[agardnahhKey Master]

It’s the site you know and love, but of course it can be improved. What do you think we should do? Let us know here!

[josht21227Member]

I have two issues with BrainPop.
1) When searching standards, the topics are the same for K as for 3 which is fine except that they are identically delivered. The result is that my kindergartener is frustrated by the many lessons that are far too difficult for him. I am also frustrated by the need to pre-screen each movie to determine if it is appropriate for him.
2) The other issue is the fact that students can select more than one answer when taking the tests. My kids both quickly learned that they could just pick answers until they found the correct one. Then they could retake the test and get them all correct. Now I have to hover over them when they take the tests to be sure they don’t cheat.

Part of what attracted me to Brain-Pop was the ability of my kids to work independently; both of these issues circumvent this implied and assumed benefit.

[agardnahhKey Master]

HI Josh, thanks so much for sharing your feedback!. Have you looked at BrainPOPjr? The content on Jr. is definitely more appropriate for kindergartners, so you might have more success using lessons that direct you to use that resource. Also, BrainPOP is a reasonably small company and we devote a lot of time and energy to creating each animation. We’d love to be able to create the same animation multiple times for different grade levels, but we simply don’t have the resources to do that. Your point is well taken though.

Also, as for the quiz taking, BrainPOP provides 3 kinds: graded, review and printed. The graded version doesn’t allow for multiple answers. So, if you are concerned about them doing too much random clicking, you might want to direct students to take the graded quiz first. I realize these options don’t exist on Jr. but I’ll pass your suggestion on to our developers.

Thanks again for sharing your feedback.
ag

[josht21227Member]

Thanks ag,
I am using BPjr. My son is in K and my daughter is in 2.
I understand and appreciate your honesty. I want to be clear that I am a huge fan of BrainPop and the use of technology in education in general. The benefits to my kids far outweigh the minor issues I brought up. Perhaps a Preschool-K section of BPjr would be the way to go. I wonder if removing K from the standard search may also be wise since most of the lessons are above the abilities of the average K student. Alternatively, a series of lessons geared towards Pre-K such as intro to alphabet, numbers, keyboard and mouse proficiency etc etc.might be much better for young kids. These lessons would need to be geared towards Pre-K students preparation for the 1st grade standards they will eventually need to master.
We use Be Smart for Kids which has some great stuff for preschool kids.
The graded quiz feature would be a great addition to BPjr. Even my Kindergartener quickly learned to locate the correct answer by a process of elimination. He then memorized the correct answers so he could take the test, proudly displaying his 5/5 score. Unfortunately, he has no idea what the answer actually says or means.
Best wishes for continued expansion and success. I firmly believe that technology is the future of education. I’m very happy my kids have the benefit of BP.

[melissalayMember]

Hi, Can someone tell me if Brainpop allows teachers to enter class rosters to collect and analyze student data?

[agardnahhKey Master]

Hi @melissalay, thanks for asking. Currently there are a few ways to get your student quiz data out of the BrainPOP system. If your school has Google Apps for Education, you can install a plugin that will allow students to submit all their test scores directly into a google spreadsheet. If you search the webinar archives, you will find an in depth tutorial. Another option is with Promethian or Turning Technology student response systems. There are archived webinars with clear tutorials about those as well. Currently there is no system, other than those described above, to save scores directly into a student management system. But stay tuned. . . we’re working on it.

[teacheryamasakiMember]

Hello! I’m new to BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. My kids love the videos and are learning a lot; however, they are having a hard time with the tests and reading the Q & A and the FYI. There are many words on there that they just can’t read. For example we did the Eating Disorders topic and the 1st question was basically finding the meaning of a word by context clues. The word was obsession and the meaning was, “A preoccupation with something that completely dominates someone’s thoughts.” My 5th grader didn’t know what preoccupation or dominates meant, so she had a hard time. It has been going on like this a lot, so now I have to sit with her to help interpret the meaning of the tests, Any suggestions?

[agardnahhKey Master]

@teacheryamasaki, thanks for sharing your thoughts about the difficulty of some questions on the BrainPOP Quizzes. Since BrainPOP is targeted toward a broad audience, sometime the questions are either too easy (for older students) or too difficult (for younger students). Many BrainPOP educators have made the request to make their own quizzes. Now you can! If you go to a topic page and click the button that says, “lesson plans and teaching tools” you’ll see a link to our new mixer tool, in which you can make your own quiz, using our questions, or your own! We’re super excited to provide this feature because it will help many BrainPOP users that want to customize the quiz experience for their students.

[teacheryamasakiMember]

Thank you, Andrew. I will check it out. It sounds very exciting.

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