Posts on “ awards ”

Here at BrainPOP we strive to keep our content current, relevant and consistently engaging.   We work with content experts and advisors to assure the videos and interactive features meet your expectations.  This week we introduce our newest advisor: Esther Wojcicki.  Esther’s impressive list of accomplishments include: founder of Palo Alto High’s Journalism program, chair at Learning Matters and vice chair at Creative Commons not to mention frequent contributer at the Huffington Post and consultant for the Carnegie Foundation.  With these experiences, she brings insight to the development of BrainPOP content in language arts, journalism and social studies. Esther enjoys BrainPOP because the “videos are easy to use, divided into logical categories, short but not too short and cover the material in an interesting way.” Also, working closely with students in journalism courses, she explains, “kids are expected to do some research themselves, find the information themselves and collaborate with their peers.  BrainPOP fits well into this new paradigm since kids can easily watch a variety of videos on their own and then join their group to share new information. Alternatively, they can watch together and then create some kind of project based on the new information they learned.”  Frequent readers… Read the Rest»

  With school break this week, there should be a little extra time to try the newest entry in BrianPOP’s GameUP site, Food Fight!  This 2 player turn based game is not only tons of fun, but also helps players actively learn about ecosystems and habitats.  Click here to visit GameUP and play. We are super excited to announce a Food Fight contest.  The rules are simple and they don’t involve messing up the kitchen! 1) Find a partner and play Food Fight. 2) Think of a creative way to use the game within an educational setting. Follow up activities are acceptable too! 3) Post your idea to this forum. If we select your idea, we’ll promote it on the blog and send you a nifty Moby long sleeve T-Shirt!   We are only accepting entries until November 30th, so be quick, be creative, and you may have an early holiday gift, a splendid T-Shirt from BrainPOP!  

It’s been a week of global celebration here at BrainPOP.  We were proud sponsors of the Global Education Conference, shared tales of  science education in Shanghai, and attended the Microsoft Partners in Learning Global Forum. Dr. Kari Stubbs, Vice President of 21st Century Learning at BrainPOP, shares her exciting experience. Salut! Hola! Ni Hao! Ciào! WOW! I’ve just returned from Microsoft’s Partners in Learning Global Forum held in Washington, D.C.  With 700 educators from 70 countries, it was a remarkable opportunity to meet education visionaries from every corner of the globe. The Microsoft Partners in Learning Forums are a series of country-level and regional events that lead to a singular global event that celebrates the achievements of innovative teachers and school leaders. This year’s winners were selected from more than 115 projects, narrowed from more than 200,000 applicants, who competed at national and regional events over the course of the year to qualify for the worldwide competition at the 2011 Partners in Learning Global Forum. BrainPOP, available in American English, British English, Español, Français, Chinese and ESL was the perfect complement to the important work of these innovative teams. I joined a handful of innovators on the closing keynote panel… Read the Rest»

It’s been an “app-solutely” great week here at BrainPOP! First, we launched a major update to our iOS Featured Movie app, enabling mobile access to all our movies and quizzes. You’d been asking for it, and we delivered! Now, we’re thrilled to report that users have given the app a five-star rating and a ton of awesome written reviews. If you haven’t yet left a comment in iTunes, we’d love it if you did! [Note, you’ll need to view the page IN iTunes in order to write the review.] iTunes has also featured us in several categories: · “New and Noteworthy” in Education, under iPad as well as iPhone · Number 3 among the free Edu iPad apps · “Curricula Support” under “Apps for Teachers” · “Just for Fun” in “Apps for Kids” And please leave us feedback or questions regarding the app. We’re working hard to support mobile learning in classrooms and on the go.  

At BrainPOP we update the site with new movies, quizzes, games and teaching materials all the time.  To ensure that everything we release is of the highest quality, we call on our esteemed education advisors for their guidance and wisdom.  Today we welcome the newest member of our BrainPOP advisory board,  former Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Dr. Henry Adam.  Dr. Adam has an impressive bio that you can read here. BrainPOP educators recently contacted Dr. Adam to hear his thoughts about his newest appointment here at BrainPOP.  He writes, “As a pediatrician I’ve been trained to believe that prevention trumps treatment, and prevention of course depends on education. My work both as a clinician with patients and their families, and as an academic with students and house staff has largely been focused on education.  So joining BrainPOP seems natural for me.”  Well said doc! We are honored to have Dr. Adam join our board, and we look forward to receiving his guidance as we develop more health related content.

Are you searching for fun, creative ways to use BrainPOP with your students during these final weeks of school?  Have you already started the planning process for next year?  We hopefully have just what you’re looking for; check out our new lesson plans listed below.  The lessons and activities are adaptable for a wide variety of grade levels and always feature our BrainPOP movies and interactive resources! Cause and Effect: Natural Disasters *Bonus: can be used with today’s Featured Movie, Floods Stress Management Cartoons Student-Created Review Activities on the Parts of Speech Plagiarism, Copyright, and Citing Sources Documenting Learning with Digital Photography Using the Scientific Method in Real-World Problems Solar System Mobiles Metric or Customary? Rounding or Exact Answer? Geometry Q&A That’s not all, we have five award-winning lesson plans on Earth Awareness submitted by members of the BrainPOP Educators community! To view our lesson plans, you’ll need to create a free BrainPOP Educators account. The process takes only a few seconds, and will provide you with access to over 130 lessons, plus free webinars, printable graphic organizers, professional development, and more! We invite you to submit your own lesson plans to share how YOU use BrainPOP, BrainPOP Jr., and… Read the Rest»