BrainPop UK http://www.brainpop.co.uk/
After getting this nice postcard from Tim and Moby a while ago I thought I would write back [all the way from Australia as we used to say in the snail mail days].
I'm Information and Communication Technology Coordinator at Williamstown Primary School. Williamstown is a suburb of Melbourne, Australia.
In 2009 we really started to install Promethean Whiteboards at the schooland wanted something else as well as ActivStudio [later ActivInspire] to support student learning. After investigation by a group of staff who “road tested” a number of subscription websites, we decided that BrainPop UK was what we needed. So we are into our second annual subscription, it has been great, but it hasn’t taken off in the way that I want. Yes, we are using BrainPop UK in years 3-6 particularly, but we need to give it a real boost in 2012.
So there is the 10 part plan for BrainPopUK implementation at my school next year!
1. Explore BrainPop UK fully myself, looking for links to the activities we are doing already at school.
2. Add a BrainPop UK PopBox to the school’s website home page when it is revamped next year. See http://www.brainpop.co.uk/blog/request-a-popbox/ Also add the PopBox to the school’s Intranet homepage. The PopBox highlights new BrainPop UK videos and will generate a lot of teacher / student and parent interest.
3. Take some lessons with all Grade 3 – 6 students and their class teachers. Go through some of the huge amount of resources that are in BrainPop UK and the different activities for each topic, e.g. the quizzes.
4. Encourage all of our Professional Learning Teams [PLTs] to add BrainPop UK activities into their term and weekly planners.
5. Now we have the 24/7 license [a really worthwhile purchase] get students to start using BrainPop UK at home. Publicise this feature in the school newsletter.
6. Build BrainPop into Interactive Whiteboard activities that teachers and students do throughout the year.
7. Explore the link between BrainPop UK and Promethean Learner Response Systems. This looks to be a really cool feature, see
http://www.prometheanplanet.com/en-gb/resources/partner-resources/brainpop/brainpop-uk.aspx
8. Encourage teachers to share their use of BrainPop UK at their PLT meetings and in their space on the school’s Learning Management System.
9. Encourage students to share what they like about BrainPop UK in their class blogs.
10. Put the URLs of favourite BrainPop UK activities on appropriate pages of the school Intranet for easy student access.
So that is the plan, let’s see how it goes!.
