BrainPOP UK needs some VLE Advice - help wanted!

[ChrisBrainPOP]

Hey all,

 

I've been speaking to @russdev about how BrainPOP UK might work in a VLE. He suggested I might want to throw it open to the Edugeek crowd to see if anyone wanted to try BrainPOP in their VLE and tell us how they did it?

 

You've probably never heard of us (which is fine, we're small and new). We're essentially a cross curricular animation content supplier where the content is accessed via the browser (Flash based, SSO, subscription). You can find us all over the internet so I'll leave Google to do it's job if you want to know more.

 

I'm happy to offer cool merch freebies to any NM or VLE Manager who wants to give it a go + a free 6 month subscription to BrainPOP UK resources to the school of your choice.

 

All we want to know is: how could/did/didn't you get BrainPOP UK working in your VLE and can you tell us that story step by step (even screenshots/capture if you're feeling particularly generous) so we can tell our users how you did it? Or any ideas you have about making that integration easier?

 

One thing we can do is create automatic authentication URLs into specific sections/pages of the site. We could supply links to specific pages, e.g. drilling down to the Science category page, or even a specific resource.

 

If anyone is interested we're looking for the usual suspects: Kaleidos, Sharepoint, Fronter, Moodle, Frog and so on. We want to understand it from those working in schools with VLEs every day. That's the perspective we want.

 

We'll set you up a 30 day free trial and leave you to it. We can answer most things in this thread or by email/twitter (@brainpop_uk) if you want.

 

If you're interested PM me or email infoatbrainpopdotcodotuk

 

This is a genuine request - huge thanks to anyone who offers to lend a hand!

 

Chris

 

Chief Operating Officer, BrainPOP UK

[Edu-IT]

I've probably not understood you correctly.. but, here goes.

 

Can the content be exported and then imported directly onto your VLE, is this what you're trying to look at, or are you talking about ways to point people to the BrainPOP website?

[GrumbleDook]

IIRC (and Chris can correct me) is that the materials remain on the BrainPop site but you embed the files into your VLE (YouTube stylie), but BrainPop can be setup so that there is single-sign-on between the VLE and BrainPop.

 

If I read the question right it is about whether this works, what could be improved, how you made it work, how easy is it to use, etc ....

[secretlife]

so...Fun Stuff for children AND Moodle? two of my favourite things - (after alcohol and chocolate) so I have just counted myself in:)

[Edu-IT]

IIRC (and Chris can correct me) is that the materials remain on the BrainPop site but you embed the files into your VLE (YouTube stylie), but BrainPop can be setup so that there is single-sign-on between the VLE and BrainPop.

 

If I read the question right it is about whether this works, what could be improved, how you made it work, how easy is it to use, etc ....

I see. Thanks for the explanation.

 

Just having a look at BrainPOP now.

[russdev]

As Tony says.

 

Yes the content stays hosted on the brainpop servers. Got to say what I have seen of it is very good anyway I am in with the real boss of the company

 

[ame=http://www.flickr.com/photos/ccarts/4288218714/]on Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

[ChrisBrainPOP]

@Edu-IT No, BrainPOP UK movies cannot be exported e.g. as SCORM objects. All content is held behind a SSO. So I guess we're talking "about ways to point people to the BrainPOP website".

 

• There is no pupil assessment that can be recorded and ingested into any VLE assessment system.
  
• BrainPOP UK movies and quizzes are not, at the moment, available outside BrainPOP UK spaces/channels. There are no BrainPOP UK SCORM packages.
  
• We do create some special movies and upload them to our Youtube channel or via our partnerships but essentially all our resources are only accessible via authentication to the BrainPOP UK website.
  
• We do not, at the moment, provide special versions of BrainPOP UK for any exisiting VLE, such as a Sharepoint Webpart or Moodle repository.
  

 

So BrainPOP UK is simple, but that doesn't mean stupid.

 

We can build encrypted "auto sign on" URLs that you can embed into a space on your VLE, thus directing a user to the BrainPOP UK home page or resource without them being asked to use (or know) a BrainPOP UK login.

 

We will be very soon launching "POPboxes" which will alllow our Featured movie to be embedded free via a javascript snippet (but no quiz or exterior resources). We've had problems with browser security settings stripping the code. I can get this code snippet to anyone who wants to test it if you ask me.

 

I hope some of the above helps.

 

By the way we've had 3 x Moodle, 1 x Sharepoint and 1 x Fronter responses and thanks so very much to those who have volunteered. If there's anyone left who runs a different system than those listed above please let me know. Might as well try to collect 'em all

[ChrisBrainPOP]

We now have Frog and DB Primary volunteers. Thanks once again to everyone for your help. We're blown away. I can feel a blog post coming on.

[dwhyte85]

Hi Chris,

 

Spoke to a nice guy @ BrainPOP today regarding an extended trial. I can try within Studywiz, as far as I understood... it'd be a URL to embed using your JS or direct linking to your site (passing login credentials/auth details).

 

I will test this in Studywiz if you'd like or if you could let me know any other details.

[CyberNerd]

So why not use SCORM to distribute the links?

[ChrisBrainPOP]

@dwhyte85 - Thanks for the Studywiz offer. I spoke to Mat (our Support Manager you spoke to) who filled me in. Studywiz is one of the missing VLEs in our list so we'd be very grateful if you could find the time to test and write up your research. Your thoughts on how to do it are probably on the money. We're also looking for suggestions on how you would LIKE to populate Studywiz with BrainPOP UK resources (given an infinite amount of monkeys etc). Can you PM me to get things moving?

[russdev]

@David

 

I would PM or Email Chris. He is good at getting back to you. It is url pass by the way.

[dwhyte85]

@dwhyte85 - Thanks for the Studywiz offer. I spoke to Mat (our Support Manager you spoke to) who filled me in. Studywiz is one of the missing VLEs in our list so we'd be very grateful if you could find the time to test and write up your research. Your thoughts on how to do it are probably on the money. We're also looking for suggestions on how you would LIKE to populate Studywiz with BrainPOP UK resources (given an infinite amount of monkeys etc). Can you PM me to get things moving?

 

I'm not a teacher but... I would assume either direct linking using the encrypted URLs to a post on a desired class/set of classes (e.g, all Physics year 9)... it would be a 'fun task' rather than a homework. The issue would then be staff knowledge, most are pretty... poor on the IT ability scale, means it would then be an additional task for me :-).

 

Ideally, embedding the flash object within the post but I know this is going to be unlikely

[Edu-IT]

I'm not a teacher but... I would assume either direct linking using the encrypted URLs to a post on a desired class/set of classes (e.g, all Physics year 9)... it would be a 'fun task' rather than a homework. The issue would then be staff knowledge, most are pretty... poor on the IT ability scale, means it would then be an additional task for me :-).

 

Ideally, embedding the flash object within the post but I know this is going to be unlikely

If creating a hyperlink in StudyWiz is easy then creating a self sign in URL for BrainPOP is a walk in the park so staff should manage it.

[ChrisBrainPOP]

I'm not a teacher but... I would assume either direct linking using the encrypted URLs to a post on a desired class/set of classes (e.g, all Physics year 9)... it would be a 'fun task' rather than a homework. The issue would then be staff knowledge, most are pretty... poor on the IT ability scale, means it would then be an additional task for me :-).

 

Well, we try to make things as fun as we can. Have you seen our new boardroom table ;-)

 

What immediately springs to mind is how we can help you with the staff knowledge; to remove the burden from you. If we had a really good transcript of the process we could even build a BrainPOP animation that helped them understand what to do and e.g. an accompanying mock lesson plan to make it feel more comfortable. We're also building an auto login tool that will make this process falling-off-a-log easy.

 

We could even send awesome freebies to your school to hand out as rewards for the teacher that creates the best VLE page for BrainPOP resources.

 

There's lots we can do to help you - someone also suggested a VLE pack containing fun Tim and Moby images for hyperlinking. We could include this type of thing too. Sometimes the hardest thing is not just to get the content into the VLE but to get teachers appreciating your hard work and using the resource!

[dwhyte85]

If creating a hyperlink in StudyWiz is easy then creating a self sign in URL for BrainPOP is a walk in the park so staff should manage it.

 

You would think that... if i write a 6 page document extensively covering every option they could have for doing it wrong, probs be OK.

Edited February 22, 2010 by dwhyte85

[apoth0r]

Not sure why you can't simply release SCORM content. As you've setup a website I'm sure you are able to use simple software like Xerte to create SCORM files.

People don't really want to rely on other websites / they want the content themselves. If you resources are good then let people who buy them do what they want, what suits them, not suits you.

 

Sorry I just believe in SCORM and not signing up to more websites that we have to create thousands of usernames, moderate a new resource when we already have something that provides all this. MOODLE + SCORMS = Simple

[apoth0r]

Have you thought about setting up your own FREE Moodle VLE? Perhaps even having a look at what YOU need to do as a company to put resources that may be used rather than brushed past like the thousands of other websites that offer exactly the same as you?

What can YOU do, rather than asking us to document it.....no offence.

[ChrisBrainPOP]

@apoth0r S'OK, no offence taken ;-)

 

There seems to be two points to your comments: why don't we do SCORM packages to avoid all this fuss and why haven't we done our bit instead of asking the Edugeekers if they can help?

 

Good points.

 

We've only been going in the UK for a year, we're a tiny team (with no technical VLE expertise, yet) and we want to get simple solutions together that we can recommend, for multiple different VLEs, that help teachers get to BrainPOP. We're not ruling out SCORM in any way - it may be that the 15 or so volunteers to this thread (a number of whom are Moodlers) will all recommend that SCORM is the answer. Then it's incumbent on us to investigate the best way to do that. It's not that we were unaware of SCORM etc but that opening up the discussion with knowledgeable VLE Managers/Admins seemed logical.

 

Whilst I'm not looking forward to packaging against multiple standards of SCORM for multiple VLEs it will take time and money to do that. Both of which we don't have in abundance - we're not all giant faceless publishers with teams of technicians.

 

It may be, after research, that it's not really worth creating SCORM packages for BrainPOP material. We don't require "1000's of usernames" (just one) and we take pride in all the other stuff that happens in and around our website. Reducing our content to a commodity (which is an unfortunate "soft" side effect of SCORM packing) means potentially that the worth of everything else we do that is related to the content & website gets ignored, or worse, never even found. A recent example might be the TeachMeet movie we created for Northamptonshire. For free, simply to support good CPD.

 

But yes, absolutely we may SCORM. Or it may be that a useful embedding tool a la YouTube is the solution. Or both. We're now Shibboleth compliant which may actually be a better solution for some Authorities and schools for a webservice then content disaggregation.

 

As to your second point, we didn't ask anyone to research this challenge for free; we've had a number of examples of BrainPOP working in their VLE (for which we're very grateful); we're open to any suggestions that people have and finally, we have been doing work towards the VLE question - this thread is part of it.

 

And I wouldn't say there are "thousands of other websites that offer exactly the same as [us]" any more than I would say there are 1000's of ICT Technicians that offer exactly the same as yourself.

 

No offence ;-)

[dirtydog]

love the table!

We are about to go for BrainPOP - saw some clips last night and it looks good!. I think we already have someone who has integrated it into Sharepoint though.

[dwhyte85]

Our deputy head is impressed, we're not sure whether it'd be used for VLE integration though which makes it a bit difficult for me as it means i'll be creating shortcuts and deploying to desktops... well not difficult, just effort. Edited March 4, 2010 by dwhyte85

[Edu-IT]

As to your second point, we didn't ask anyone to research this challenge for free; we've had a number of examples of BrainPOP working in their VLE (for which we're very grateful); we're open to any suggestions that people have and finally, we have been doing work towards the VLE question - this thread is part of it.

Agreed. If you've got the time to help out, and don't mind doing so, then why not? After all it's helping to shape a better product. How many software suppliers create shoddy software just because they don't know what it's like in a school environment? I know this is a web based solution but I think the same applies. Get as many eyes and ears on board, who work in the field, and you'll create a far better product.

[apoth0r]

As 1000's of technicians are on here you may like to ask if they each have a purpose. Another addition to the 'amazing resources' sector isn't as welcome as 1000's of techs.

 

Please ask them before and after your product is implemented and then not used.

 

*speaking from experience as an IT Technician of course*

 

No offence

[apoth0r]

Agreed. If you've got the time to help out, and don't mind doing so, then why not? After all it's helping to shape a better product. How many software suppliers create shoddy software just because they don't know what it's like in a school environment? I know this is a web based solution but I think the same applies. Get as many eyes and ears on board, who work in the field, and you'll create a far better product.

 

So is a share scheme in the pipeline?

I know you work in the public sector but seriously, do you want to help a pure money making venture, using 'Youtube' technology?

[GrumbleDook]

Going slightly off topic on this but in response to apoth0r ... company ethos is a major factor why some companies get a lot of support and response on EG. People complain that software x doesn't work or why resource y was not tested on various platforms. Smoothwall are an example of company that gives a heck of a lot back into the community and schools by being here and I am glad they are ...

 

If BrainPop get a good solution that works on majority (if not all) platforms and they do so by working with us then good. The repayment for those taking part is some freebie access to resources for a period of time. Good. BrainPop are not a pure money making scheme. If you had seen some of the unspoken support they give to sections of the education community you would probably not take the stance that they are just making money. There is nothing wrong with paying for good quality resources. There is nothing wrong with the company providing them wanting to protect those resources (by authentication models perhaps) from others ripping them off. I think too many people are hooked on free resources and sharing. They are not free ... someone has given up their time to make them. If it is school time then the school is footing the bill, if it is personal time then they are footing the bill themselves.