Posts on “ Community Featured Post ”

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»

Just this week, we’ve quietly rolled out a new group of support pages on BrainPOP Educators.  We have created game specific  pages to help support your implementation of GameUp games in class! Every GameUp page has a lesson ideas button. Click the button to find lesson plans, graphic organizers, videos and implementation strategies all geared toward the specific game. With unique pages for each of the almost 60 games on GameUp, you’ll find the most useful implementation content to help you begin  incorporating game based learning into your teaching! Over the last year, our goal has been to make a more friendly BrainPOP Educators experience, and reduce the amount of searching you need to do to find the resource that you want.   We hope you find these new pages useful!  We’re always eager for feedback so please leave your ideas or suggestions in the comments section below.  

As we reach the end of the year, we reflect on the developments and accomplishments at BrainPOP over the past twelve months. So here it is,  the top 10 BrainPOP highlights of 2012! 10) Few in New York City were spared the devastation of Hurricane Sandy this fall.  This included many employees at BrainPOP and our office space too. Even without electricity, running water or heat many members of our district relations, customer support and production teams all rallied to help each other and did their best to continue working with you too.  We made BrainPOP free for the week as many schools along the North East and Mid Atlantic coasts were closed. 9) On the second to last day of August, we were pleasantly surprised to see BrainPOP’s mobile apps featured on the Today Show in a segment entitled “Best Back to School Apps“  with former child star (and parenting expert), Soleil Moon-Frye! 8) BrainPOP attended and sponsored our first show in Australia - As part of the ISTE Australia Study tour, VP of 21st century learning, Kari Stubbs, presented at the prestigious ACEC conference! 7) The family of BrainPOP APPs including BrianPOP, BrainPOP Jr., BrainPOP UK and BrainPOP Español were downloaded over 2 million times! 6) GameUp™ continued gaining popularity with students logging… Read the Rest»

With the large scale adoption of the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics, the education world is preparing for impending assessments beginning in 2014.  The 2014 assessments are being developed by two organizations: PARCC, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers  and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.  The exact formats for the assessments are currently undetermined as the organizations work with various stakeholders to create them.  However, we do know that the assessments will continue to include “selective response” or multiple choice and open-ended, “constructive response” questions that require students to share processes and demonstrate understanding in ways rarely measured before on standardized tests. Fortunately, BrainPOP’s Mixer™ tool allows you to find or create your own “open response” questions, perfect for capturing “evidence based” answers that are more difficult to assess via standard multiple choice.  Using the Mixer, you can explore pre-written open-ended questions by clicking the filter and selecting “open-ended,” or write your own.  Either way,  the open-ended question format can elicit higher order thinking from your students – the kind that will be assessed on the future tests. Looking for good question prompts? Take a look at the FYI section on each of our topic pages. Full of high-interest… Read the Rest»

Battleship Numberline is a fun game by Numbaland that can be used to teach and reinforce all kinds of number sense skills: whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and measurement! You can utilize Battleship Numberline for each number sense concept you teach so that students can play multiple times throughout the year as you cover various math skills. This extremely versatile game can be used as both a teaching tool and independent skill reinforcement. By projecting the game onto an interactive whiteboard, you can model mathematical thinking and address student misconceptions. Then have students play on their own or with partners for fun and meaningful hands-on practice. Check out Numbaland’s Teacher Game Guide or BrainPOP’s own lesson plan for additional support.

The presidential election is just around the corner and GameUp has quite a few games that will engage your students while learning about the election process.  With a special election edition of “Budget Hero,” students will form a better understanding of the budget impact of President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney’s policies, as well as those plans championed by their running mates.  Additionally, our friends at iCivics have created some excellent election-focused interactive games that you can find on GameUp.  “Win the White House” takes students on the campaign trail to explore both the primary and general elections and the Electoral College.  Once they’ve secured the president’s seat, a round of “Executive Command” will give them the opportunity to exercise their power and learn about the day-to-day obligations of our nation’s leader. Not sure of where to begin?  All of our GameUp games have related teacher resources to support the use of these games in the classroom.  And, don’t forget to check out our election spotlight for additional games and movies that are linked to the election.

BrainPOP is once again a proud sponsor of the Global Education Conference (GlobalEduCon), a free week-long online event bringing together educators and innovators from around the world. This year’s conference is scheduled to run from Monday, November 12 through Friday, November 16, 2012 (Saturday, November 17th in some time zones). The entire conference will be held online using the Blackboard Collaborate platform. If you’ve ever attended a BrainPOP webinar, then you’ll be familiar with the format of each conference session. BrainPOP is supporting the conference strand dedicated to game based learning and game design. From Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) to Serious Games, the popularity and excitement about Game Based Learning is grounded in solid progressive educational philosophy. Studies upon studies have shown how game structures provide safe spaces for students to take risks, think strategically, and work hard. Online games are also a unique medium for communication, collaboration and teamwork. Have you used games to help your students better understand global issues? If so, there is a unique opportunity to submit a proposal to present at this year’s conference. We encourage you to submit and present, your session doesn’t have to be about BrainPOP’s GameUp, just about your effective use of… Read the Rest»

The new Mixer™ – which lets you remix, customize and craft  your own BrainPOP-style quizzes – is already receiving glowing reviews!   After this week’s overview webinar, members of the BrainPOP Educators community shared their positive reactions. @lwolfe puts it simply: “I love the Mixer!!”  @ccentra raves: “This will help me customize the quiz for each student!”  @sturpin asserts the ability to “customize quizzes will enhance the assessments of standards that we are using in our classrooms.” So have you tried the Mixer yet?  Have you explored our 9,000+  multiple choice and open ended questions?  Have you had the thrill of creating differentiated quiz experiences for your students? What are you waiting for?  Remember that in order to use the Mixer, you’ll need to link your free BrainPOP Educators account with your BrainPOP username and password. Do you have suggestions for how we can improve the Mixer experience?  Since this is our newest feature, we’re especially excited to read your feedback. We want to make this tool the best it can be! Want a quick refresher on how to use the Mixer? Check out this screencast:

Labor Day is over, school has started and everyone is busy welcoming students back to school. We think you’ll also be glad to welcome the newest tool from BrainPOP: our Mixer™! The Mixer™ allows you to create, remix and share your own BrainPOP-style quizzes. Search our growing library of over 9,000 multiple choice questions, plus NEW open-ended questions! Grab any that you like, and edit them as you see fit. Or, write your own questions and share your work with other users. The Mixer™ is a free utility for BrainPOP subscribers with a profile on BrainPOP Educators. Visit our registration page to make sure your current BrainPOP account information is associated with your BrainPOP Educators profile. You can find the Mixer™ here. Go ahead, give it a try! Or, watch the embedded video for an overview demonstration. Since the Mixer is new, we’re excited to see how you put it to use and what you think about it. Don’t hesitate to send us your feedback.