Checkout our new flipchart on Online Safety, available on Promethean Planet! It’s a great classroom resource for back-to-school. Use it with the BrainPOP Digital Citizenship Spotlight and free Internet Safety poster to teach your students how to interact and communicate safely online.

Debuted at the NECC conference this summer, the Online Safety flipchart features the BrainPOP movie, interactive vocabulary page, BrainPOP quiz, and more.

Promethean Planet offers many BrainPOP resources, including other BrainPOP flipcharts and the BrainPOP Resource Pack.

Share a comment! How could you use this resource in your classroom?

Check out the fantastic bulletin board display that Ann Combs sent in! I love how her idea is easy to customize and change throughout the year. Great idea, Ann. Thanks for sharing! You can find fun bits of BrainPOP clipart on our Just For Fun page too add to bulletin boards or any project or assignment.

Here’s what Ann has to say:

I was inspired by one of our third graders. He was working on a “Draw About It” and he drew a wonderful picture of Moby on his computer. I asked him if he could recreate his picture on a large piece of paper for me. He did a great job with it. I had to display it somehow. So . . . I thought that I would just have Moby and the “Write About It” prompt with the student work displayed. The bulletin board lettering and Moby stay up all year. The “Write About It” prompt and the student work can be changed throughout the year. I plan to ask the same student artist to draw Tim for me when school resumes!

Ann Combs
Melvindale-Northern Allen Park School District
Melvindale, Michigan

Eek! We recently heard a shriek from Amber, one of our writers whose responsibilities include answering kids’ emails and letters. She opened a package addressed to Tim and Moby, which was marked “fragile.” To her surprise, this is what she found:

At first, we were very, very surprised.  We thought it was a dead tarantula, but after doing some research, we learned that tarantulas, like all arthropods, molt, or shed their exoskeletons as they grow.  Adult tarantulas molt once every 1-2 years. It turns out Laura didn’t send us a dead tarantula, but her tarantula’s old exoskeleton!

It’s great to know that Laura is passionate about science and spiders (and BrainPOP). I’m sure the exoskeleton was a prized possession, and it’s pretty cool that she thought Tim and Moby would appreciate it.

We love getting mail from kids, but this one sure threw us for a loop. Teachers and parents: We do not condone students sending us any sort of creature, alive or dead. Please, no matter how excited your kids get about a topic, do not allow students to mail us anything except for their spectacular artwork and writing, which we absolutely LOVE to receive!

I’m thrilled to bring back Lucas Kent as a guest blogger. We were so lucky to have Lucas join us at NECC this year and get to know him in person. Lucas’ website offers super helpful tips for integrating technology into your classroom. I highly recommend checking it out and subscribing to his monthly newsletter.

BrainPOP & NECC

A great way to end the school year is to attend the annual National Education Computing Conference. This year’s conference was held in Washington D.C. and again was a resounding success with over 18, 000 attendees.

This year I had the pleasure to work with BrainPOP.com, one of my favourite companies that is taking the educational community by storm. Working with the BrainPOP staff for 3 days and checking out the other exhibitors at NECC only confirmed to me that BrainPOP is one of the most professional and fun e-learning companies out there.

BrainPOP provides educational videos, quizzes, lessons and more for K-12 students. In addition they are constantly adding new features like their new and improved BrainPOP Educators site that should be part of every teacher’s arsenal.

Next year’s NECC is being held in Colorado and again is a worthwhile experience. I always enjoy the sessions, exhibits and most of all, networking with other educators from around the world. So start planning now and see you at next year’s conference.

We just added a full screen option to our quizzes to help those using projectors and interactive whiteboards.

Some of my favorite ways to use the Quiz:

*Give a BrainPOP Quiz before a movie to gauge students’ familiarity with a topic. Or, take the quiz with the whole class afterward to verify what everyone learned. Choose one of three quiz options: graded online, reviewable online or printable.

*Teach students the American Sign Language letters for A, B, C and D, then have them raise their hands with the sign for the answer they choose during quizzes. One student can tally the votes and click on the most popular choice.

*Keep your students engaged and enthusiastic! Ask them BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. quiz questions the way you’d hear them on your favorite game show.

*Assign each corner of the room a letter and get your kinesthetic learners up and moving.

*Make test prep fun! On an interactive whiteboard, use the Screenshade/Windowshade tool to cover the question and have students analyze the answers to figure out what the question must be. Then try the opposite - cover the answers and have students practice writing answers based on the question. They know there will always be 1 right answer, 1 very wrong answer, and a close call/tricky answer.

Try it and let us know your favorite ways to use the BrainPOP Quizzes by posting below.

This has been in the works for a while, and I’m super excited about it! BrainPOP badges are here! Have fun sharing the love on your website or blog. Just find a badge you like, click on the image, and copy and paste the code that pops up (be sure pop-ups are enabled!) into your site.

What other creative offerings would you like to see BrainPOP Educators make available? Post comments & share your ideas!

Implementing BrainPOP Into Your School or District
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
3:00 pm EDT
Duration: 1 hour

Learn how to make the most of your subscription to BrainPOP. We’ll help you get off to a running start by sharing new implementation tools for new subscribers including a Spread the Word Kit that will ensure all of your staff are aware of this resource. We’ll also provide you with all the training materials you need to ensure high participation from all of your staff. Get the lowdown on all of the free extra tips, tools, and resources on BrainPOP Educators.
RSVP - space fills up quickly!

I had someone ask a great question in a recent BrainPOP webinar I did: Can you give us a sneak peek of upcoming movies? Sure! Here’s what you can keep an eye out for in the near future:

BrainPOP: Later this summer, we’ll have new movies on Plagiarism, Stress, Ramadan, and the Nitrogen Cycle. And as we get closer to back-to-school time, we’ll roll out a fresh spotlight on Digital Citizenship, which will include our new movies on Social Networking, Cyberbullying, Information Privacy, and more.

BrainPOP Jr.: Keep an eye out for Rosa Parks, Arctic Habitats, Making Ten, Caring for Teeth, and Making Predictions (for Reading Comprehension), all coming this month!

Let us know if you liked the sneak peek by commenting below, and I’ll make it a regular feature!

We hope you’ll join in and celebrate National Summer Learning Day with us! Summer Learning Day raises awareness that learning should continue throughout the summer.  Pick a topic, any topic, and dive right in! Take a look at our Getting Started Guides that will walk you through the different ways of searching for content and the fun, interactive resources BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. have to offer. BrainPOP’s got suggestions for Family and Teacher Activities that bring learning outdoors as well!  So kick off a new topic or review an old one with the BrainPOP gang! Teachable moments can happen anywhere, any time.

Happy exploring!

To make BrainPOP Educators more fun and interactive, consider adding a profile picture!

Add an image to your commenting handle - You may have noticed some readers have photos next to their name when they leave a comment. If this interests you, add your own by following these steps: a) Sign up at Gravatar.com b) Enter your email address and click the link in the email they send c) Follow the directions to create a profile d) Make sure you’re logged in when you comment on BrainPOP Educators for the first time after enabling the feature. From then on your image will automatically appear when your comment is published.