POPtalk

After scoping out the festival in 2010 we decided to bite the bullet and book a stand at Scottish Learning Festival 2011. Aside from the prospect of haggis for breakfast and generally enjoying a jaunt north of the border, we had plenty of reasons to attend.

Let's get started!

1. Putting faces to names

We have a lot of friends and customers in Scotland and it’s always nice to put a face to a name. Cathy from St. Thomas’ R.C. Primary School made a big impression in her kilt attire so we made sure she took away a tartan badge or two to match

It’s also always nice to meet tweeps like @digitalkatie and @kirstyforbes. Always a pleasure, ladies! Kirsty was the lucky winner of 3 months free access to BrainPOP and a goodie bag. We hope you enjoy having Moby in your school, Kirsty!

Kirsty sports her winning certificate

2. Mapped to Curriculum for Excellence

We got to meet lots of Scottish teachers and show them Deep Beep, our curriculum matching tool. Deep Beep means you can drill down to the experiences and outcomes you wish to follow and find appropriate topics for your lesson in just a couple of clicks. All BrainPOP topics are mapped to Curriculum for Excellence and Deep Beep should help make lesson planning easy.

Moby loves to see a busy stand

3. Help with your evaluation

We know what it’s like to be bombarded with promotional literature and suffer information overload at these events so we wanted to create something to assist you. Proper evaluation of BrainPOP should involve your class if possible. The more colleagues and students helping with the evaluation the better. That’s why we created evaluation booklets - have your class help out.

With our evaluation sheet you let the kids check out the site, give you their honest feedback and you can use it to convince your Head Teacher or PT that BrainPOP’s worth an investment. Download the Evaluation Sheet here:

Click to download

4. Exceptional keynotes

We heard some truly inspirational keynotes and speaker sessions. Sir John Jones’ keynote, The Future Is Not What It Was, was a particular highlight. He received a standing ovation and even had some of the audience in tears. If you didn’t manage to catch him last week, we recommend you take the time to watch him now: Sir John Jones and other keynotes. Exceptional.

5. VIBs in the house

We know that it’s a thousand times more useful for you to talk to a fellow teacher so special mention has to go to our VIB (Very Important BrainPOPper), Mhairi Healy from Calderglen High School. Mhairi made sure that visitors to our stand heard first hand about how she uses BrainPOP with her class. Her unyielding enthusiasm and passion for teaching (and BrainPOP!) got straight to the heart of what really matters in the classroom!

Very Important BrainPOPper

We know there were lots of people posing for photos with Moby. If you took any pics please send them to info@brainpop.co.uk or post them to our Facebook page. We’d love to see some more and we’ll make sure you get some goodies for your trouble.

We’ll see you next year folks!

Now, where can we find a kilt maker used to working with robots?

Related Posts:

• Calder-lightful! Using BrainPOP UK in Secondary English
• Meet Deep Beep
• Scotland gets POPteach
• North of the border – Moby goes to the Scottish Learning Festival
• What’s in store at SLF 2011?

We’re going to be at the Scottish Learning Festival from 21st to 22nd September at the SECC in Glasgow. If you’re heading along you can find us on…

STAND E7

Do not forget this important piece of information. It will be the highlight of your show experience, we guarantee. Just ask these guys:

Moby with new BFFs @amweston and @relativism

We’ll be showing off our new Graphic Organisers and brand new movies all tagged to Curriculum for Excellence.

We’re also giving away handy evaluation booklets you can use with your class to get student feedback about BrainPOP. This way, the kids can let rip and tell you what they really think.

Also, did anyone miss this last year?

Well, if you did, make sure you catch the rematch this year. Moby says it’s going to be a beaut of a highland fling.

Related Posts:

• North of the border - Moby goes to the Scottish Learning Festival
• Bookcases up for grabs
• Highlights from the Scottish Learning Festival
• Calder-lightful! Using BrainPOP UK in Secondary English
• Come and say “hello!” at SLF 2010

SORRY – THEY’RE ALREADY TAKEN!

We’re heading up to the Scottish Learning Festival in Glasgow next month (21-22 September) and we’ll be building a mini version of the stand we had at BETT this year.

For us this entails wielding our handy pneumatic drill and feeling like the stars of DIY SOS for a day. For a lucky Scottish school*, it means free Ikea furniture. We’d like to donate them to your school once we’re done with them (they’re brand new for the show, by the way). All your school needs to do is come and collect them or pay for collection/delivery from the SECC to your school.

2 x Small Expedit bookcases

Measurements:
Width: 79 cm
Depth: 39 cm
Height: 79 cm
Max. load/shelf: 13 kg

1 x 16 square Expedit bookcase

Measurements:
Width: 149 cm
Depth: 39 cm
Height: 149 cm
Max. load/shelf: 13 kg

What do I need to do?

We understand you’re not going to be able to just pick up 5 bookcases, strap them to your back, and walk out the door of the SECC. (See the measurements detailed above if you were contemplating this!) We’ll need to come to an arrangement about delivery dates and times which we can discuss when you get in touch.

We want to make this as straightforward as possible:

Step 1 - Email us at info@brainpop.co.uk or call 0800 141 2404

Step 2 – We discuss pick-up and delivery dates and times.

Step 3 - We have a grand old time at SLF for a couple of days.

Step 4 – We pack up.

Step 5 – Your school gets free bookcases.

If you remain unconvinced, here are some shots of our bookcases working it at BETT 2011:

16 squares of bookshelf goodness!

Handy, don't you think?

Look how much joy our bookcases could bring you!

If you’re interested, please get in touch and we can work out the logistics.

Otherwise, we hope to see you on Stand E7 at SLF 2011. Make sure to swing by and say hello!

*Scottish schools only.

Related Posts:

• What’s in store at SLF 2011?
• North of the border – Moby goes to the Scottish Learning Festival
• Highlights from the Scottish Learning Festival
• Calder-lightful! Using BrainPOP UK in Secondary English
• Come and say “hello!” at SLF 2010

When we were up in Glasgow recently, we treated ourselves to a wee school visit. Well, we say “wee”, but Calderglen High School in East Kilbride has roughly 1800 pupils so that was a misleading statement to say the least.

We were invited along by class teachers, Mhairi Healy and Lindsay Purdon, to observe an S2 English class in action. The teachers decided to bring two S2 classes together for a creative World War One lesson.

40 kids rolled through the doors and we were immediately impressed at how quickly they got organised.

The lesson objectives were clear:

1. In groups, come up with a slogan to encourage men to sign up and help the war effort
2. Create a propaganda poster and include your slogan.
3. Make a presentation to the rest of the class where you make a persuasive argument to young men to sign up and fight.

To provide a little context and focus everyone’s attention, Mrs Healy and Ms Purdon played the World War I movie. Then, in groups of 4 and 5, the kids got to work.

It was wonderful to see how quickly each group immersed themselves into the tasks assigned, easily deciding who got what job. They had one class period to come up with the slogan, design a poster, and write and practice their presentations. They all worked really well considering the time pressure. Slogans and design seemed to be a doddle to this lot – why don’t we find it that easy?!

One hour up!

Attention to the front again to watch the BrainPOP UK movie on Public Speaking. We loved how the teachers decided to use the movie – rather than play the whole thing, they started it halfway through to cover the most relevant points for the second half of the lesson. It worked really well as a way of focusing the class’ attention after the discourse and loud creativity of the previous hour.

Presenting to BrainPOPpers (and everyone else in class)

All of the groups did well with their presentations. Given the little time they had to prepare, we were excited to see how varied the presentations were and how innovative some of the groups could be.

And the winner is…

After some “x-factor style” deliberations we picked a winner – a group with an original idea which they carried off with real enthusiasm for the goal – to recruit young men to the British Army. They were men who were in the army themselves and could proudly say it was great to be fighting for their country; we were convinced to sign up ourselves!

The winning group were given some specially made tartan badges and Ms Purdon got a prize-winning cup (a.k.a. BrainPOP UK mug).

We finished off with a fun Q&A session and, fortunately, the kids had some good questions. We were asked what our favourite movie was and Ann picked Etymology (Moby speaks in this one!) which promptly led into a discussion and explanation of what etymology actually was – very appropriate for an English class.

We had a fantastic time at Calderglen High School. As well as the English Department we visited the Gaelic Department – one classroom! We were warmly welcomed though our Gaelic was left wanting…

Good luck Calderglen for the rest of the school year and Glee fun in English! It was a pleasure visiting your school and we hope to be back again soon. We’ll leave the last word to adorable BrainPOP fan and VIB, Mrs Healy:

Related Posts:

• Highlights from the Scottish Learning Festival
• Scotland gets POPteach
• North of the border – Moby goes to the Scottish Learning Festival
• Meet Deep Beep
• What’s in store at SLF 2011?

Last week Moby and The BrainPOPpers went to Glasgow to the Scottish Learning Festival 2010 to talk about the wonderful world of BrainPOP to Scottish teachers.

Glasgow's Armadillo building

We had a blast - the teachers were so friendly and welcoming. LTScotland is currently integrating a new curriculum - the Curriculum for Excellence - so it was a particularly interesting time to be there.

Here are our Top 5 moments at SLF 2010…

1: Meeting lots (and lots) of Scottish teachers on the XMA Apple stand. Our resident Scottish BrainPOP UK Ambassador, Kim Conway, was demoing BrainPOP UK, showing off our Curriculum for Excellence tagging and giving out our very special Scottish Moby badges. Which we ran out of they were so popular. We’ll have to get more for next year.

Moby gives the thumbs up to SLF 2010

Kim Conway demoing Brainpop UK

Moby gets the girl(s)

2: Meeting Scottish fans and putting faces to Twitter names! We have been lucky enough to make a number of friends up in Scotland in the last 12 months, but most of them were virtual. This time though we could say hi in the flesh and they could get to meet Moby. You can read Jenny’s (on right) account of SLF 2010 on her blog “Student ponderings“.

Moby meets Ann Marie and Jenny at SLF 2010

3: Demoing BrainPOP UK on the Promethean stand. The crowds gathered in large numbers to see Eylan Ezekiel showing off BrainPOP UK resources, including a sneak preview of the Active Expression POPquiz integration, with Promethean ActivInspire and Learner Response Systems. And, because we know how tiring exhibitions can be, the crowd were offered an apple or a cupcake. Can you believe it - the cupcakes proved more popular!

Moby watching the Promethean demo

4: Sponsoring the TeachMeet. We are always proud to be asked to be involved, in any way, large or small, with a TeachMeet. This year the famous SLF TeachMeet took place in the famous “Armadillo” building opposite the Exhibition hall. Moby was chuffed to be asked to wave people into the hall, although the security guards wouldn’t let anyone take any photographs (boo!).

It was this time last year that we premiered our very first TeachMeet movie and we were more than happy to create a brand, new revised version that incorporates some of the changes that TeachMeet has gone through in the last 12 months. Afterwards most of us headed off to the TeachEat to sample some famous Glaswegian curry. Moby didn’t come to that - he had to be in bed. He’d had a long day.

Our new TeachMeet movie premieres at TeachMeet SLF 2010!

5: Moby’s “dance off” with the guys from Learning Teaching Scotland. Ollie Bray and Derek Robertson were presenting the wonderful work they’ve been doing with games based learning in Scottish schools (you can read lots more about it the world leading work on the Consolarium blog) and one of the games they used was Wii “Just Dance”. They challenged Moby to a dance off. First Moby tried to psyche out Ollie Bray and threw a few moves to warm up.

Moby tries to pysche out Ollie Bray before their epic dance off

Then the dance battle commenced to MARRS - Pump Up The Jam.

Did you meet Moby? What were your highlights of SLF 2010?

Related Posts:

• Come and say “hello!” at SLF 2010
• What’s in store at SLF 2011?
• Calder-lightful! Using BrainPOP UK in Secondary English
• Highlights from the Scottish Learning Festival
• Bookcases up for grabs

It’s Scottish Learning Festival time again and we’re going to be there in all sorts of ways, shapes and forms.

XMA

We’ll be demoing BrainPOP UK on XMA Stand F15. Come and meet our BrainPOP UK Ambassador for Scotland, Kim Conway, and see BrainPOP UK demoed on a shiny new MacBook. Kim can show you how to use our Curriculum Matching Tool, Deep Beep, to find topics to match Curriculum for Excellence.

Also, if you register your interest with an XMA represntative and you could be in with a chance to win an iPod!

Promethean

At midday on both Wednesday and Thursday, take advantage of the offer of a sit down by popping along to Promethean Stand C10.

You’ll  get to learn how to use BrainPOP UK with Promethean ActivInspire and Learner Response Systems with fun voting activities and lesson ideas. And, because we know how tiring exhibitions can be, we thought you might appreciate a sugar boost to keep you going; an apple or a cupcake, it’s up to you!

Watch oot, Moby’s gonnae be aboot!

Throughout the festival, Moby will be popping along the XMA and Promethean stands. He’s got some exclusive SLF badges to give you so make sure you say hello.

Remember he’s a real poser too so have your cameras ready for a snapshot with him.

TeachMeet SLF2010

We were happy to sponsor #TMSLF2010 this year with the added bonus of a big orange robot at the front door. If you’re in to TeachMeet SLF10 at 5:30 please give him a wee wave when you walk in, he loves the attention!

Feel free to come and say hello to any BrainPOPpers you spot at the festival this year – we’d love nothing more! If you want to meet up and can’t find us, tweet @BrainPOP_UK. We’ll soon find one another.

Related Posts:

• North of the border – Moby goes to the Scottish Learning Festival
• What’s in store at SLF 2011?
• Bookcases up for grabs
• Calder-lightful! Using BrainPOP UK in Secondary English
• Treats not tricks for Halloween

Welcome back to school, all our fellow BrainPOPpers and POPettes, old and new.

We hope your summer break was a proper break. We know the sun only made a few appearances but when it did we hope you got out there and enjoyed it.

You might have read about some of the stuff that’s coming up from BrainPOP UK this Autumn term? Well, it’s time to draw back the curtains and announce some of them in more detail.

1. Our new Curriculum browse tool. We’re going back to the drawing board with this one. It will allow all our users to quickly and efficiently find and view a BrainPOP UK movie by a number of different curricula. And it will even be exportable as a Flash widget to plug into a webpage.
2. POPboxes – we’re very excited about these. Soon you will be able to pick a favourite BrainPOP UK movie and embed it into your very own VLEs and Blog pages. There will be different flavours available depending on whether you have subscribed to BrainPOP UK or not. The official announcement on how to get one is coming soon.
3. POP Press! - Our new termly email newsletter  – keep up to date with all things BrainPOP UK as the year progresses.
4. Complete tagging for the new Curriulum for Excellence for Scotland - every single one of our movies, old and new, will very soon be browsable by this curriculum AND the old 5-14 curriculum. We’ll be at the Scottish Learning Festival and the Teachmeet if anyone wants to chat about it.
5. We love BrainPOP UK…stuff. BrainPOP UK Tshirts, Moby and Tim cut out masks, Moby badges, BrainPOP UK posters, stickers…there’s going to be lots of fun resources to use as creatively as you like in your class or win in competitions. All we’re interested in is hearing about how you used them.
6. New and exclusive UK only movies on UK specific subjects - we’re keeping these hush-hush for now but we will be announcing them when we’re ready.
7. We’ll be on the look out for BrainPOP UK schools to do case studies, provide testimonials, write blog posts and help us test new technology in the classroom. If this is something you want to do you know how to contact us.
8. More fun on our Facebook group, our Twitter feed, our Youtube channel.
9. 160+ new movies are coming! Quick! Get your lesson plans ready, ladies and gentlemen, because you are soon going to be treated to movies such as:

• Rise of the Roman Empire
• Isotopes
• Galaxies
• Ants
• Graphs
• Adding and subtracting integers
• The computer mouse
• The Cold War
• Punctuation
• Sun protection
• Roald Dahl
• The Lord of the Flies
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Did I say there’s going to be a movie on Bogies? I didn’t? Well, there is.
• And Pirates! Garr!

We’ll be blogging the full list at a later date so keep an eye out.

So there’s lots of BrainPOPpy awesomeness coming your way. We are bursting with ideas on how to help you use technology to engage your students.

Work with us to make the ideas go from theory to classroom practice. And have enormous fun along the way.

Related Posts:

• North of the border – Moby goes to the Scottish Learning Festival
• Highlights from the Scottish Learning Festival
• What’s in store at SLF 2011?
• Bookcases up for grabs
• Calder-lightful! Using BrainPOP UK in Secondary English