Posts on “ featured teacher ”

Guest blogger, Felecia Young, is a 9th grade math teacher at Salisbury High School, in Salisbury NC. She is a passionate educator committed to creating an educational environment where all students can be successful through the use of integrating fun digital tools.  One of the best digital lessons I’ve ever done was with the use of BrainPOP and ActivExpressions. BrainPOP and ActivExpressions gave me the opportunity to create lessons that are engaging and interactive. One day while in class, I came across BrainPOP and watched the video. I clicked on Quizzes and I saw shining lights around ActivExpressions and ActiVotes. Were my eyes deceiving me? Can my students use ActivExpressions to take a BrainPOP quiz? Yes, it was true! What a perfect combination! But, will it work with my high school students? I was very skeptical about showing a BrainPOP video to a group of high school students, but to my surprise they were very excited to see Tim and Moby appear on the screen. We went through the video and students took notes on one of the printable activity sheets on BrainPOP’s site. After the video, I wanted to see how much the students retained, so I told them… Read the Rest»

Guest Blogger and BrainPOP Educator Kara Wilkins is chair of the Social Studies Department at Hudson Memorial School in Hudson, New Hampshire. My name is Kara Wilkins. I have been teaching at Hudson Memorial Middle School , in Hudson, New Hampshire for fifteen years. I have spent a majority of that time as an eighth grade social studies teacher. For the last three years I have had the pleasure of chairing the Social Studies department as well. Our school purchased a full BrainPOP membership for teachers and students about five years ago and we have never looked back. I have incorporated BrainPOP into every facet of my teaching, from previewing a topic, reviewing a topic and my favorite, at home extension of topics being learned in the classroom. I am also constantly looking for meaningful ways to integrate technology into my classes to increase student engagement so when BrainPOP came out with The Mixer I knew this was going to become an integral part of my classroom routine. Over the years I have purchased various “quiz making” Web 2.0 Tools but I knew that BrainPOP’s would be great because my kids already knew the format, loved Tim and Moby and… Read the Rest»

Guest Blogger and BrainPOP Educator Julia Curtis-Burnes is a New York State certified and licensed educator. She received her Master’s Degree in Teaching from Brown University in 2008 and has a four year educational background working with students in grades k-12. Julia is currently working towards developing leadership programs that help students build skills to become good public speakers, strong writers, selective college applicants and successful college students. Last month, I attended the Celebration of Teaching and Learning Conference in New York City on to provide my perspective as an educator who uses Brainpop as a teaching tool. During the conference I worked at a booth with the BrainPOP team, taking turns helping everyone who came by.  I greatly enjoyed helping teachers learn more about how to use BrainPOP as a resource to empower them and their students in the classroom. The conference gave me the opportunity to showcase my ideas and share my specific pointers about BrainPOP. There were so many teachers who came to the booth raving about what they loved about BrainPOP, However, one of the most common issues teachers shared was that the information in BrainPOP  was presented too quickly. Indeed, BrainPOP movies are short but packed with content and I struggled with… Read the Rest»

A few weeks ago I was combing the web for information about BrainPOP and came across a mention of Kristin Kowalski, an arts teacher from Ohio.  I reached out to see what she had to say about using BrainPOP with her students, she sent us the following:   First let me say how much I love BrainPOP. I teach K-8 art at a school for ADD, ADHD, Autism, learning disabled and behavioral students, we currently have 180 kids that attend our school. Prior to the BrainPOP app, I incorporated the art videos and lessons into my classroom frequently and I know the other classroom teachers use the other subjects sections. I was excited to get the BrainPOP app.   I received a grant to get 12 iPads to work with my students with autism and I conducted a study of the affects of the iPads in art for my students, mainly addressing their sensory needs, engagement levels and understanding the content being taught. I had incredible success with the iPads not only with artistic processes but understand the artistic concepts. The BrainPOP app works great for teaching about the art history, processes and concepts. I would put the students on the app in the art… Read the Rest»

Wednesday, February 22 4:30PM: Join Bev Fine, BrainPOP ESL’s Editorial and Outreach Director, for a tour of our award-winning English language learning/teaching tool. She’ll show you the ins and outs of all eight interactive features accompanying each movie, and you’ll see why BrainPOP ESL has everything you need to successfully support ESL/ELL student needs.

Wednesday, February 15 6:30PM: Rejoice for BrainPOP’s Researching Resources! Lisa Parisi, 4th grade teacher at the Denton Ave School in New Hyde Park NY, hosts this session full of tips and ideas for using BrainPOP as a non-fiction research tool. Lisa takes you beyond our movies, delving into our Q&As, FYIs, and other supporting features. You’ll leave wondering how your students ever researched without BrainPOP!  

Congratulations to BrainPOP Educators: @jenniethom, @taclark and @stonewalllap_teacher the three winners of our Food Fight creative idea T-shirt contest!  By playing BrainPOP’s newest game “FoodFight” on GameUP and sharing their creative lesson ideas in our games forum, they will be celebrating the holidays in their new T-Shirts! Take a look at the forum discussion to see why Jennie thinks playing the game made her feel, ”it’s time to revisit food chains” in her classroom. Read further and see how stonewalllap_teacher considers this game as a terrific writing prompt. @Taclark cleverly connects school community with the concepts of food chains, competition and balanced ecosystems. It’s amazing how many ways game play helps students explore academic concepts.  It’s no wonder that gaming is gaining traction in schools around the world.   If you didn’t enter our contest, but you still want to win a Moby shirt,  keep up with BrainPOP educators here on our blog and on Twitter and Facebook.  You never know when we might feature another fabulous contest!

Multimedia and animation teacher Chris Murphy from Newton Massachusetts, shares his experience with BrainPOP animator Amber Alvarez’s virtual visit to his animation class.  By bringing an animation expert into class, Chris connected with BrainPOP in a whole new way! I appreciate BrainPOP’s help with my Interactive Multimedia class. A few weeks ago,  we arranged a guest appearance via Skype with Amber Alvarez- one of the animators. She was extremely enthusiastic and knowledgable as she explained how to synchronize a voice with various mouth shapes. She clearly explained the use of graphic symbols in Macromedia Flash and how they are used for synchronization. Amber’s enthusiasm was contagious. Right after our virtual meeting, my students couldn’t wait to try this new technique.  I know my student’s will do their best work because they know that a professional animator from BrainPOP gave them guidance. I’m certain that our virtual meeting with Amber will be the highlight of the year for my students.   Thanks for sharing Chris, we look forward to seeing your students’ work!

With all the buzz at  BrainPOP about the STEM video game challenge and this week’s Global Education Conference, today we welcome Guest Blogger Laura Brown. Laura is an expatriate science teacher working in Shanghai at Concordia International School.  Recently selected as an Apple Distinguished Educator and  member of the Learning 2.0 Asia Technology Conference executive committee, Laura is passionate about sharing her experiences in using technology in the classroom and assisting other educators to explore its ability to enrich and deepen student learning for a more authentic understanding. Most people are well aware of the significant differences between western-style teaching methodologies and a traditional Chinese classroom. The large class sizes, lack of interactive and engaging learning activities, and the broadcast teaching approach, not only limits a student’s ability to think flexibly, it also does not fully meet all students learning styles and many are subsequently left behind. The Shanghai Education Bureau has recently observed trends that suggest, despite what many would think, the average Chinese student’s understanding of, and ability to apply scientific concepts, is lower than the equivalent age student studying in a western-style classroom. The Bureau has since established a program for International Collaborative Research on Using Multimedia… Read the Rest»