R&I notes: A look at BrainPop December 2, 2008
Posted by mvalia in Representation and Interaction Design.Tags: animation, brainpop
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As a New York City technology teacher who’s job it is to review and purchase software, my first complaint about BrainPop is the developers haven’t gone through the trouble of filling the paperwork to get on the NYCDOE software catalog and receive approval for purchasing with NY State software money. This site is not perfect, but it does offer students an interesting look at scientific concepts they may not be familiar with.
Many classmates often ridicule sites like this because they are not 100 percent Mayer compliant, but right now, they are better than nothing. No other sites are taking these random scientific topics like nanotechnology and computer viruses and animating them into fun little informational tidbits. They make great educational motivators and ice breakers for teachers to use as an intro to a topic.
The animation is playful and fun. Maybe the robots don’t talk enough or the flea circus isn’t relevant. But now they know about nanotechnology and flea circuses. Increasing a students raw cultural awaremess of little topics like this help them relate to different topics they may encounter in life and even on standardized tests.
The site is jarring to look at with its millions of tiled topics, but students get to search around and explore for new ideas in a constructivist journey. From first hand experience, students will spend 20-30 minutes on the site before growing tired. And then they will pick it up again a week or two later. It serves as another piece of the puzzle enhancing students knowledge with technology. Of course it could be improved, but it is more than a version 1.0 .
With regards to flea circuses not being relavent to the teacher, surely that’s down to the skill of the teacher? Being from New York you’ve a good history of flea circuses in the city and with regards to technology you’ve got magnification, magnetism (as used in lots of humbug style circuses), springs, syphoning (the flea is of the order siphonaptera), machining small items such as watch cogs (the first flea circuses were made by jewelers and watch makers), sensing heat and detecting CO2 (which is how fleas find their hosts) and even Nanotechnology although just plain old micromaching would be fine for a flea circus.
When I searched for flea on BrainPop it implied they have a symbiotic with their hosts. This is not correct, they are parasitic. Who reviews their material? How can you be sure of good quality?
Hi! I’m a former NYC public school teacher who now works for BrainPOP. We’re always open to feedback, so we appreciate your comments. I wanted to let you know one of the first things we did when I came on board was to get onto the FAMIS approval list. You can use FAMIS to subscribe to BrainPOP — info on that is here. We are in the process of adding EFT and trying to figure out NYSSL. I would welcome your help in understanding what systems are most important for you so that we can make all of the bureaucracy involved with purchasing through these school systems as easy as possible for you! Please feel free to email me to discuss further. Thanks!