Educational Technology at IU13

The BrainPOP Bulletin is designed to provide inspiration for your classroom. Monthly bulletins have fresh instructional ideas, classroom swag, and community announcements for classroom teachers. 

This Month's Question - What's an immersive way for students to demonstrate their knowledge?

BrainPOP’s Make-a-Movie

• Lights, camera, action! Let your students take the director's seat as they share their understanding of a new topic with others using BrainPOP’s Make-a-Movie feature. View the video in the current BrainPop Bulletin to learn how!

Bonus Tip

• Provide a rubric for your students as they research and gather specific information. The rubric will be a helpful guide when they’re scripting and outlining their storyboard. Don’t forget to give project parameters like time limit and key vocabulary words!

Celebrate 25 years of BrainPop! 

• It's BrainPOP's 25th anniversary and we’re giving you a chance to win big! Find out how to enter the Moby Awards and be crowned "Class of the Year."

Miss anything from past bulletins?

• Scroll to the bottom of each bulletin to view past instructional practices and ideas using BrainPop.

Sora Sweet Reads kicks off on May 13!

This year’s selection from Sora is a mix of more than 100 ebooks (and select audiobooks) spanning grades K-12 – available for FREE AND SIMULTANEOUS USE until August 26. All titles will be prominently displayed on your school’s Sora Explore page – with the option to weed out the collection as needed. There are 146 Elementary titles, along with 16 titles for both middle and high school.

How to get started?

• View the Sora Sweet Reads 2024 Collection
• Download the new Sora Sweet Reads Kit filled with social graphics and print materials
• If you're a TeachingBooks user, be sure to check out the curated lists for Elementary, Middle, and High School for more resources for your Sweet Reads titles

Reach out to your Sora Account Team with any questions. If you want to opt out of the program, please let your Account Manger know by May 6.

Here are some "Timely & Relevant" resources from Discovery Education for the month of April 2024. Use Discovery Education as your daily hub of resources for your classroom with digital media and ready-to-use learning activities. Be sure to log into your instance of Discovery Education before clicking on the links in this post.

Timely and Relevant Resources

• Check out the April 2024 DE Newsletter for a list of resources that supports student learning throughout the month.  Click on the link above or the image to open and download this month's newsletter.

Explore the Ready-to-Use-Activities

• Explore DE's ready-to-use activities These time-saving activities can be used as-is or modified to meet the needs of their classroom! From Background Builders to Daily Sentence Fix-Its to Choice Boards and more – teachers can find quick grab and go resources to use anytime in the Instructional Activities Channel.

• There you’ll find this month's Activity Calendars for Grades K-2 and Grades 3-5. Use them as they are or make your own copy to edit and share.

Highlighted Monthly & Timely Celebrations

• National Poetry Month – Pump up your literature lessons and learn about groundbreaking poets with this collection of resources, sorted by grade band.
• World Health Day (4/7) – Ensure your students are equipped with the knowledge and resources to be healthy for their future.
• Total Solar Eclipse (4/8) – On Monday, April 8th, a total solar eclipse will cross North America from​ the Southwest to the Northeast. During the solar eclipse, the moon will pass between Earth and the Sun, blocking the sun's light for a short time period. The natural phenomena will be visible in Pennsylvania! Get your students ready!

• International Day of Human Space Flight (4/12) – Expand your perspective from Earth, to the solar system, and to the edges of space.
• Earth Day (4/22) – Celebrate Earth Day with this collection of engaging activities that students, educators, and families can do to invest in our future and make a meaningful difference for our planet.
• Shakespeare Day (4/23) – Explore Shakespeare's finest works and discover why his plays continue to be rediscovered, adapted, and performed by diverse cultures throughout the world.

Check out DE's New Content

• The Fixies - A New Channel to Teach Science to Young Students! Follow the comical misadventures of Tom Thomas and his secret friendship with Simka and Nolik, the children of the Fixie family that lives in his apartment. There's just no end to the troubles Tom Thomas and his Fixie friends get themselves into with all the gadgets and appliances around them!

• N*GEN - Explore STEM topics with N*GEN. Based in Africa, this program series teaches younger students about a variety of STEM topics. Learn about the wetlands, robots, food, bees, and more!
• PhET Interactive Simulations - Brand new 64 Spanish interactives are now available! Explore the electrifying world of molecular interactions, genetic mutations, planetary gravity, and more with these interactive simulations. Based on extensive education research, PhET simulations bring math and science concepts to life in an intuitive, game-like environment, inviting students to learn through exploration and discovery.

Information compiled in this update was provided by our partners at Discovery Education

The BrainPOP Bulletin is designed to provide inspiration for your classroom. Monthly bulletins have fresh instructional ideas, classroom swag, and community announcements for classroom teachers. 

This Month's Question - How can I help my students organize their thoughts?

Graphic organizers as thinking organizers

• With graphic organizers, teachers can help students outline their thoughts and be ready for deeper learning. Explore and assign our variety of built-in, ready-to-use graphic organizers to individuals, small groups, or an entire class.View the video in the current BrainPop Bulletin to learn how!

Bonus Tip!

• Use venn diagrams to help students structure their thoughts and prepare for a writing extension activity, which will also help strengthen their literacy skills.  Log into BrainPop to try it out!

Also in the current Bulletin edition...

• Learn how to become a Certified BrainPOP Educator! The next Certified BrainPOP Educator (CBE) cohort begins on April 8! Hear what current CBEs have to say about the program! 

Miss anything from past bulletins?

• Scroll to the bottom of each bulletin to view past instructional practices and ideas using BrainPop.

Here are some "Timely & Relevant" resources from Discovery Education for the month of March 2024. Use Discovery Education as your daily hub of resources for your classroom with digital media and ready-to-use learning activities. Be sure to log into your instance of Discovery Education before clicking on the links in this post.

Timely and Relevant Resources

• Check out the March 2024 DE Newsletter for a list of resources that supports student learning throughout the month.  Click on the link above or the image to open and download this month's newsletter.

Explore the Ready-to-Use-Activities

• Explore DE's ready-to-use activities These time-saving activities can be used as-is or modified to meet the needs of their classroom! From Background Builders to Daily Sentence Fix-Its to Choice Boards and more – teachers can find quick grab and go resources to use anytime in the Instructional Activities Channel.

• There you’ll find this month's Activity Calendars for Grades K-2 and Grades 3-5. Use them as they are or make your own copy to edit and share.

Highlighted Monthly & Timely Celebrations

• World Wildlife Day (3/3) – Travel the world to explore the largest predators and most exotic wildlife on land and in the sea.
• Pi Day (3/14) – Prepare for a mathematics party with pies and digital resources!
• St Patrick’s Day (3/17) - Discover images, videos, and articles that explain the history of this holiday and showcase the various ways countries around the world celebrate the day.
• First Day of Spring (3/19) – Discover a collection of videos, images, songs, and writing prompts that explore the science behind the seasons and their environmental effects.

Check out DE's New Content

• Life Skills Channel - Empower students with curated, high-quality resources to help them develop critical life skills in the classroom and beyond. In this channel, educators and students can explore topics like resiliency, character, personal responsibility, mentorship and citizenship, problem solving, and more.
• STEM Career Coalition - Problem-Solving Tools for Tomorrow’s Changemakers - The all-new STEM Careers Coalition's mission is to empower educators to teach STEM effectively in the classroom, focusing on equity and access to quality education, and building the next generation of solution-seekers at no cost to schools.
• Career Tours by Amazon - Career Tours are free, interactive virtual field trips that teachers can share with their students to inspire them to pursue careers of the future by showcasing the real-life people and cutting-edge technology behind Amazon’s innovations.

Information compiled in this update was provided by our partners at Discovery Education