Posts on “ allisyn ”

Last Friday, I had the honor of being one of the judges for the the Rube Goldberg Machines Boss Level at NYC’s Quest 2to Learn School. With all of debate surrounding assessment, it was refreshing to witness a unique approach to middle school finals (or as Quest to Learn refers to them with a kid-friendly nod, “boss levels”). A “Rube Goldberg machine” is a device that’s designed to complete a simple task in a complex fashion. For this challenge, 6th-graders teamed up to create simple machines that served different purposes – one created art using paint, another lifted a tissue out of a tissue box. In order to complete their boss levels, these 6th graders had to design a solution to complete the tasks that they were assigned. Beyond the curricular content students had to apply, they were collaboratively problem solving, planning, testing, and iterating as a team in order to complete this challenge — a very accurate set of real life skills that we employ regularly at BrainPOP.  We visited six classrooms and assessed the completed projects using rubrics, providing authentic feedback to the students from a variety of professions represented by the judging panel. Upon entering each classroom, the excitement of… Read the Rest»

Inspired by the Educate to Innovate Campaign, President Obama’s initiative to promote a renewed focus on STEM education, the National STEM Video Game Challenge is a multi-year competition whose goal is to motivate interest in STEM learning among America’s youth by tapping into students’ natural passion for playing and making video games. CALLING ALL TEACHERS with STUDENT GAMERS!  ENCOURAGE your students to ENTER THE CHALLENGE! BrainPOP is once again a proud outreach partner for the challenge and our site is a terrific starting place for you to prepare your students to participate.  Use our STEM Spotlight to introduce key concepts that might inspire your students as entry points for developing game content. In addition, check out GameUp for examples of STEM-based educational games and begin thinking about turning content knowledge into games.  We’ve got lesson plans to help get you up and running, or listen to a webinar and read our blog posts that can help you consider the best ways to bring game design into your classroom.    

Yesterday we put out a request on behalf of our friends at E-line Media, who are inviting classes to become beta testers for their new “Real Robots of Robot High” game.  Today we share with you some feedback from former GameUp beta testers who helped guide development of our award winning game, Guts and Bolts! I recently received a letter from an Astoria, NY student named Sheikh that put a huge smile on my face. He and his class play tested BrainPOP’s newest game, Guts and Bolts, back when it was still in development. Sheikh and his classmates shared valuable feedback that strongly influenced the game, and they were ecstatic to see that their input showed up in the game! Sheikh shares: “A few days ago my friend and I played that game again at our school. While playing we saw changes that we talked about to make the game better. We feel really glad and proud to see those changes. We appreciate the whole team of BrainPOP for making our opinions part of that game.” The feedback they suggested included adding additional sound effects and hints, color changes, and improved in-game feedback. Student and teacher feedback is key to… Read the Rest»

We’re thrilled to release the newest addition to the series of video case studies put out with our partners at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. In this video, Steve Isaacs, a Technology Instructor at William Annin Middle School in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, shares how he integrates video game design and development into his 7th grade curriculum.  Steve’s emphasis on the design process helps students develop essential 21st century skills, while sparking students’ interest and motivation through the use of a medium they are passionate about. Using game design programs such as Gamestar Mechanic and Gamemaker enable this teacher to embed essential programming skills into a unit of study that also has an authentic purpose — his students are creating games to enter in the 2012 National STEM Video Game Challenge! The winners of this exciting competition will be announced at The Atlantic’s Technologies and Education Forum on Tuesday, May 22, 2012.  You can read more about how Steve Isaacs prepared his students to enter their original video games in the National STEM Video Game Challenge here. We’re super-proud of this BrainPOP Educator! Read more about his work. Or, read the study itself, including a survey of more than 500 K-8 teachers who document their… Read the Rest»

What Do Teachers Really Think About Gaming in Education? A few months ago, BrainPOP teamed up with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and embarked on a research project to dig deep into that very question. In the next few days, we’ll be releasing that data, but we wanted to give you a sneak peek behind the scenes of Teacher Attitudes about Digital Games in the Classroom. The entire process has been a fantastic learning opportunity for us and will help shape the direction we move with GameUp.   My partner in crime, Jessica Millstone, Research Consultant at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and I were fortunate to visit the classrooms of many talented teachers for the first part of the study. Through video interviews and classroom observations, we captured these teachers different perspectives and approaches to integrating online games in these classrooms.   For the second part of the study, we surveyed 500 teachers nationally. We weren’t surprised to learn that over 60 percent of educators surveyed feel that games helped increase engagement with subject-area content among lower-performing students. We did, however, learn that 62 percent report that games make it easier for them to level lessons and effectively teach the range… Read the Rest»

It’s a rare teacher who encourages students to visit another world when they should be focused at school. But that’s exactly how Joel Levin, a computer teacher at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School, got his 2nd-graders engaged. Joel introduced the game Minecraft – in which players create new civilizations – with a simple instruction: “Think of this world as part of school.”  He shares, ”Over several weeks, students will collaborate, share limited resources, and create a functioning society.  Through the lens of the game, they will be introduced to the concepts of digital citizenship — each child must behave responsibly and treat his or her fellow players with respect.  Students wishing to learn more about the game are encouraged to practice basic research skills as they search the various wikis and forums devoted to the game. Joel become so passionate about using Minecraft in school that he ultimately teamed up with partners around the globe to create a version of the game, MinecraftEdu,  specifically for use in educational environments. According to minecraftedu.com, the game “is being used to teach more than just computer skills. It easily lends itself to science, technology, engineering and math explorations (STEM). But beyond that, language teachers are… Read the Rest»

Think back to your own elementary school days. Could you have designed an innovative solution that preserved food and reduced contamination? How about a robot that conquered a set of pre-determined missions in 2 ½ minutes?  You don’t have to answer that.  But for the thousands of teachers and students who put in endless hours each year to compete in the LEGO Robotics Challenge – whose 2012 theme is Food Factor – it’s all in a day’s work. As a former LEGO Robotics team coach myself, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for this competition. This year, I was thrilled to have the chance to visit the team at PS 261 in Brooklyn, NY, as they toiled away. I brought along a few other BrainPOP staffers, and we were blown away by the level of engagement we saw.  It was great to get out from behind our computers at work, into the classroom – and see first-hand how BrainPOP helped the students learn about relevant topics like Diabetes.  To capture the feeling, I wanted to share a few comments from my colleagues. Please read on! A special thanks to the team’s coaches, co-coaches, and teachers: Scott Howard,… Read the Rest»

I had the good fortune of being invited to judge the Rube Goldberg Machines Challenge at the amazing and innovative Quest to Learn School. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term, a “Rube Goldberg machine” is a device that’s designed to complete a simple task in a complex fashion. For this challenge, 6th-graders teamed up to create simple machines that served different purposes – one opened a locker, another threw an object into the garbage. We visited seven classrooms and assessed the completed projects using rubrics. All the students did an outstanding job of demonstrating their knowledge of simple machines, kinetic and potential energy, and teamwork! I loved the way the students and their families responded to BrainPOP (thanks for the cheers!), and it was such an honor to serve as a judge alongside folks from Gigantic Mechanic and the New York Hall of Science, among others. Our service as judges included the spirited awards ceremony, where the winners of Best Overall Machine and Most Creative Machine were announced.  Thanks for including us, Quest to Learn!

Can YOU learn how a cell cycle works by playing a GAME? That’s the challenge Sarah Jean-Daum gave her students – 7th-graders at NYC’s Cathedral School – earlier this month. The game in question? Control of the Cell Cycle, available on GameUp. On December 6th, we had the privilege of visiting the class to see how they were doing with said challenge. Students had about 20 minutes to play Control of the Cycle individually on laptops.  They were fully engrossed as we observed them asking each other questions, taking notes, sharing tips, and checking in with their teacher. When the 20 minutes were up, Sarah took some time to debrief. She asked the class questions about their game playing technique, leading them to collaborate at the whiteboard on an explanation of what they’d done. Most of the students commented that note-taking, as Sarah had suggested, proved helpful as they played. Sarah then had students reenter the game and walk her through the steps they’d taken.  She prompted them to  label each phase and asked them if they’d noticed the visual aids embedded in the game. What happened in Gap 1? What happened in Synthesis? The lesson wrapped up with BrainPOP’s Mitosis movie and its… Read the Rest»

Come join BrainPOP Educator, Adam Coccari, for this Wednesday’s free webinar, for more ideas on how to integrate games into your classroom! Adam is also developing an educational game for practicing math skills called Math Evolve. Games for Learning: Why Games Are Effective Educational Tools by Adam Coccari I am a 4th and 6th grade teacher that has been utilizing games in my lessons and tutoring sessions for a few years now. If I had suggested just five years ago that video games could play a major part in classroom education, the majority of teachers and school administrators would have laughed at me. Now, there seems to be somewhat of a sea change happening in this field. Educators are starting to believe what many researchers and advocates have long known: Video games can be excellent teaching tools and an effective way for students to learn. Although games can never replace the role of a teacher, games can accomplish a lot of things that traditional teaching methods can’t. Video games let students simulate historical events and scientific processes and experiment for themselves. Games can help get unmotivated students excited about math and ancient history, and reach students who don’t respond to conventional teaching methods…. Read the Rest»