Posts on “ new content ”

What makes two figures congruent? Find out in BrainPOP Jr.’s new math movie, Congruent and Similar Shapes. In the newest addition to BrainPOP Jr.’s Geometry unit,  Annie and Moby explore geometry and learn about the properties of different shapes. They also guide students in comparing and contrasting the shapes and sizes of multiple figures. The movie’s visual explanation of congruent and similar shapes is a great support to reinforce  your students’ understanding of geometry concepts.

BrainPOP Jr.’s collection of math topics now includes Line Graphs! In our new movie, Annie and Moby introduce line graphs, and focus on how to read, analyze, and create them. Students are guided in understanding parts of a line graph, such as the x- and y-axis, as well as the scale. The perfect supplement for a unit on analyzing data, students are shown how to utilize a line graph to draw conclusions and answer questions. Through visual and auditory support, students will also learn how to collect a set of data and further organize the information in a line graph of their own.

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»

Explore the life of Chief Joseph, leader of the Wallowa band of Nez Perce in the Pacific Northwest, in BrainPOP Jr.’s new movie! Annie and Moby will show you how settlers of the American West and the United States government forced the Nez Perce from their land. This movie also highlights the hard choices Chief Joseph had to make as he led the tribe to fight the U.S Army and then move to reservations. Our Chief Joseph movie is a great addition to BrainPOP Jr. for teaching your younger students about important events in America’s history.

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»

You’ve been asking for it, so it’s with great pride that we present to you our newest topic page, Iroquois!  In this Social Studies movie,  Annie and Moby introduce the culture, customs, traditions, and history of the Iroquois people. You’ll learn about the Six Nations (the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscacora) and how these Native Americans lived long ago. See how their lives changed when the settlers began arriving in the 1600s. How do the Iroquois keep their traditions and culture alive? Also debuting this week: Probability! In this math movie, Annie and Moby find out how the concept of probability can be applied to everyday life. You’ll learn what it means for an event or outcome to be likely, unlikely, certain, and impossible. See how to calculate probability and show likelihood using numbers and fractions. Enjoy!

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.