The More You Know, The More You Know!®

The More You Know, The More You Know!® - the philosophy of BrainPOP and their educational video website. The Creighton District has had a subscription to BrainPOP for many years and it is one of our teachers favorite websites. Their short animated educational videos are perfect for introducing and reviewing concepts. The students really think of the main characters, Tim and Moby, as their friends. I have often heard comments such as "Bye, Moby" at the end of a video!

Last year we downloaded the free BrainPOP Featured Movie app to the iPods. Each day there is a featured movie that highlights a holiday, current event, or historical event for that particular day. Our teachers often use the videos as a morning warm-up to start the day or as a center activity. Students watch the video and then complete a writing exercise, such as summarizing the facts from the movie or completing a graphic organizer. It has been a great tool but a bit limited since teachers could not select the topics.

For several months I had been hearing "rumors" of a major update to the BrainPOP app. Finally on Friday, September 30, that update came through. Now since we have subscriptions to BrainPOP at each school, teachers and students can search through the app to find any BrainPOP movie, log-in with their username and password, watch the movie and take the quiz. Pretty sweet!

Note: Users without a subscription to BrainPOP, can still view the daily featured movie and search through a small selection of free movies.

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Digital Science Fair Projects

At the end of the year, many of our schools hold school wide science fairs. Students plan Science fair project tri-fold display board and implement projects and then present the process and resulting data on tri-fold display boards much like this. One class decided to go green and do away with using display boards. They conducted their experiments and recorded the data but rather than create paper reports they used their iPads. Project Data Graphs The students took pictures and video and created graphs and other visual representations and imported those into the Explain Everything app. During the science fair, students brought their iPads to the school's multipurpose room and presented their projects to attendees right from the iPads. In addition to using digital tools, these students are also developing their listening, speaking, and presentation skills - all vital to college and career readiness.

Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers

Check out these online graphic organizers from Holt: Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers The site has over 30 graphic organizers for a variety of tasks. Each graphic organizer is interactive and can be downloaded onto a computer with Adobe Reader and be filled out right on the computer. There are also Teaching Notes available with tips and lesson ideas for each organizer What we really appreciate is that they also work on the iPads! Using the "Open In" feature in an IOS web browser such as Safari or Chrome, you can import the graphic organizer into the Adobe Reader app and easily fill in the fields. Students can then take a screenshot of the completed graphic organizer to share with their teacher or import into another iPad project.

T. A. G. Strategy

We want our students to reflect on their own work but also to be able to give effective feedback to each other. This is true for writing, conversations, or digital work. It's tough for us as adults and even more difficult for our students - no matter the grade level. As we have started using Seesaw ( https://web.seesaw.me/ ) and its student Comment feature, I've seen lots of "I like ..." and "That's cool" comments. Not very meaningful. I recently came across this simple strategy called T.A.G: Tell, Ask, Give. An easy to remember acronym and a good way to get students started in making effective comments. I've seen several variations but like these descriptors for the acronym: Tell - something you learned or was meaningful ("like" if they are specific about what they like) Ask - a question Give - a compliment or recommendation (depending upon the purpose for the comment) Download a pdf here . Here are some additional

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