordinator (and huge fan of all things BrainPOP) at Hurstpierpoint College in Sussex , who simply had to write in and tell us how much her and her students loved BrainPOP UK.

“…I immediately decided to sign up for a free trial. I am so glad I did! Since then I have been converted into a passionate user of BrainPOP! I couldn’t wait to introduce it into my classes. So much so, that I’d like to share with you the different ways in which BrainPOP is now being used throughout the curriculum…”

Well, it seemed like a perfect excuse for Tim, Moby, Eylan BrainPOP and Mike BrainPOP to jump in the BRAINmobile and go and say hi.

During the first class, Y6 maths, we were impartial observers, seeing how she incorporated Tim & Moby into her front of class teaching. She mentioned on several occasions how well behaved and quiet the children were that day. We’d like to think it was BrainPOP’s super engagement power but we secretly suspect this was mostly because there were two BrainPOPpers watching from the back of the room

Tim and Moby’s movie on Fractions took centre stage as Mrs Bacon framed the whole lesson around it. The movie had the students undivided attention and the message seemed to sink in as the POPquiz was shared by all.

One by one the pupils hopped up from their chairs to tap the interactive whiteboard to answer the POPquiz questions. It’s always fascinating to see how the product we pour our hearts into used so effectively and engagingly. She clicked around the screens with ease, pausing for discussion points on several occasions. We’ll be blogging the detail of the lesson in Part 2.

The lesson came to an end and the children began to pack up their things. At this point, Mrs Bacon officially introduced us to the children, although it felt more like the big reveal at the end of a game show, because the kids mobbed us immediately! We survived the demands for Moby t-shirts and mouse mats, but only just. Vickie was very happy with her new Tim & Moby mug.

It was very special getting to speak with the children, who subsequently never left our side for the remainder of the day, helpfully making suggestions for such things as new products and movies. They were big, big fans.

We went on to have encouraging chats in the staff rooms and corridors, eventually seeing BrainPOP UK used on a one-to-one basis. This showed that BrainPOP UK is just as engaging on this smaller, more personal level, as it is for larger classes.

Overall, it was about as positive as a customer experience can get. We plan to return to Hurstpierpoint in the New Year for an open day, where other schools in the area will attend to see it in action and to share experiences.

Following that, Vickie Bacon hopes to join us at BETT in January as a VIB (Very Important BrainPOPper) to present BrainPOP UK on the Promethean Planet stand. It will be great having her there and suggesting to teachers that they don’t just have to take our word for it.

So we got to spend most of the day seeing Tim and Moby in action across a selection of classes and to not only meet the teachers who use it, but to also meet the children (or should we say BrainPOPpers?) who adored it.

Big thanks to Vickie, her kids and the staff at Hurstpierpoint college for making us feel so welcome.