In case you missed our webinar for Library Media Specialists, you can access it at your convenience here.

I wanted to highlight some great ideas that came out of the webinar.

Units & Topics that may be of interest to Library Media Specialists:

Ways to make your life easier & extend BP to families/community outside of school make BrainPOP or BrainPOP Jr. your homepage

add BrainPOP to your bookmarks or toolbar

set up AUTO LOGIN

use library or school webpage to offer suggestions, resources, assignments…

use our BrainPOP On Your Site feature - take it a step further with assignments

have fun with our banners and badges

introduce at faculty and parent meetings. Make sure specialists know about relevant topics (Music, Health…)

highlight in district, school or parent newsletters

distribute promotional items (Just For Fun - printable bookmarks, posters, etc)

assign a resident BrainPOP expert at each school and/or grade level

utilize our Professional Development offerings to conduct hands-on training for your staff

highlight BrainPOP best practices at faculty and parent meetings

hold contests to encourage sharing and collaboration of BrainPOP best practices - we’ll be holding contests via BrainPOP Educators - teachers can win t-shirts, flip cameras, and more…

Please comment below and add on your own ideas!

BrainPOP For Library Media Specialists
This Wednesday, October 14, 2009
4:00 pm EDT
Duration: 1 hour

We love our librarians! We’re excited to share some ideas on how to use BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. for research and collaborative projects with whole groups, small groups, and individuals. We’ll highlight relevant topics BrainPOP covers, ways to collaborate with your staff, and ideas for connecting learning outside of school. We’ll also talk about the tools and features you’ll find on BrainPOP Educators.

RSVP now if you haven’t already! Space fills up quickly!

Are you a library media specialist? How are you using BrainPOP? What do you hope to learn from this webinar? Post suggestions below!

Last spring, more than 700 schools in 25 states temporarily closed due to outbreaks of the H1N1 virus (swine flu). We’re all hoping for the best this flu season. But as schools prepare for the possibilities of illness-related absences and disruptions to studies, we’d like to help. We’re offering all schools two weeks of complimentary remote access to BrainPOP’s resources during school hours (7 am-5:30 pm local time). Pre-register now for your two weeks of access, then activate the account when and if you need it.

Current Subscribers: Remote access during local school hours is enabled. You’re all set.

Non-subscribers: Pre-register here.

All: Stay posted here on BrainPOP Educators to read and share tips about coping this flu season. You can subscribe to an RSS feed of our blog posts so you don’t miss a thing. Be well!

What are you doing to prepare your students? Share tips below!

We at BrainPOP have been doing our homework to make sure we’re as informed and up-to-date as possible on the latest science and recommendations from doctors and agencies like the Centers for Disease Control. And of course, we’re eager to share our findings with you and the children you teach, so that you can learn and together prepare to face this upcoming flu season. To that end, we’d like to direct you to the following resources:

-BrainPOP’s Swine Flu movie has just been updated to include the most recent information available about the novel H1N1 flu. Its related features (FYI, activities, and Q&As) are also available for further exploration.

-BrainPOP Jr’s Washing Hands movie serves as an excellent primer for younger students on the do’s and don’ts of safe personal hygiene.

-BrainPOP Educators is offering two free swine-flu-related lesson plans, one for BrainPOP users, and one for BrainPOP Jr. users.

- The CDC offers H1N1 Flu resources specifically for K-12 schools: http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/schools/

We hope these resources will prove to be valuable tools in raising awareness and clearing up misconceptions about the novel H1N1 flu. And as always, we’d love to hear your feedback, so please let us know how we’re doing.

A few more tips…

• If you only have one computer for the class you can take a tour of the site together. After watching the tour you can use an interactive whiteboard and ask student volunteers to click on different features and explore them as a group.

• Make it fast and easy for kids to log in. Create a url so students are automatically logged in. Or, add BrainPOP or BrainPOP Jr as a bookmark on your browser’s toolbar. Just go to the homepage and then click on the tiny Moby face at the top of the window (this may be on a tab if you have several tabs open). Then drag the icon to an empty space on your bookmark toolbar. You can also do this with specific movies you’d like kids to view. We’ve also got typeable Subscriber Stickers you can print and stick on or next to each computer monitor. Big help when you’ve got a classroom full of Kindergarteners who all want your help logging in at the same time.

• You can build BrainPOP or BrainPOP Jr. into your class routines starting in September! For example you can use BrainPOP Jr.’s Belly Up comic as a shared reading for K-3 students. Start by introducing the topic and reading the Belly Up together, modeling fluency and expression. Use the Print feature to make copies available for each of your students or partnerships. Kids can take turns reading the speech bubbles for the characters. For older kids you can use the Cassie and Rita comics from the FYI features to introduce students to new topics.

What’s worked for you? How did you introduce BrainPOP to your students? Share below!

It’s been great to see all these creative ways teachers and administrators get the word out to their staff to ensure they don’t miss out on BrainPOP. Here are a few examples I found recently.

Robert Miller created a dedicated page of his class website filled with information for his students, families, and peers with a great name: Your Daily Dose of BrainPOP! And Josh and Reagan, two students in the class, created POP Blog with information on how extra credit can be earned using BrainPOP!

Mr. Coley embedded the Featured Movie of the Week on his class website.

Seattle Homeschooling for the Beginner Examiner embedded our Moby widget!

Teachers Tech Blog blogs about BrainPOP!

Bryan from Taymans Tech Blog created his own BrainPOP Refresher for his middle school staff, and explained the details of their subscription so no one misses out.

and the Tweets… don’t get me started! That will get its own blog post very soon, but just a few great ideas:

Teachers who train their colleagues:

@nikilnh: Just presented features of BrainPOP teachesr may not be aware of. http://tinyurl.com/cy9k6q @brainpop

Teachers who share class updates:

Sept 11 http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/ushistory/september11th/ Nice job @brainpop!

Teachers who retweet our tweets:

RT @brainpop: BrainPOP teachers available after school today!, 3:30-5,EDT, answering ?’s & brainstorming ideas. http://tinyurl.com/lnf9xj

And finally, teachers are becoming fans of BrainPOP on Facebook!

How are you implementing BrainPOP in your classroom, school or district? We’d love to hear your ideas!

Join us for this week’s Wednesday Webinar, designed specifically for Media and Integration Specialists.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009
4:00 pm EDT
Duration: 1 hour

Are you responsible for integrating BrainPOP with your school or districts’ curriculum and content area teachers? Learn how to make the most of your BrainPOP subscription. We’ll show you a range of implementation tools, including the Spread the Word kit that lets your entire staff know they’ve got access to our resources. We’ll also provide you with the training materials you need to ensure high usage within your school or district. Get the lowdown on BrainPOP Educators and its free lesson plans, video tutorials, graphic organizers, and more.

RSVP - space fills up quickly!

We hosted our first after school online chat on Friday. It was pretty great! We even had a special guest join in (hint - the woman behind the voice of Annie!).  Here are some ideas that came out of it.  We’ll continue these online chats every Friday after school. Join us this Friday, September 18, from 3:30 - 5:00pm, EDT. We’ll be happy to answer questions & brainstorm ideas for integration.

*Make sure you and your colleagues register on BrainPOP Educators so you don’t miss out on free tips, tools, and resources!

*Let colleagues know about BrainPOP ESL for second language learners, FREE during beta phase!

*Professional Development Resources:

Graphic organizers for planning out a BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. topic over an entire week, shared by Robert Miller
http://www.brainpop.com/educators/professional_development/

*Resources for new users:

http://www.brainpop.com/educators/new_subscribers/

*Grant Writing Resources:

- Funding BrainPOP

- BrainPOP Effectiveness Study

- www.donorschoose.org
- www.grantwrangler.com
- www.ing-usa.com

*Consider BrainPOP for after school programs!

*Familiarize yourself with all of the interactive features on BrainPOP with our webinars

*Ideas for BEFORE viewing movie:
-POP Quiz (pre-assessment)
-review Vocabulary activity page (BrainPOP)
-review Word Wall (BrainPOP Jr.)
-use FYI as shared reading in small groups or as a class
-Cassie & Rita comic (FYI)
-Belly Up comic (BrainPOP Jr.)

*Ideas for DURING the movie:
-print Activity Pages in advance - use for scaffolding, note-taking…
-Pause & discuss! Tons of opportunities to make students active participants while viewing
–> ask questions, make predictions, activate prior learning, etc…

*Ideas for AFTER the movie:

Here’s where we left off. What do you like to do after viewing BrainPOP movies? Share your ideas!

We’ll be hosting our first after school, online chat tomorrow. Kari, Laura and I will be available to answer questions, brainstorm ideas for integrating BrainPOP into your curriculum, and anything else you might need to support you in using getting the most out of any of our products.

Join us!

Friday, September 11, 2009

3:30 - 5:00pm, EDT

Drop in and say hello!

Welcome back to school, everyone. I hope you’re off to a fantastic start. I wanted to spend some time catching you up on our latest news and features, so you can take using BrainPOP to a new level this year! And it’s all FREE! A big part of me wants to go back to the classroom, just so I can use BrainPOP in all these new ways that I hadn’t thought of when I was teaching.

I’ll go into more depth with some of these features in the next few weeks, but for now, here’s a rundown!

Research - How does BrainPOP impact student achievement? Read the research.

BrainPOP ESL - Check out our newest product for English language learners and teachers. Free while in beta phase!

Getting Started - New to BrainPOP? We’ve got everything you need to be up and running in no time.

Spread the Word - Let your staff and community know you’ve got BrainPOP with our implementation tools.

Webinars - Whether you’re a new or experienced user, you are sure to gain fresh ideas from our webinars. RSVP for upcoming webinars or watch our archived webinars at your convenience.

Curriculum Calendar - Just published this summer, our calendar makes planning a breeze. Get a heads up on timely topics you can weave right into your curriculum, and access our Spotlights to help plan out your year.

Funding BrainPOP - Resources to help you fit BrainPOP into your funding strategy.

Spotlights - Find a ton of resources to launch into these important back-to-school topics: Digital Citizenship (free during September) and Science Skills.

Special Back to School Promotions - Upgrade, renew, and save on Media Lab and multi-year District and School Subscriptions. For details, please contact our District Relations team.

It’s crazy how quickly we have to shift from summer to school. I remember how intense and draining September can be. It’s my hope that the resources we offer on BrainPOP Educators can make your lives just a bit easier, while enriching your students’ education with a quality resource. Here’s to a happy, healthy school year!