BrainPop UK: Fantastic, Engaging Flash Animation Videos for your Classroom

I love BrainPop – I really mean that! I have used the American version with my classes for years and the children (particularly S1, S2 and S6) love it! But I have used it with all year groups.

BrainPOP is an educational website with Flash-based movies about maths, technology, health, science, humanities, arts & music, and English. Most of the videos feature the site's recurring characters, Tim and Moby.

According to Wikipedia:

‘Tim is a smart and useful teenager who does most of the talking in the movies. He has brown hair and usually wears a white T-shirt with a picture on it which relates to each movie’. He is 14 years old (but sounds about 16).’

‘Moby is an orange robot who communicates in bleeping noises (similar to R2D2). He has three lights on his chest that light up every time he beeps and Tim usually translates what he's saying. While Tim does most of the talking during a movie, Moby usually helps out by fetching things for Tim and asking questions about the topic they are talking about. As a robot, he can do lots of things that Tim is unable to do (e. g. changing his hand into a freeze-ray, sending himself back in time, removing his head).’

 

I was really pleased to recently see that BrainPop has launched a UK version of the website with an English speaking Tim – although some of my classes used to quite like the novelty of the voice in the American version.

The great things about the videos is that they are all really short – just enough to capture and engage children. There must be 100's videos on a diverse range of topics and many of the videos are cross-curricular.

Topics include:

• Drawing (Take your doodling to the next level),
• Compass (How does a compass know which way is North? What is "North" for that matter?),
• Colons and Semicolons (Dots and commas that make all the difference!),
• Chocolate (How does chocolate get from the tree to the candysweet shelf? Follow Tim and Moby on a mouthwatering field trip),
• Credit Cards (Find out why you need to think twice before you charge it!),
• Greek Gods (Learn all about the strange and mysterious behavior of the gods worshipped by the Ancient Greeks!),
• Area of polygons  (Measuring polygons may look tricky, but it's a snap, once Tim and Moby show you how it's done!),
• Cancer  (What is cancer? Why is it so dangerous?) and
• Nuclear energy  (Unlock the awesome power of the atom with Tim and Moby in this animated movie!).

I have mentioned BrainPop before as I used them as an example in my 2008 Scottish Learning Festival Presentation on Language, Learners and the Power of New Technology.

BrainPop is a subscription service but they always have sample videos that you can watch with your classes. The best thing about them is that if there is a National Event or Disaster they always make that video available for free for a while. For me, a good example of this was the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. After the event I was looking for a simple way to teach Tsunamis to all my classes and Tim and Moby provided the answer with their Tsunami Flash Video.

The other reason that I am writing about Tim and Moby just now is that the BrainPop UK website is offering a free trial until the middle of February. I’m already planning on using a number of videos with my classes and we distributed the school username and password to staff today. Lots of our teachers have already logged onto the site and feedback has so far been very positive. BrainPop are also offering some Sponsorship at Teachmeet at BETT 2009.

More on BrainPop later in the week – but I would be really interested to find out what you think of the resource.

Comments

[Chris]

Of course I would say this but thanks so much for your enthusiasm and praise for BrainPOP UK. I've only been with the company a little while but it's clearly a product that just has something special about it.

How about this: If any teachers get in touch with you via this comment thread, Twitter, Second life etc in conjunction with your BrainPOP UK post I will give them and their school 3 months of BrainPOP UK for free, starting after BETT. Tell them to email us "info at brainpop dot co dot uk" with the title "Ollie told me about BrainPOP". We'll take it from there. This is only up for grabs until after BETT.

This is a serious offer by the way.

We're also giving away one Flip Ultra video camera every day on our BETT stand to a lucky teacher who signs up for a free 30 day trial.

I better stop now before this turns into a sales pitch but please come and see us at BETT, Ollie. We'd love to introduce you to the founder of BrainPOP, Dr Kadar, who is over from the States for BETT.

Chris, COO, BrainPOP UK

[Ollie Bray]

Thank you Christ that is a very kind offer that I'm sure some people will take you up on. Ollie

[John Barlow]

Thanks for the 'heads up' on BrainPop Ollie and the 3 month trial is not to be missed! Have just emailed BrainPop! Used the US version before and it always went down well with pupils.
Cheers
John