BrainPOP is so excited about our new partnership with netTrekker! I’ve asked Danielle Abernethy, the mastermind behind netTrekker Village, to be a featured guest blogger. I’m hoping this won’t be the last time Danielle shares her experiences with us.

Last year my niece came home from school all excited about a project she had to do on her favorite president. I asked her who she selected, and she answered Abraham Lincoln. I’m always curious as to how little minds work, so I asked her why President Lincoln was her favorite. Her response, “He was born on my birthday!”

BrainPOP is a great way to introduce new topics.

Since we had our work cut out for us, I decided to take advantage of her school’s subscription to BrainPOP Jr. When I was a technology coach, I used BrainPOP movies as a way to hook interest in the lesson. BrainPOP Jr. has another great feature. It teaches the students how to take notes. Annie stops periodically throughout the movie to ask a question and take notes. I had Zoe practice this skill with Annie and Moby so that way when she furthered her own investigations she knew how to ask questions and find the answers. She even enjoyed playing with the activities found under the movie and used the activity template for her puppet’s hat.

After watching a great thorough introduction to President Lincoln, Zoe then accessed her netTrekker account. She conducted her search and refined her search by reading levels 1 and 2. She wanted to just find more movies, but her mean old aunt made her do some actual reading. I did allow her to use the Read Aloud tool as needed.

The Puppet of Abraham Lincoln

Once Zoe had all of her notes together, she decided to create a little puppet play about Abraham Lincoln. She started her play with BrainPOP’s “Pop a Joke” feature, getting a her classmates to chuckle and even introduced note taking to her fellow classmates, telling them that Moby and Annie taught her that great skill! The puppet turned out pretty neat and now resides on her bookshelf, the play got an A so she was thrilled, and Zoe gained a better understanding of why President Lincoln is her favorite US President with two fantastic tools.

And what’s even better, she now has access to both of these great resources by logging into her netTrekker account. Her BrainPOP movies are always at her fingertips with one search. Yours too! Try it today!

If you have any great lesson ideas on how to use netTrekker and BrainPOP together, please share them either in a comment below or over at the netTrekker Village discussion. boards!

We’ve got big news to share here at BrainPOP! The integration is complete - you can now access your BrainPOP resources seamlessly from your netTrekker search results.

What does that mean for you? If you are a netTrekker subscriber, it means that you can access all of our great BrainPOP resources from directly within your netTrekker search results. Just contact your netTrekker Customer Relationship Specialist. You will need to provide your BrainPOP username and password. It’s free.

What does it look like? Picture this. Your students want to research topics related to online communication and blogging. They go to netTrekker’s safe search engine and type in “blog” as their search topic. BrainPOP’s “Blogs” topic appears as a search result. Your students can then click on the BrainPOP results and go directly to the movie, quiz, and other great interactive resources without re-logging into your BrainPOP account. It is seamless, easy, and powerful!

Not a netTrekker subscriber yet? Try it out! Email netTrekker and request a free trial.

What’s the extra scoop? Now through September 14th, all netTrekker users have access to all BrainPOP content. All you have to do is a keyword search for “BrainPOP” and the results will appear. No set up is necessary; it’s all automatic.

After September 14th, all netTrekkers will have access to 28 free BrainPOP topics even without a BrainPOP subscription. Topics include: Mars, Comparing Prices, Angles, Internet Safety, Nutrition, International Space Station, Classifying Animals and more! netTrekker subscribers also have access to all BrainPOP quizzes, BrainPOP Jr. games, and BrainPOP Educator lesson plans and video tutorials.

Neat, huh?

What do you think? Tell us how you plan to take advantage of the new BrainPOP - netTrekker integration in your classroom today!

What do BrainPOP and netTrekker have in common? 1). They both celebrated their 10^th birthdays this summer. 2). They’re powerful 21^st century teaching tools. 3). They have partnered together so you can find BrainPOP content seamlessly through netTrekker searches!

To celebrate 21^st century learning and our partnership with netTrekker, I was the keynote speaker at the recent netTrekker Fest event. My keynote, 21^st Century Learning - What’s in Your Back-to-School Bag of Tricks?, was all about re-thinking education. We explored how to become 21^st century learners, how to teach 21sts century kids, and even discussed examples of 21^st century teaching ideas. I encouraged participants to become 21^st century learners by challenging them to connect online with other educators and resources at BrainPOP Educators, netTrekker Village, and Twitter. I praised Calcasieu Parish for providing the opportunity to witness 21^st century learning at this spring’s NSBA Site Visit, and encouraged participants to create their own mini-site visits with leaders in their districts. I shared global learning experiences and video footage from my experiences in classrooms in China. I also showcased the BrainPOP Internet Safety Flipchart and the Global Connections: Natural Disasters wiki and lesson that I’d shared at NECC. I energized the crowd by highlighting how to take advantage of BrainPOP’s resources, searchable within netTrekker, to reach students at a variety of levels and on a variety of topics. There was much enthusiasm about the BrainPOP-netTrekker partnership!

BrainPOP’s partnership with netTrekker will enable netTrekker users to access 28 Free BrainPOP topics - 21 BrainPOP, 6 BrainPOP Jr, 1 BrainPOP Español - these can be accessed without a BrainPOP subscription. By early September, you’ll also have access to all BrainPOP quizzes, BrainPOP Jr. games, and BrainPOP Educator lesson plans and video tutorials. For those of you who are already both netTrekker and BrainPOP Subscribers, you’ll have access to 1200+ BrainPOP resources all with a seamless sign-on experience.

What are some ways you envision using BrainPOP and netTrekker together? Please share your ideas below.