POPtalk

This will be BrainPOP UK’s 3rd year at BETT and this time we’re turning it up to 11.

At BETT 2009/10 we were “up in the Gods”, on the gallery section overlooking the Grand Hall. A sweet spot, but not too easy to find and not much space for Moby to bust out his moves.

Moby on our old 2010 BETT stand

For 2011 we’ve graduated to the ground floor of the Grand Hall, stand No.B60, right in the middle next to the stairs and the RM stand. It’s a modest sized space compared to some of the monolithic structures that surround us but we promise it will be one of the most social and fun stands you visit.

Each day we’ll be meeting lots of current and future BrainPOP Educators and demoing ALL the BrainPOP products and features, including BrainPOP ESL and BrainPOP Jr. Of course there will also be a scintillating array of BrainPOP goodies for you to take back to school to show off.

Here’s a few more reasons you should come and visit our stand:

• We’ll be joined by a number of VIBs – BrainPOP teachers (including Dawn Hallybone, Ian Addison, Tim Handley, Adina Popa, Tom Sale and James Mahoney) who have kindly given up a few hours to show how they effectively use BrainPOP in their classrooms, both 1-2-1 and presenting on our Interactive Whiteboard. They will have their own special VIB tshirts – keep an eye out for them as not only are they passionate about BrainPOP, they are great exponents of relevant and modern ICT practice.
• We’re hosting TeachMeet Takeovers at 2pm on Thurs/Fri (maybe Saturday too). This is when we hand the stand over to a real teacher who gives a presentation about free tools and services that they’ve used in the classroom. We’re honoured and priviliged to have the inspiring Alessio Bernardelli and Dan Roberts doing a tag team Takeover on Thursday about “Using Livestream to create and broadcast pupils work as a TV Show & Chicken Pecha Kucha 20×20 free tech tools” and the fantastic Bill Lord (who is a wonderfully infectious speaker) talking about “Amazing free tools to fire up literacy learners“. You do NOT want to miss these.
• Moby’s Photobooth – come and get a Polaroid portrait picture taken with the big orange fella himself, to treasure forever. His Photobooth will be open most of the show, except when he needs a break to oil his sprockets.
• BrainPOP Spotters! If you visit the BrainPOP stand, get a demo and pick up a special Moby shoulder bag make sure you proudly display it when you’re wandering around the exhibition. Why? Because at 2pm each day Moby will be wandering the exhibition hall looking for a BrainPOP bag. If he “spots” yours then you’ve won a full year’s subscription to the BrainPOP product of your choice. Woot!

BrainPOPpers will also be attending these events:

• Learning Without Frontiers (Drinks reception sponsor and general hob-nobbing – please grab a BrainPOPper if you see one and say hola).
• Collabor8 4 Change – Sponsor, Keynote and round table lead.
• TeachMeet BETT 2011 – Generally kicking back with lots of old (and hopefully new!) friends at this highlight of the educational calendar.

Find us where the little red box is:

The location of the BrainPOP stand at Bett 2011

Related Posts:

• Teachers Takeover BETT 2011
• The magnetic power of technology
• Collabor8 4 Change – a new ‘unconference’ at BETT 2011
• Back from BETT 2010 part 1: Sparking conversations – the VIB effect
• Off to BETT 2010 part 1 – A grand day out

BrainPOP UK are part of a very special new evening event at BETT 2011 – Collabor8 4 Change

BrainPOP UK have long been fans of the unconference / BarCamp model of event, such as TeachMeets and Fishbowling.

This year we were kindly asked to join Merlin John , Apple, Rising Stars & Dave Smith of the Havering ICT team to create a new type of event for teachers.

Collabor8 4 Change is the result – an unconference focused on School Leaders.

So what is it?

• Share best-practice ideas that you can take away and implement in your school
• Collabor8 with like-minded, award-winning ICT innovators that are willing to share
• Join discussion sessions that will challenge thinking and inspire change

What would I get from it?

All attendees will benefit from the experience and conversation with leading ICT practitioners as they openly share best practice use of hardware and software, with an emphasis on the impact on pupil outcomes and making effective use of existing ICT resources.

With an impressive, thought-provoking, mixture of exciting table-based sessions and focused mini-note presentations from ICT experts such as:

• Hannah Jones (Former Special Projects Director at NCSL)
• Steve Bunce (CPD Leader at VITAL)
• Bob Harrison (Consultant with BECTA and the NCSL)
• Adina Popa (Educator, VSTE Innovator of the Year, Staff Developer, #globaled10 Regional Chair, Speaker, Writer)

And it’s completely FREE!

So, what are you waiting for? Follow any of these links to find out more:

• Sign up at the official Collabo8 4 Change web page
• Linked In users can sign up here for the Collabor8 4 Change event page
• Become a Fan on Facebook

Date: Thursday 13th January 2011

Time: 6:00pm- 9:00pm

Venue: The Apex Room, BETT, Olympia, London

Related Posts:

• Turning it up to 11 at BETT
• BrainPOP connects at the Global Education Conference
• The magnetic power of technology
• Teachers Takeover BETT 2011
• Small is beautiful

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.

Related Posts:

• Collabor8 4 Change – a new ‘unconference’ at BETT 2011
• Turning it up to 11 at BETT
• Remember, remember…Divali starts 5th November
• #TMHants, VIBs and some rather special conversations
• Meeting People isn’t easy – But making the effort is always worth it.

I want to promote another service. Normally, blogs from companies tend to talk about their own product. But, as you must have noticed, we are not a normal outfit!

In the past fortnight I have become increasingly impressed and excited by the opportunities that Skype offers us.

Skype is like a phone, but over the internet! You can video conference and share screens (so you can see what the other person is doing on their computer if they invite you). Skype is very easy to use, and has lots of free stuff (like BrainPOP UK ) and has even more useful premium features, at a cost (also like BrainPOP UK!)

I have already posted about our day in Shropshire, where Ann and I drove up to a hotel near Shrewsbury, and spent the day meeting attendees at a conference – in an exhibition area full of suppliers. Fun as the day was, we did travel 250 miles to be there at 8:30 only get  60mins when we were able to talk to teachers (30 mins as part of two breaks).

We believe that quality is more important than quantity of conversations when we do events, but that means that we don’t get to see everyone. This reduces the Return on Investment (ROI) we get on the event – because unless we need to get a certain number of people to pay for a subscription in order to pay for the costs of the event!  I guess what I am saying is that although the personal touch and chance to meet people in person is always better, there are big costs to consider:

• Internal Impact - cost of a day out of the office, costs to pay for the event, exhibition fees, printing charges, etc (BrainPOP UK pays!)
• External Impact – carbon footprint of a car journey (9 kg of CO2) and of stand (printing on paper, electricity, etc) and being just another ‘supplier’ at another ‘stand’ in another hall in another event – being part of the crowd reinforcing an old model. (Everyone pays!!)

Now, it was totally worth going to Shropshire – because we met loads of great people – but mainly as we did not have to ‘hard sell’  – as Steve Beard, a local ICT advisor, already loves us! As a result, we had lots of high quality conversations! Which was nice.

But making decisions about where and when to go when we are invited is not always so easy. The same week I had been invited to a new product demo day, to the LA advisory team in Doncaster. There was no real prior knowledge of BrainPOP UK, except that one of the team, Damian Ward, is one of the Yorks and Humber Teachmeet organisers, for whom we made a bespoke Teachmeet movie . We were to be one of many suppliers invited in to meet the team, show new stuff and then leave. The advisory team might buy BrainPOP UK for the LA – but this sort of decision takes months! More likely is that advisors are always looking for new resources to tell their schools about. This demo would give them the info to decide whether BrainPOP UK is something they wanted to recommend. This is not something we have the infrastructure to do all the time! We are a small team without a national sales force – so it is not as easy for us as other suppliers to get to meet everyone!

It would have been a 6 hour round trip from Oxford to Doncaster (20kg of CO2) for a 60min slot with 3 people.

This is where Skype came to the rescue! Thanks to the support of their excellent IT technician, Phil, we were able to get around the system blocks to skype, and get a video conference going.

OK, so the sound quality was not as good as it would have been if I had been there in person, and we did not get to shake hands, or really ‘connect’ on a personal level,…

BUT, we did get to meet the Doncaster ICT advisory team, demo BrainPOP UK, talk through their questions and concerns, discuss the subscription prices, and got some good feedback about the site! They asked for a trial, which I gave them, to evaluate it further with their schools. … Then it was time for the next presenter – my time was up – and I said goodbye.

All in all, I think we made the right choice about using Skype for this opportunity, and we’d like to do this more.

So – what do you think?

Would you be happy to have a demo of BrainPOP UK through Skype?

Are you able to access Skype from your school computers?

Related Posts:

• BrainPOP connects at the Global Education Conference
• Small is beautiful
• April is National Pet Month
• Lesson ideas and activities for Starship BrainPOP
• Scotland gets POPteach

BrainPOP UK had an interesting couple of days at the Health & Wellbeing in Education Exhibition 2009.  We, along with everyone else, didn’t really know what to expect – it was the first year of the exhibition – but we like to think BrainPOP UK isn’t afraid to try new things. And anyway Tim and Moby always draw the crowds.

So we tripped off into the unknown – otherwise known as the Birmingham NEC – and set up camp next to Rethink and Slimming World.

While struggling to keep warm and yell over the bongo drums workshop or the Yoga lady who was running sessions that went very quiet and THEN GOT VERY LOUD we met quite a few teachers and TAs which was great.

We also met Social Workers, School Nurses, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, and SEN specialists. A delightful mix of folk.

We showcased our PSHE movies and were chuffed to see a particular favourite for the Physiotherapists was Broken Bones. Well, chuffed, but not surprised. And, one School Nurse we spoke to even said “that’s exactly what we say when we’re talking to children!” after watching the Addiction movie.

Everyone we spoke to seemed to like what they saw so we were really pleased. It’s always hit and miss at events like this as you never know if you’ll fit in or if BrainPOP will appeal to the crowds. There were a few requests for movies we don’t currently offer but we take all suggestions on board so watch this space.

A couple of exhibition highlights:

1. 5 a Day Fitness and their great exercise DVD. 5 minutes of exercise for schoolchildren to do in the classroom everyday. We’ll be implementing this plan for mornings at BrainPOP HQ soon enough (maybe to banish the inevitable Festive season weight gain?).
2. Another memorable event: Squishing and squashing a pound of fat at the Health Edco stand. DISGUSTING!

Hmm…bearing in mind that rather realistic pound of fat, we think the deliciously cheesy garlic bread scoffed the evening of the first day shows BrainPOP UK’s commitment to health and wellbeing.

Maybe not.

Report card reads: must try harder.

Related Posts:

• Bogies & Pirates! Independent learning with Tim & Moby
• BrainPOP and Pupil Support
• Turning it up to 11 at BETT
• Spotlight on Healthy Living
• Collabor8 4 Change – a new ‘unconference’ at BETT 2011

On Wednesday 8th July 2009 we attended our first local Oxfordshire LA event – the Harnessing Technology across the Curriculum conference at the impressive Frank Williams F1 conference center.

And...they're...off!

“This free event will showcase the exciting ways that teachers and pupils are using technology to enhance learning and teaching across the curriculum in Oxfordshire primary, secondary and special schools.

The programme includes seminar sessions presented by teachers using the Oxfordshire Learning Platform and other technologies in schools, and exhibition stands from major educational ICT suppliers.

Attendees also are able to visit Frank Williams’ famous museum of over 40 Formula 1 racing cars at the Centre. “

Smaller events like these couldn’t be further from the giant BETT type shows. We think it’s important to try to do both.

At BETT you get lots and lots of visitors. It’s hard to catch your breath if you’re running a stand. It’s rare a stand attendee doesn’t go home without strained vocal cords and blisters. Teachers tend to hunt in packs at the big trade shows so often you’ll be demoing to 3 or 4 people, sometimes even a crowd, and be up against the noise all around you.

At local events like this you get much more opportunity to do one on one time with teachers. As there are only a handful of suppliers to go round they can take their time.

Oddly enough we found that teachers who came to see us and fell a little in love with BrainPOP UK didn’t tend to sign up for free trial on the spot like they do at larger trade shows. But we’re fairly confident they will when they next sit down at a PC.

Potentially this was simply because it was nearly the summer break. We also think a local show is simply less focused on selling (at BETT it’s expected behaviour to be scanned for evaluations or entered into competitions etc) so there’s no pressure to sign up to anything. As the conversations are more in depth there’s much less chance of forgetting.

Events of this type are less explicitly commercial (there were a number of local schools displaying their ICT adventures in amongst the suppliers). The stands weren’t shouty and glossy. All the stands were very similar – they simply implied “Pop over and have a chat”.

Which suited us just fine. The feedback we got was fantastic and I dare say we’ll soon be welcoming some Oxfordshire schools to the BrainPOP UK family in September. Some highlights:

• Meeting Nick Speller and James Bird from the Oxfordshire ICT Advisory team – thanks for looking after us and making us feel so welcome, guys!
• The whole BrainPOP UK team got a chance to see Dawn Hallybone do her thing in her “Game based learning in the Classroom” seminar, using Nintendo DS consoles to deliver real demonstrable value in the classroom. Talk about hyper engaging teaching tools. If you ever get a chance to see her present on this topic we highly recommend it.
• The Sonning Common School radio seminar (their kids went home with lots of Tim and Moby stickers – are there any kids who don’t want stickers?) and have uploaded a blog post here with some great photos: SCPS Radio @ the ICT Conference .
• Katie from 2Simple was there and she’s always a pleasure to hang out with.
• The dozens of pupils who ravaged our stand for free goodies and a chance to watch Tim and Moby movies. My personal highlight was when a teacher gathered her pupils and asked them to venture forth and visit every stand and report back to her what they’d seen and what they’d like to use in school. Immediately, and almost in synchronisation, they shouted “BRAINPOP!“. Brilliant.
• The F1 Museum – not my cup of tea but others on the team couldn’t believe their luck. There was even talk of a Tim and Moby F1 movie!

Louise gets all a-flutter at being so close to a real F1 car

PS: You can see an overview of the event by checking out the Twitter search on the conference hash tag “#oxict09“. If you are not sure what a hash tag is it’s worth reading this article on hash tags.

Nick Speller told me over a coffee that the Oxfordshire ICT team are trying to popularise #oxteach to create a living, breathing way of highlighting all interesting conversations around what’s happening with ICT in Oxfordshire. Even though it’s still very early days with this we say bravo! As we are based on Oxford we will also use this tag where we can.

Related Posts:

• Collabor8 4 Change – a new ‘unconference’ at BETT 2011
• BrainPOP connects at the Global Education Conference
• Meeting People isn’t easy – But making the effort is always worth it.
• A day in Shropshire
• Through the Looking Bowl – Teachmeet Fishbowling with BrainPOP UK