POPtalk

Hello! It’s Jude again – your friendly Northern BrainPOPper, giving you the lowdown on the goings on oop north.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve attended a couple of TeachMeets. Partly to see what they were all about, and partly in my role as official ambassador to his Moby-ness. We sponsor a fair number, you see.

I found TeachMeets inspirational. Not just for the amazing & creative ideas the teachers share with each other, but due to the simple fact that these educators are so passionate about what they do. They gather together in their own spare time to enthuse and help each other.

Last week I attended the first ever Kidsmeet in Blackpool. The website describes it as an event “…looking for learners to do the talking. To share the things that have made a difference to them, to talk through projects that have inspired them or to recount a moment that changed their approach to learning” but as this is a KIDSmeet I’ll let them do the talking.

Kidsmeet from Hawes Side school on Vimeo.

If the idea of teachers being excited enough about teaching to get together is ground breaking, the idea of kids being excited enough about their learning, to get together to share with other kids, is…universe breaking (is there such a thing?).

On the day we saw 12 presentations given by kids from Yr 1 to Yr 6, on a range of topics from warm-up drama games to Twitter.  Most schools spoke as groups of 4-5 although one very brave young lady did a presentation all on her own.

One of the highlights for me was Greenpark Primary talking about Google Apps. They said it was “great…because you don’t have to use a pencil” and “you can have a partner to work with without having to sit next to them”.

Lots of schools enthusiastically talked about blogging . One student said “I think Blogging is as easy as opening a packet of crisps”. Another said “Blogging is good for your brain”.

Some of the resources mentioned were:

• Aviary (photo editing)
• Writing Frames (literacy skills)
• Popplet (website to collect your ideas together)
• Voki (create speaking avatars to embed on a  webpage)
• Glogster (create interactive posts from your media)

All the kids who spoke were incredibly brave as there was an audience of around 150 people and all the presentations were interesting .

But I can’t deny the presentation I was looking forward to most was “Digital Film Making and Orange Robots” from Staining Primary. As the event progressed I kept looking around at the Staining Primary kids. They had been chosen to speak last, and I wondered if the tension might be getting to them?

No…cool as cucumbers.

Finally they got to speak about a mini horror movie they’d made when they entered one of our competitions, with Tim & Moby as the main characters. They talked about how they learned to edit, act, script write, direct and lots more.

They delivered their presentation clearly and confidently, and, might I add, got the biggest laughs of the day!

Everything was soooo professionally done from the title credits to the presentation slides. Watching the Staining Tim and Moby Movie on the big screen made it look even better. Everyone should be incredibly proud of themselves. You can see their movie below:

The day ended in with the young BrainPOPpers (and Mr Maloney) accosting me and taking all my Moby badges. But that’s OK -  you guys definitely earned them.

Your bravery and enthusiasm will hopefully inspire other kids around the world to run their own Kidsmeets.

Related Posts:

• Sharing the TeachMeet Takeovers from BETT 2012
• BETTer late than never – highlights from BETT 2012
• Moving on from TeachMeet sponsorship
• One click and you can do anything
• Teachers Takeover BETT 2011

Hello, BrainPOPpers! I’m Jude, and I’m the newest member of the BrainPOP team.

It’s my job to find new BrainPOP schools and look after our current BrainPOP schools in the north of England. As part of my welcome to BrainPOP I was lucky enough to be invited to Staining Primary school in Blackpool to witness first hand how they use BrainPOP UK in the classroom.

Mission Impossible, a song about wellies and 9 minutes of BrainPOP

You know when you see someone do something, and it looks really easy, but that’s only because they are so good at it, so it comes across as effortless? Good examples of this are plastering and scratching records. I think it’s the same with teaching.

My hosts were Mr. Maloney and his excellent class. They kindly let me sit in on two of their lessons so I could find out how they use BrainPOP. However, I ended up  finding  out much more…

It has been (ahem) some time since I attended school myself and it seems that teaching theory has moved on from copying things down in silence from the whiteboard. Mr Maloney said our first lesson would be Maths (“gutted,” I thought, “my worst subject!”) but we were thrown straight into a game of Fuzz Buzz, and I came near last leaving me with a disquieting thought: I don’t know my four times table as well as I thought I did.

The next part of the lesson was the BrainPOP movie, Angles. As it started to play lots of kids either gave me a sly thumbs up or said they liked my BrainPOP T-shirt.

It was clear that I was amongst some real die hard Moby fans. As a thank you I made Tim & Moby sign a picture for them which I framed and presented to the class.

It was a tough job to make angles seem interesting but the dynamic duo pulled  it off and even got a laugh at the end of the movie.

As everyone settled down to some protractor practice I managed to talk to some young BrainPOPers. They left me very impressed – not just because they had watched so many movies and could remember the details – but because they were asking for so many more movies and topics they would like to learn more about.

I will be passing their request list to Tim and Moby, but was struck by the intelligence of the suggestions. Would you expect  a Yr5 class to be demanding instruction on art movements or mixing chemicals?

Even tidying up ready for lunch was fun as everyone dashed about getting things away to the Mission Impossible theme tune.

Assembly followed lunch and Mr Maloney talked to us about Spring, which gave us a good excuse to watch the BrainPOP movie on Seasons . There was an audible “Yeah!” when the movie came on the screen

After the movie it seemed everyone had remembered far more facts than me and I was glad Mr Maloney didn’t ask me any questions about the equinox.

We had finished slightly early and Mr Maloney asked “What could we do to fill the time?”

Someone suggested the Welly Song. It wasn’t long before the class was clamouring for The Welly Song. Pretty soon there was no way Mr Maloney was getting out of singing The Welly Song and a helpful soul dashed off to get Mr Maloney’s guitar.

I’m not sure I can describe “The Welly song” in a way which would do it justice, but maybe if you are lucky enough to meet Mr Maloney one day (or be in his class!) you might persuade him to perform it for you.

Our second lesson was ICT. I learned that technology doesn’t always work but when it does, boy, there is some great things you can do with it.

I asked the students if they preferred using computers or doing more practical things like model making and was told “Well, model making is OK, but with computers one click and you can do anything”  and from looking at their work, they certainly weren’t exaggerating.

I was shown animations, illustrated stories and blog posts about every conceivable subject and the students spoke with such confidence and enthusiasm it was obvious that ICT is just a way to express their ideas, not a subject they are ‘taught’.

In all I had spent nearly five hours in the delightful company of the Staining Massive and BrainPOP resources had taken up only 9 minutes of that time. On reflection my visit made me realise two huge compliments to BrainPOP:

1. Some of the world’s most discerning IT users (i.e. Mr Maloney’s class) love BrainPOP even with the millions of other things they could do on the Internet. One pupil told me she watched movies at home with her dad on the huge plasma screen telly. And she said her Dad enjoyed them too.
2. Teachers have literally hundreds of tools at their disposal to aid learning. In a similar way that the finest craftsmen insist upon the finest tools, it is an amazing endorsement that Mr Maloney and his class choose to use BrainPOP.

So, thank you Mr Maloney & Staining Primary School for allowing me to be part of your day. Don’t be surprised if your blog starts getting hits from other schools all over the North as I travel far and wide singing your praises.

Related Posts:

• What makes a good BrainPOPper?
• Moby’s super secret science trails at Hurworth school
• Literacies for Life at Shireland Collegiate Academy
• Happiness is a BrainPOP blog badge
• Kismet at Kidsmeet