As part of the incredible StoryTyne event held last week in Newcastle. I have posted about Tim Rylands presentation and about some of the other speakers. I was lucky enough to co-present a workshop with Bill Boyd and Alan Yeoman. I called my workshop ‘Where Fact meets Fiction’ – and tried to make it as interactive as possible. After a short explanation of why I was there and what BrainPOP UK can bring to enhance teaching and learning, I shared the key ingredients to a BrainPOP UK movie:
Ingredients
3 key learning ‘points’
3 levels of ability – talk, animate and label for all three!
3 minute target – keep it pacy.
To make – set brain to ‘create’ and be…
Consistent & Clear
Accurate
Narrative Driven
Engaging and Remarkable
Fun
But, rather than reading more about it – see below for a short vid of my session!
I was hugely honoured when Steve Bunce invited me to run a BrainPOP UK POPTeach workshop at an event he was planning, all about the power of digital storytelling.
Steve has long been a fan of BrainPOP UK, and he was one of the first people to convince me (despite his furious punning!) that twitter was a powerful CPD tool.
What I am trying to say is that I said “Yes” to Steve, without really thinking too hard about what I was agreeing to. He did tell me it would be called ‘StoryTyne’. I did not know when it would be, who else was speaking, who would be coming. I just trusted Steve to make it a special day.
Steve works for Vital CPD, an organisation supporting professional development and ICT, that we partnered with to run Fishbowl events. By combining with Northern Grid for Learning, and getting some rather wonderful people involved, Steve managed to set up an event that had thousands of teachers wishing they were in Newcastle (not an everyday occasion!).
But, as the date got closer I found out that the big pull for the day was Tim Rylands – www.timrylands.com – whose legendary status as a transformative agent in education needs no introduction. The briefest search on the web will bring up evidence of his ability to inspire kids and teachers to do something amazing with the school day. There is no doubt that Tim’s involvement in the day made this a very special event!
Surrounded by the fog rolling off the Tyne, and nestled in the hills surrounding the stone city of Newcastle – a brave Doctor delivered unto anunsuspecting crowd a day called….StoryTyne.
A crew, even more motley than that coat, then led said crowd through magic windows into places and spaces, full of strange beasts, wolves, orange robots, playgrounds, monkeys, bears, and people.
More than that – the crowd was given the very ingredients to create the magic themselves.
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.
Would you like to join the team on our stand for a few hours at BETT 2010 exhibition and talk to fellow teachers about BrainPOP UK?
Would you like us to pay your travel/subsistence expenses to go to BETT?
Would you like your very own exclusive Moby T-shirt and a few stories to tell in the Staffroom?
Aha! We thought that last one would get your attention.
We have a stand at BETT 2010 (S46, on the balcony). It’s not a big stand; it’s not a glamorous stand. It will look very similar to this one from last year.
But it will be a fun and busy stand; full of BrainPOPpy goodness.
We’d love a few teachers to do a couple of hours with us each day, between 10am and 3pm. You’ll be showing BrainPOP UK to other teachers, simply telling them what you already know. This is not a sales thing – you’ll just be teaching them about BrainPOP UK. We’ll be on hand at all times to support you.
You’ll connect with so many educators from all walks of life from around the world and make a few new friends into the bargain.
You can join us on any day you like. BETT runs from Wednesday 13th to Saturday 16th.
Plus you get the rest of the time to take a look round BETT too. And you can keep the T-shirt.
So if you think you, or a colleague, might want to work with Tim, Moby and the BrainPOP UK crew for the day email us: info@brainpop.co.uk as soon as you can and we’ll take it from there.
