POPtalk

Earlier this year we did a very limited release of “Digital Leader” Moby badges, which we made as a one off request by a customer.

They were ridiculously popular and were decorating the lapels of Digital Leaders up and down the UK within days. But it was first come, first served so inevitably…they ran out.

In the meantime the grass roots Digital Leader program has gone from strength to strength (we think it’s a fantastic initiative).

So now we’ve made some more. But not just one design. This time expanded to six designs, a small range that covers some of the big digital skills. If they are regarded with the same affection and demand as the original we may expand the set later this year, based on your suggestions.

This first run of badges are available for free to BrainPOP subscribers only*, and limited to up to 24 badges per school (in whatever ratio you like). Badges will not be sent out until January 2013.

Fill out the form below to make your request.

SORRY! All badges sold out! If you would like to be added to a waiting list for the next batch please email info@brainpop.co.uk .

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10 year old Grace is a Digital Leader at St John the Baptist Primary. Leader by name, leader by nature, Grace took it upon herself to review BrainPOP UK, which we’re very proud (with her permission) to reproduce in full here.

Hello. My name is Grace and this is why I think BrainPOP is great for learning.

Firstly, BrainPOP helps anyone learn anything even if they learn in a different way to other people. I, for example, learn by seeing things in front of me but my friend learns by hearing things.

Does that mean we can’t learn together? No – we have BrainPOP!

In the BrainPOP videos the characters Tim and Moby don’t only show you how to do whatever you are learning about- they tell you as well, that means me and my friend can learn together!

As well as this the videos are funny, colourful and informative, this makes learning fun and more like watching a cartoon – basically tricking children into learning (sneaky teachers)!

I noticed that when we use BrainPOP in class even the children who don’t enjoy learning become excited.

I even use BrainPOP at home.

For example; I enjoy knowing things ahead of others so when I heard about binary numbers I got excited, firstly I asked my parents to explain these strange binary numbers, although they are extremely intelligent when my parents explained I still found binary numbers confusing.

Then I went on BrainPOP!

Using humor as well as information Tim and Moby told me all about binary numbers and now I know more about them than one of the most clever people in my school!

This is why I think BrainPOP is an amazing tool for learning!

All we can say is, thank you Grace, we salute you.

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We heard, via Twitter, that Ian Addison was initiating a “Digital Leaders” program, giving kids more responsibility over the ICT in school. A task the digital leaders were charged with was to promote use of the school’s ICT products to the teachers, one of which was BrainPOP.

Digital leaders sounded like a fascinating and empowering initiative so we invited Ian to do a short guest blog:

“At my school there are a lot of jobs for the ICT Coordinator to do. This can range from serious events like planning the ICT curriculum and ordering software to the day-to-day tasks like adding photos to the school website or updating the blogs.

At my school, we have a group of children who help with some of these jobs. They are known as the digital leaders and they range from year 3 to year 6 (after Easter we will be ‘employing’ some year 1-2 children as well) and they write blog posts, run ICT clubs and test new software for me.

Example jobs might be:

• Running 3/4 or 5/6 ICT Club
• Blogging for our outdoor curriculum
• Updating pictures on the website
• Updating pictures on the TV screen in the reception
• Setting up a webcam at lunchtime for us to watch animals in Africa

At our last inset day, the children ran a few workshops which included showing teachers how to blog, how to create photo slide shows and how to use BrainPOP UK. The children planned the session and Matthew in Year 5 has written a few words about his experience…

“We showed teachers what the government recommends for children in primary school should be learning. Also we showed them the variety of different subjects. They all loved BrainPOP! Also my favourite video is teeth because it gives you loads of knowledge about teeth. To improve you could do different, like you could add cooking and other stuff and not just do the main subjects. I think BrainPOP is an outstanding way to learn!”

You can read more on Ian’s Digital Leaders project on his blog.

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