Posts on “ agardnahh ”

BrainPOP’s newest topic, ethics, provides an accessible, engaging storyline and a terrific entry point for students to frame and build skills focused on in the Common Core State Standards. Understanding the ethical dimension of reasoning will prepare students for critically evaluating a broad range of topics, from science and technology to history and literature. BrainPOP is making an strong effort to support implementation of the Common Core State Standards by creating new topic movies that consider changes in curriculum and performance based assessment. The Common Core standards for English Language Arts emphasize proficiency in making and evaluating arguments, problem-solving, and critical reasoning. Our ethics movie begins with age old questions – when you’re faced with a tough decision, how do you figure out what to do? What guidelines or examples do you use to make up your mind, and what happens when there’s more than one good way to act?  Tim and Moby offer some simple advice on what to do when you’re faced with tough choices about right and wrong, or good and bad. Students will consider some rules of thumb about ethical decision making, including ways to find a solution that does the most good while doing the least amount of harm. Ethics also primes students… Read the Rest»

On Saturday March 23rd, BrainPOP and Learning Games Network hosted a select group of educators for a one day professional development workshop designed to make game based learning a reality in the classroom. From game play to game design, we explored the various ways games can help engage students to build crucial academic and 21st century skills. The day began with an inspirational keynote from designer Nick Fortugno, CCO of Playmatics and creator of Ayiti, the Cost of Life,  a game featured on GameUp. Nick inspired us to think beyond games as assessment tools, and consider the fundamental characteristics of engagement, risk taking, exploration and curiosity that emerge when we play a great game.  Next we explored all of the free games that tie into curriculum offered on GameUp. Teachers were thrilled to discover the breadth of games and appreciated the teacher support and CCSS alignment.  We collectively played an exemplary online math game, Lure of the Labyrinth: Employee Lounge, by Thinkport and partners, and discussed our observations. Through taking risks and building conceptual understanding of algebra through playing the game, we acknowledged many of the takeaway points from the keynote.               In the afternoon… Read the Rest»

Thanks to all of you, our newly launched Featured Movie app for Windows 8 just reached a big milestone! The Windows 8 app – for devices like the Microsoft Surface – has now been downloaded more than 10,000 times. Remember, your BrainPOP username lets you log in directly from the app at no additional cost. A second milestone? The app earned front-and-center placement last week, when the Windows Store featured it in the Education category.

Starting March 18th, 2013 BrainPOP Educators is getting a new look! We’ve simplified our homepage to provide you with the most useful resources and information – from our favorite “featured resources” to direct access to lesson plans and the standards alignment tools.  We hope you find the new look simple and appealing! Our goal is to help you find all the information and resources you need quickly and easily. If you’d like to share your thoughts about all our resources, you can! We’ve now given you the ability to comment on topic pages, webinars, lesson plans and more.  Let the community know what you think! Over the next few months you’ll be seeing more changes, especially with site navigation and search. We’ll be continuously improving our resources too, so visit often to find new features and learn about all the developments at BrainPOP!

BrainPOP is thrilled to introduce a new category of free English Language Arts (ELA) games! When you visit the main GameUp page, you’ll now see an “English Games” button which takes you to our growing collection of online games that target a wide range of literacy skills. We’re also excited to announce the addition of Classroom, Inc.’s The Sports Network 2 (TSN-2) to our English GameUp offerings. The result of a 2011 Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC), TSN-2 can easily be adapted for use with students in grades 5-9, but is designed to assess students’ proficiency in key grade 8 Common Core State Standards in Reading Informational Text. We love the way TSN-2 uses challenging tasks within a virtual workplace to address each of its target standards multiple times. Last spring, Classroom, Inc. piloted TSN-2 in eight schools in NYC and Chicago. Analysis of student data gathered through Classroom Inc’s Teacher Dashboard showed strong correlations between students’ scores on the TSN-2 embedded assessments and MAP reading scores—compelling evidence that TSN-2 is a valid predictor of student performance on standardized grade level reading tests. Pilot teachers were enthusiastic about how TSN-2 provides effective CCSS practice and assessment, and students were eager… Read the Rest»

Tomorrow is March 14th, also know as Pi day!  Every year many teachers observe the coincidence that our calendar notation aligns with the most famous ratio –  the circumference of a circle to its diameter!  Thinking about ways to incorporate Pi day into your classroom? You can start by providing a overview with the BrainPOP Pi Movie , continue by checking out BrainPOP Educators Superfaux2′s custom mixer quiz on Pi, or create your own. Check out our “lesson ideas” page for some ideas about creating a Pi Day festival from Educator Toni Sexton.    Have a piphilologist  contest, to see which student can memorize the longest stretch of numbers!  Have additional ideas? Share them below. Happy Pi Day!

A new week and a new topic page on BrainPOP Jr: Prefixes!  In this movie. Annie and Moby explain that a prefix is a letter or group of letters that is attached to the beginning of a word to change its meaning. Some prefixes give root words an opposite meaning. Some prefixes denote amounts or numbers. Understanding prefixes can help students read new and unfamiliar words. Enjoy!

I was lucky enough to be part of the BrainPOP team that attended and presented at this year’s SXSWEdu Conference and Festival, and wanted to share some of my thoughts and impressions. Throughout  SXSWEdu, the concept of “innovation” was everywhere, but it was particularly notable at  the “LaunchEDU”  Summit. Over the course of two days, a panel of judges assessed products and services from 24 start-up companies, all attempting to solve a specific education problem – from a more research-friendly search engine to a simplifying complex multiple log-in processes. As individuals and teams gave their “elevator pitch,” you could immediately see  the engagement, excitement, and work ethic involved in starting a business. It got me thinking about how best to bring out these traits in students. Problem-solving is a prime example of authentic and engaging learning. The process forces a team of people, with diverse skill sets, to draw on background knowledge, build new knowledge, and creatively combine knowledge into an authentic solution. It’s what innovators and inventors have done since the beginning of time. It’s what humans do well. It demands creativity. To quote Seymour Pappert, it’s “hard fun.” So, how can harness this for the classroom? Sessions at… Read the Rest»

Guest blogger Laura Gatto shares a delightful story of preparing her son to handle the anxiety of air travel with BrainPOP! In the week leading up to spring break, my 6-year-old son was super excited about our upcoming vacation to DisneyWorld. He also seemed a little nervous about the plane ride, so I thought it would be a good idea to watch a BrainPOP movie on FLIGHT. Perhaps it would help reduce his anxiety, at the very least it could reduce mine! So, in the brief window of time between preparing his school lunch and getting him out the door to catch the bus, we watched the movie and took the quiz together. Though our time was limited, we delved into the mechanics of movement with physics concepts like weight, drag, lift and thrust. Though he didn’t understand everything, he was interested, curious and excited! Later, I thought about our tendency to hold back teaching children certain “difficult” subjects even when we notice their excitement and interest. I stumbled upon some of my college notes from the writings of renowned cognitive psychologist, Jerome Bruner and was reminded that the foundations of any subject can be taught to anyone, at any… Read the Rest»

Here are 5 ways to shine April’s BrainPOP spotlights Earth Awareness and Money Matters into your classroom. 1) April 22nd is Earth Day – have students explore the entire Earth Awareness Spotlight page. Follow this lesson plan and help them choose their cause. 2) April 15th is tax day! Help your students understand why the grownups are grumpy by watching the taxes movie during morning meeting, or playing Budget Hero on GameUp. 3) Though many US citizens are still struggling financailly, US stocks have recently hit an all time high. Help your students explore what it means to buy shares of a publicly traded company with our stocks and shares movie. 4) April 25th is World Penguin Day! Enjoy the penguin movie and learn some fun facts about our flightless feathered friends! 5) To solve the problems of Global Climate Change, global cooperation in the key. Help increase your student’s global awareness by participating in a meaningful global collaboration project! Check out this webinar with POPstar Lisa Parisi, of this list of links for some ideas to get started! These are just a few of the countless ways you can use BrainPOP and GameUp Spotlight content with your students. Share… Read the Rest»