POPtalk

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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When Dawn Hallybone, a Year 6 teacher and ICT Leader, gave a demo of BrainPOP UK to an eager crowd at BETT she was being hampered by crowd noise.

So, aware of this, and whilst trying to hold the camera steady, we motioned frantically for her to turn the subtitles on. She looked utterly mystified.

But how could she NOT know about the subtitles? How could she possibly have missed the announcement, right? Right..? (jump to 1:35 below)

The BrainPOPpers had lived with the subtitles for a while so assumed everyone knew they were a new addition. And Dawn, lest we forget, is one of the most switched on ICT teachers going. She must have seen our tweets, read our Facebook updates and enjoyed our blog post “7 terrific subtitle tips for BrainPOP“. She uses BrainPOP all the time in her own classroom.

It’s a fact that even with all the social media channels at our fingertips it’s still easy to miss updates. In fact, the more friends you have, the more people you follow, the more feeds you monitor, the easier it is for stuff to appear and disappear too quickly.

There’s a reason Twitter calls its tweet data stream a “firehose“.

But there is a simpler, less fashionable way to keep all you lovely BrainPOPpers informed: email. Most of us sign up to enewsletters. Who doesn’t get half a dozen emails a week (a day?) from companies espousing the latest this, that and the other?

The problem is…do you ever read them?

Most marketing emails go unread, unopened and unloved (sniff). But emails are still a key way to keep in touch with a community, to impart valuable info and make sure everyone who wants it is up to date with things.

So, to help stop a “Dawn moment” ever happening again, we have launched our very first “Moby eNews” – the chance for interested parents, kids and educators to keep in touch with the world of BrainPOP UK via good old email.

New Movies email update example - Click to see larger version

Moby's News email example - Click to see larger version

However, we decided not to do a “one size fits all” newsletter. Instead we divided it into 2 flavours:

<<< The “New Movies” email, which will go out once a month. This will simply let you know what’s new. Not with us but with the bits you love and use: Tim & Moby resources.
>>> The “ecosystem” email, which will go out when we have items to bring to your attention that we think will be valuable. If something awesome occurs this will tell you e.g. the launch of our Featured movie App.

They’re in the BrainPOP style – visual, colourful, playful. Less words, more action.

We’ve also asked you to sign up as Teachers, Parents or Kids. Each of these groups has different requirements. For example a teacher might be extremely excited to find out our quizzes are now integrated with the Promethean Learner Response systems and a parent might want to hear about discounts from PTA networks. There’s some cross over by definition but we’re keen not to bother you with things that won’t be that relevant.

You can sign up over there, on the left, or on our Facebook page or BrainPOP UK itself. Go on, you can easily unsubscribe any time.

If you’re a total info junkie and want it all then we can only suggest you follow, like and watch our very own social firehose

PS: We love our new emails but we have to offer our own gushing feedback to the following two services who got us there:

Plasticle: The design of Moby’s eNews was a precious job, that needed handling by experts. We commissioned the guys at Plasticle, a specialist email design firm, to create two templates for us. We cannot speak highly enough of the Plasticle team. They not only produced what we think are the most exciting & vibrant email designs we’ve seen in a very long time, they listened and actioned all our feedback, gave awesome advice, and delivered on time. Really, they rock.

Mailchimp: Someone needs to deliver those emails. We chose an emailservice called “Mailchimp” who, after a lot of research, testing and testimonial reading, became the well deserved home of our eNews updates. Plus we love Monkeys, so much so we even named our smallest size subscription after them. Mailchimp also rock.

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• Use Tim & Moby to promote class discussion
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We’re excited to welcome Dawn Hallybone as an official BrainPOPper today.

Dawn, a Senior Year 6 teacher and ICT Co-ordinator at Oakdale Junior School, has very kindly offered to give us her take on using BrainPOP UK.

Dawn is perhaps best known for her ground breaking work with game based learning in the classroom  – see her presentation here using Nintendo DS in the classroom. She is also deservedly a finalist for the Hand Held Learning 2009 Special Achievement Awards winner of the Hand Held Learning 2009 Special Achievement Awards!! (Well done, Dawn!)

If you’ve been fortunate enough to hear her speak you’ll know what an inspirational teacher she is, and how passionate she is about integrating exciting and engaging ICT into the realities of classroom life.

“I am not sure when or where I first heard of this product but have a feeling it may have been at BETT.

I remember being drawn by the bright colours and the characters of Tim and Moby. This is true as well of the students themselves when they first use it; however there is a lot more to this package than colours and characters.

BrainPOP UK is an online environment, where as a teacher and as a pupil you can watch short (5 minute) videos explaining a range of subjects across the National Curriculum.

The videos are well presented and convey the information in both a child-friendly and factual way as well as injecting humour – a must I feel with some topics! After each video there is a short activity and a quiz, although you do not need to complete this if you chose not to.

I used BrainPOP UK a lot during the Summer Term with my year 6 class, and found their videos covering puberty and PHSE invaluable as they dealt with these topics sensitively, but with a sprinkling of humour!

When I asked the class which part of the topic they had enjoyed – they all agreed watching Tim and Moby as it:

• ‘…made it clear’
• ‘…did not talk down to us’
• ‘…I felt they understood us’
• ‘…I liked the fact that the letters are written by real children’ (a fact that I nor they knew until we asked via Twitter – another recommendation by one of the class when I admitted that I did not know).

Once we had used it for this topic – the class were eager to explore other areas – they wanted to know what else Tim and Moby talked about!!! We then discovered some great resources for Literacy and Maths which we watched before we sat the SATS.

Again this idea came from the children not me and proved a hit as one they were all watching, learning and relaxing before their tests. There are numerous ways of using the resource. I tend to use it to introduce the topic, and use the quiz at the end as I find that this equips the children with a good degree of knowledge before we start any topic.

BrainPOP UK is a subscription service, but the range of subjects that they cover is vast and they are constantly looking at ways of improving and are great at listening and responding to suggestions from both pupils and teachers.

They also offer free videos each month – a great idea particularly when the Swine flu hit schools and children were worried. We embedded this onto our school blog and children were able to share this with their parents at home.

It can also be watched on a trial basis, which as a teacher I feel invaluable when trialling out resources with my children. It can look really good and sound really good in a sound bite or blurb on company website but it is when it is used in a real context that, for me, is the real test!

I and the class thoroughly enjoyed trying out BrainPOP UK during the Summer term – now the only question is – where did I leave that order form?”

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We talk about our Tim and Moby movies a lot. Of course we do. They’re what makes BrainPOP UK what it is. And our users tend to like them too.

But did you know each movie also comes with an interactive multiple choice quiz? We call them POP Quizzes. You can find them in the bottom left of each movie page.

You can take a POPquiz right away if you like but you will be offered the option to take it at the end of the movie too.

Each POPquiz is 10 questions long and can be taken in one of three ways.

POPquiz questions are directly related to events in the movie and do two things very well:

• enable the teacher to assess the learning that happened during the movie (which is often shown front of class).
• to provide extension activities to reflect on the learning.

The Graded Quiz

This is taken directly on the screen.

The results are aggregated and you can choose to:

1. Print your score.
2. Email your score to any email address you like (this is particularly useful for the teacher as they can nominate their address so they get all results sent to them).
3. View your mark out of ten on screen.

If you choose the third option you will be able to go back and review all your responses and to reveal the correct answers.

The Review Quiz

The review quiz will not let the student move to the following question until they have provided the correct answer to the one they are attempting.

Upon choosing an answer Moby pops up and tells them if they are right or wrong before taking them back to the question to try again or moving to the next. This provides immediate feedback. Plus kids love seeing Moby pop up (you can’t see it here but Moby’s head shakes from side to side if they get a “Try again”. Take a POPquiz and see for yourself).

The Printed Quiz

I guess this is pretty self explanatory and still a pretty popular option. It allows you to print as many copies of the POPquiz you like and then distribute out to the class to collect later for marking.

I’d like to thank Olivia Newton John’s “Let get physical” 80′s lycra clad exercise hit for inspiration for my title pun so in homage you might want to take an actual 80′s music POP quiz.

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