Posts on “ educational games ”

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.  

Boston Area Teachers! Friday, 11 January 2013, 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. EST Join local learning game designers, educational researchers, and fellow teachers for an intimate one-day professional development workshop designed to help make game design a reality in your classroom. Organized by BrainPOP, Learning Games Network, and the MIT Education Arcade, the day will focus on new ways we can all make learning playful for our students. Learning game designers, researchers, and educators will lead sessions on how you can more effectively integrate BrainPOP’s GameUp resources into your classroom teaching and introduce the Learning Games Network’s Game Design Tool Kit as a way to engage students in conceptual game design. In the afternoon, you’ll be the first to play a handful of new games, produced earlier in the the week by teams of designers and programmers from MIT, BrainPOP, Learning Games Network, and Emerson College’s Engagement Lab; these new games are being produced to help us better assess and understand student learning through games! We’re looking for Boston-area teachers to join us for this exciting and productive professional development program. Each participant will leave with a sense that… Game-based learning is doable! It’s educational! Teachers can shape the direction of games being… Read the Rest»

Can you train a dog to drool on command? Find out in the Pavlov’s Dog game in BrainPOP’s GameUp! Show your students the Conditioning movie, then let them explore conditioned reflexes through game play. The object of the game is to train Pavlov’s dog to respond to a signal that it will associate with being fed. The simulation will allow students to experience Pavlov’s findings on how animals (and humans) can be trained to respond in a certain way to a particular stimulus. You can find more information about this game on the NobelPrize.org site, or check out our lesson plan for detailed instructions for incorporating the Pavlov’s Dog game into your instruction. How do you teach conditioned reflexes to your students? Share your ideas in the comments!

In addition the many movie topic pages on the solar system, BrainPOP also has three dynamic games to help students learn about space in a fun and interactive way! Build a Solar System allows students to build their own solar system. They can try to find a perfect balance or create a system unlike any we’ve ever seen! Fly to Mars is a simulation that allows students to launch a spacecraft from Earth to Mars. They’ll need to carefully monitor the position of both planets as they orbit and think carefully about the timing of their launch. Drake Equation is a chance for students to explore the likelihood of intelligent life beyond our solar system. Students answer questions to see what our chances are of being alone in the universe. Each game page links to related movie topics pages and a lesson plan which provides ideas for integrating the game into instruction. Teaching about the solar system has never been easier! Do you have other cool activities and lesson plans for teaching about space and the solar system? Share your ideas in the comments below, or submit a lesson plan!

Wednesday, September 26th at 4:30 PM ET- Play Seriously With GameUp Join our own Allisyn Levy, Senior Director of Educator Experience, for an in-depth tour of BrainPOP’s GameUp, our free online games portal. Allisyn will highlight the ways this curated collection of top educational games can be powerful learning tools. She’ll show you how to successfully bring them into your classroom to inspire inquiry, cultivate critical reasoning, and encourage creative, interactive problem solving.

BrainPOP Superstar Educator, Andrea Keller, Reflects on the Podstock Conference The middle of July marked the 4th annual Podstock Conference in Wichita, Kansas. Podstock is that conference that once you go, you will keep going back.  I have to say that I am a Podstock Original. Why do people come to Podstock? As their website says, “So what is Podstock? It’s a tech integration conference. But it’s more than a conference. It’s conversation. It’s family.  It’s a bunch of cool folks getting together to learn more about how to improve education.  And we’ll use whatever it takes -technology, PBL, gaming, online tools . . . we’ll try anything as long as it helps kids learn.  Podstock is about creativity, about inspiration, about what’s good for kids. Our formal and informal conversations change how we do school.” The conference is already on my calendar for next year (July 17, 18, and 19, 2013). Podstock is a voice, family, and friendship, and is so much more than just a conference to me. It is a family with the same ideals. It is those who are making a change or who want to make a change to give all of our students the… Read the Rest»

This spring, we told you about a national math challenge for middle schoolers run by The MIT Education Arcade and supported by BrainPOP. Between April 1st and June 15th, nearly 1,000 teachers and other adult mentors enrolled more than 30,000 students in the Labyrinth Challenge, centered on the educational game Lure of the Labyrinth. Over the course of the 10 weeks, students collectively spent half a trillion minutes (that’s more than 950 years!) collaborating on the solving of mathematical puzzles to save pets from the “Tasti-Pet Factory.” In addition to gaining problem-solving confidence and bragging rights, students earned chances to win some amazing prizes. Those who worked together with their teammates to reach certain levels in the game were entered into a drawing for a complimentary home subscription to BrainPOP, animation software from FableVision, and Lenovo ThinkPad Tablets. Teachers also had chances to win by completing pre- and post-Challenge surveys. In total, 20 teachers and nearly 100 students were awarded prizes for their participation. “Our partnerships with BrainPOP and Lenovo were critical to recruiting so many players to participate in the Labyrinth Challenge,” said Carole Urbano, Outreach Director for The MIT Education Arcade. “Offering prizes provided that extra incentive to… Read the Rest»

Thursday, April 19 4:00PM ET: edWeb.net Webinar: How To Use The Video Game Model To Build Curriculum Units Games are engaging our children both in and out of the classroom.  Components of gaming can be leveraged to increase student engagement and achievement through careful instructional design.  In edWeb.net’s next webinar, Andrew Miller, a game-based learning expert, will provide practical tools for utilizing gaming elements in the classroom to plan a curricular unit, from larger structures to individual lessons.  Webinar participants will hear from Andrew on the essential elements of gamification of the classroom, as well as the complexities of implementation.  He will also share example curriculum units and provide tips for effective planning. No need to pre-register!  Click to join the webinar at 4:00 PM ET on Thursday April, 19.

Great news!  The National STEM Video Game Challenge has just announced that they are extending the contest’s deadline to March 23rd.  As part of the Digital Promise Initiative, the Challenge aims to increase interest in STEM learning among America’s schools.  If you have a case of “creators block,” be sure to head on over to  GameUp for some inspiration and examples of some excellent STEM based educational games.  Our archived webinar from January 2012 can provide you with tips and tricks for how to prepare your students for the Challenge.  With our STEM related BrainPOP resources and an extended deadline, you  have just what you need to get started and challenge yourself.  

Let’s hear it for our very own Kari Stubbs, who was recognized as one of Daily Edventures’ global heroes in education!  Daily Edventures is an education-focused blog that has a central goal for 2012: to identify 365 inspiring advocates for education.  Kari was interviewed by the site’s editor, Anthony Salcito, who is also vice president of education for Microsoft Corp.’s Worldwide Public Sector organization.  In her interview, Kari reflects on her experiences as a classroom teacher and shares her expertise on game-based learning and its growing popularity in schools.  She explains the driving force behind our GameUp feature  while sharing the many resources we have to support it. Want to hear more from Kari about educational gaming?  Check out her keynote address from the 2011 Microsoft Partners in Learning Global Forum.  With her wealth of knowledge on education and game-based learning, it’s easy to see why Kari has been recognized as a global ed hero.  She sure is one of ours!