Jude, BrainPOP UK’s ELearning and Mobile Consultant, recently called on one of our subscribing schools. Here’s how her day went…
Ben Wood (a.k.a. @Referoo) has been a BrainPOPper for a year or so now and when he came to see us at BETT this year, he politely requested a t-shirt. I was all for popping one in the post but thought better of it – why not deliver it personally?
Ben was on board so on a bright afternoon I had the honour of visiting Menston Primary, where a very demanding BrainPOP focus group awaited me.
I met three separate Year 6 classes: Mrs Anthony’s, Mr Wood’s, and Mrs Gregson’s. It turns out that each class had already done some work thinking (and writing) about BrainPOP. We watched a couple of movies related to their lessons, Digital Animation and Hip-Hop and Rap, and in one class we completed the Smoking quiz together. We didn’t watch the Smoking movie as the class assured me they had watched it some time ago – they ended up getting an impressive 10/10!
I hope I showed them a trick or two they weren’t aware of. For example, they didn’t know that our February spotlight coincided exactly with the theme they were studying in school – Space.
The major part of the sessions involved students and teachers giving me some amazing feedback on BrainPOP (and very very strange team names).
What did they like?
- BrainPOP makes topics fun: “BrainPOP has good information not dull information,” said one young BrainPOPper
- Another student liked the way BrainPOP challenges them which can only be a good thing!
- I nearly fell on the floor when one very clever young chap told me that BrainPOP suited his style of learning as he was a visual learner – it turns out the class knew about styles of learning from when they studied the Brain earlier in the year
- Mrs Anthony liked the way difficult vocabulary is highlighted in the movies as sometimes this led to discussions, like the other day when the class discussed the word “appeasement”
By this point I wondered if I really was in a Year 6 class as everyone seemed so advanced!
BrainPOP at home
We discussed how the kids used BrainPOP at home in the evenings. Nearly everyone had an iOS device, or knew someone who did, and our free Featured Movie App got two thumbs up. Those who didn’t use the App tended to use the family computer.
Being able to watch movies at home was useful if you don’t catch everything when you watch it in class.
Was there anything they didn’t like? Not really! The jokes are a bit corny sometimes but they decided they could live with it.
There were lots of movie suggestions and quite a few students said they wanted to see more characters in the movies…especially girls. I pointed out the Cassie and Rita comics in the FYIs but the general consensus was that Cassie and Rita should get speaking roles. Watch this space for our Period movie coming later in the year.
Someone suggested guest appearances from other animated characters could feature in the movies. Bart Simpson anyone?
Image courtesy of http://www.simpsoncrazy.com/pictures/bart
What’s in a name?
I had a marvellous afternoon and left saying I would mention the group names of everyone I met. All the students compete against each other in groups and sometimes the BrainPOP quiz results feed into this score, so here goes…
Big up to…The Sugar Wangers, Girls R Us, The Epic Video Gamers, The Blue Devils, Marshmallow Horses, Meerkats with a Manicure, Angels Burgers, The Ninja Kiwis, The Banana Bandits, The Whizzy Wine Gums, The Pink Pandas, The Groovy Geeks, The Crazy Lemmings and the Lovely Loveheart Lovers!
Menston Primary is clearly a very fun place to learn.
Keep Up the BrainPOPping!
