Posts on “ comics ”

BrainPOP Educator, Amanda Durrence, is an Instructional Technologist in Winston Salem, NC. She is certified in 6-9 Social Studies and was a 7th grade social studies teacher when she shared this lesson idea with us. She has used BrainPOP for the past 5 years in her teaching career and notes, “I’ve been in love with it since day one.” BrainPOP’s Egyptian Pharaohs and Mummies movies inspired me to take my lesson on Ancient Egypt a few steps further with my students.  I came across an interesting documentary by National Geographic titled “King Tut’s Final Secrets.” It tied in perfectly with what we were learning. BrainPOP’s resources provided us with excellent resources to help students understand Ancient Egyptian culture/customs.  Furthermore, they were prepped for the documentary by BrainPOP’s explanation of the mummification process and why it was significant for the pharaohs.

What do you get when you combine creativity, good humor, and an interest in educational technology? The beginnings of a great comic strip or cartoon for the ISTE Daily Leader! ISTE welcomes all kids and adults to submit a comic or cartoon for possible showcasing in their newspaper of record during the annual ISTE conference in Philadelphia, June 26-29. The scoop: *Create a comic displaying something funny about technology in education or the ISTE conference *Single panel or up to 3 panels, must fit within the 8th page (4.75 in W X 3.4 in H) *Appropriate for an audience of all ages *Include name, age, location (institution, city, state/province, and country) and technology used (if any) *Submit as a high-resolution PDF or jpg at 300 dpi *Must be original and not previously published To be considered, entries must be submitted via email to Editor Kate Conley, kconley@iste.org by June 3, 2011. For full details, click here. Want to get your students involved but not sure where to start? Use BrainPOP topics like Traditional Animation, Dialogue, and Drawing to build background knowledge.  Explore BrainPOP Jr.’s Belly Up and BrainPOP’s FYI comics for ideas and examples, you’ll find one cheeky comic with each… Read the Rest»

Tatum Murphy is our new Director of Education Outreach! We’ll be hearing lots more of Tatum’s creative ideas! Feel free to welcome her by commenting below. Using BrainPOP to Foster Creativity, Infuse Critical Thinking, and Enrich your Students’ Learning Throughout the School Year Do you have any Special Agents in your class? I didn’t think so…well, not yet at least! In my quest to come up with activities to enrich, engage, and extend the learning process using BrainPOP, I fell in love with the FYI section and devised the idea of creating a classroom of FYI Special Agent characters.  This activity can be integrated across grade levels and subject areas, is excellent for multiple learning styles, and can last the entire school year if your class is really digging it! FYI Special Agents are simply a special task force of student created BrainPOP characters responsible for “schooling” Tim and Moby with new FYI content or artistic displays. Students conduct research, synthesis, create, and present their Special Agent work to the class. Together, your class builds an FYI Special Agents bulletin board to display the characters and top secret task force work. If you aren’t familiar with the FYI section, take… Read the Rest»

Karyn Keenan is a recent recipient of a donorschoose grant. She teaches 2nd grade in Chicago, and she’s chock full of great ideas! Thanks, Karyn. This summer I decided to work on getting a subscription to Brain Pop, Jr. through Donors Choose.  Within twenty days my project was funded and we were looking at starting the school year with BrainPOP Jr. My students quickly learned that the catchy BrainPOP Jr. theme song meant Annie and Moby would be teaching them something new and making them laugh. The first thing I do when using BrainPOP Jr. for a lesson is for us to watch the movie. We watch the movie through one time just for watching. Then we watch it a second time, stopping the movie on the blinking pause sign and answering the questions that come up on Annie’s notebook. Sometimes I will have students write their answers to these questions on an exit slip. Other times I will pick a squirmy member of class to be in charge of pushing the pause button on our SMART board. Whenever we watch a movie I use the closed captioning feature. Closed captioning and viewing the movie twice helps my students, especially… Read the Rest»

I love hearing innovative tips from teachers. This one is from Tiffany Michaud at Cannella Elementary in Tampa, FL. She uses BrainPOP during their closed circuit tv program broadcasted each morning. She might start the day with a pop-a-joke from BrainPOP Jr., show a timely movie that relates to the entire school (MLK, Earthquakes), or use the different features of BrainPOP that fit into the various segments of their school news show. When I showed her the FYI feature on BrainPOP, she came up with the idea to have the Cassie and Rita comic up on the tv screens while students were coming into their classrooms. Could lead into a great class discussion that you can return to throughout the day/week. Thanks for sharing these, Tiffany! Got some new ideas? Add ‘em on!