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I'm Adam Todd. Welcome to Classroom Dynamics, a teacher podcast. I believe that the best
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way to engage students in a 21st century classroom is to immerse them with the transformative
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tools that will empower each and every one of them to excel in the world that awaits.
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My aim? To ignite the spark that propels you and your students into an advanced tomorrow,
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and your journey into that future starts right now.
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Classroom Dynamics is supported by Logitech. As education continues to evolve, so does Logitech
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Education, your partner in content creation for the classroom. With Logitech's cutting-edge
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technology, students not only learn but also become content creators. Whether it's in-person
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or online, Logitech's tools are designed to inspire educators and learners alike. Capture
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every educational moment in stunning detail and edit, produce, and share your creative journey
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with ease. Logitech Education, inspiring the next generation of creators. For more, visit
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Logitech.com/education, transforming classrooms, one innovation at a time.
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Welcome to Classroom Dynamics, a teacher podcast. I'm your host, Adam Todd. Get ready to tap into
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the power of motivation and innovative teaching strategies. Together, we'll ignite a love for learning
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in your students, fostering an inclusive environment where every child can thrive. Join us on this
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transformational adventure that empowers you to unlock your full potential as an educator.
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This is Classroom Dynamics, where inspiration meets innovation.
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Calling all educators are you ready to inspire creativity and engagement in your students?
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Unlock their full potential with content creation. Imagine empowering that with cutting-edge
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tools like the Blue Sono microphone from Logitech, which ensures crystal clear audio quality
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for impactful projects. Logitech offers a full range of content creation solutions from audio
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equipment and cameras to lighting and editing software. Plus, they have a suite of education
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solutions tailored for classrooms, elevating the learning experience for students and educators alike.
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Empower the next generation of creators by exploring the possibilities at Logitech.com/educationToday.
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Welcome to Classroom Dynamics, the podcast where we get into the exciting world of technology and
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education. Hi, everybody. I'm your host, Adam Todd, and today we have an exciting episode lined up
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for you as we take a closer look at BrainPop. And if you're an educator, chances are you know BrainPop,
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but there is plenty more you may not know about this iconic brand that continues to grow and evolve.
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So let's uncover the history of BrainPop, the learning design behind it, and discover why it's
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become such a beloved resource in classrooms around the world for nearly the last 25 years.
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Founded in 1999, BrainPop is an educational platform that has been revolutionizing the way
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students learn through engaging and impactful digital content. It all began with a vision by Dr.
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Averm Kadar, a pediatrician and immunologist who sought to bring complex concepts to life
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in an accessible way to demystify big ideas, capture kids' attention, and make learning enjoyable
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and meaningful. With this goal in mind, BrainPop introduced its signature animated topics featuring
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enduring characters including Tim and Moby who embark on educational adventures across a wide range
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of subjects across the curriculum. BrainPop movies combine humor, visual storytelling, and expertly
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crafted educational content to simplify complex topics for students, and creates kindergarten
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through eight and even up. As BrainPop continue to expand its offerings beyond the movie in quiz,
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it introduced additional learning activities such as games, moviemaking, concept mapping, and coding.
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This holistic BrainPop experience builds students' background knowledge and vocabulary,
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allowing students to apply and teachers to measure what they know and even deepens and extends
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through learning experience. Fast forward to today, BrainPop has become a global leader in educational
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technology trusted by millions of teachers, parents, and students worldwide. The company's commitment
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to creating high-quality standards of line resources has earned numerous accolades and recognition
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within the educational community. With a vast collection of learning experiences spanning science,
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social studies, mathematics, English, and more, BrainPop continues to empower learners and promote
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multi-dimensional skills in an engaging and accessible manner. Today, we're sitting down with Dr.
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Barbara Hubert, the Senior Director of Learning Design at BrainPop, who develops and
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scales learning experiences with a focus on literacy, access, equity, and inclusion. Dr. Hubert began
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her career in education as an elementary school special education teacher, working for nine years
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in both public and charter schools supporting both students and teachers. It's all just a click
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and a pop away. We'll be right back.
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Are you a dedicated educator searching for fresh and engaging resources to inspire your students?
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Look no further than highly motivated on teachers pay teachers. Discover a treasure trove of
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young minds and ignite their love for learning. Unlock the potential within your classroom
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Visit highly motivated on teachers pay teachers and get ready to inspire, motivate, and empower
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your students like never before. Highly motivated on teachers pay teachers where knowledge meets inspiration.
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She's the Senior Director of Learning Design at BrainPop. I like to welcome my very special
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guest to classroom dynamics, Dr. Barbara Hubert, who is here to talk everything. BrainPop
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welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to be here and chat with
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you all things brainpop. I can't tell you how excited I am because I love BrainPop. I know, you know,
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just being a big fan of it and is probably the case by so many educators like I said just all over
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the world. Before we even get started, how would you describe BrainPop to someone who may not know
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what it is, is never heard of it might be a new teacher or has previously heard about it and wants
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to learn a little bit more? Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to start high level but take the journey with me.
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For me when I think about BrainPop, I think about a learning platform that really is at the center
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of where engagement meets rigor to drive those learning outcomes. And I know those terms have a lot
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of different meanings. So I'm going to unpack what I mean a little bit. When I think about engagement,
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I think about really mirroring that authentic student engagement piece, right? What is motivating me
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to learn? Bring me into the the learning task, Greg Augustine because it's meaningful, personally relevant,
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really purpose driven and it meets kids where they are alongside this the R word rigor, right?
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But when I think about rigor, what I actually think about is challenging and productive struggle,
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like learning activities that are designed to again meet kids where they are because that's a really
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big piece of it, but engage them in those higher order thinking skills and complex concepts and
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meaning making. And so what that means and looks like on BrainPop is as a platform, we tap into that
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kids' natural curiosity to explore a topic deeper. And through that process really helped them practice
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and strengthen transferable meaning making skills that they're going to use in BrainPop and beyond
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BrainPop. And those meaning making skills are really those complex higher order thinking skills
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through the movies as an entry point, but all of our learning activities in support of that topic
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knowledge and those transferable skills because we really are, I like to think about it as leveling
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the playing field with background knowledge as one of our like core core strengths. I have, I'll just say,
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I have a, I come from a special education and literacy background. And so I'm, I'm constantly thinking
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about both learn diversity, but also literacy, how to make strong readers and excited readers,
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and we know that background knowledge plays a really, really critical role in becoming a fluent
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strategic reader. So I also love to think of BrainPop as giving kids all kids' entries into building
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that background. So we're kind of all on this level playing field of when we're engaging with the
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text when we're coming up against new ideas, really all being able to be in conversation about it,
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regardless of where learning paths have taken us to that point.
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You know, you actually said a really interesting word that I think a lot of teachers,
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I think they don't, not that they don't understand what the word means. I'm talking about rigor.
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I think they get very, very nervous when they hear that word. Yeah.
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They hear the word and they're like, wait a minute. Am I doing rigor? Am I planning appropriate lessons?
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So there's rigor already embedded in it. So how does BrainPop then, like you mentioned,
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rigor? So can you just explain to those teachers who might be a little bit afraid of that word?
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So to speak, how would that make them feel a little bit more comfortable?
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Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up because I, as a, I'm just going to say former educator,
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but once an educator, oh, is an educator in my heart, that word rigor is charged, right?
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Because it's used a lot in a lot of different ways. It's one of those sort of slippery educational
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buzzwords, but you really get down to like brass tax.
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Rigger is holding a high standard for every student, but supporting them and meeting that high standard.
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And that high standard is a high thinking standard. Yes, it's driven by standards.
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What am I supposed to be doing or knowing in that grade level? But it's really about creating tasks
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and lessons and just learning experiences that are at that right level of challenge, that, you know,
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that zonal proximal development, I'm meeting you there and I know where to go next. So there is
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their struggle. It's not frustrating. It's productive. It's exciting struggle. You're like, oh,
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cool. I'm like, I'm kind of digging into this media idea. Like, where do I go next? And I think that
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that's one of the superpowers of brain pop, right? Because you get to tackle complex ideas and topics
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from like computational thinking to the American Revolution to plot and theme, right? Like all across
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the spectrum of subjects. And there's a lot that goes into those topics, subjects ideas, but we don't
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dilute that experience. We create an experience with our design of the movies and how they connect
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with kids through humor, through that animation, really bringing those ideas to life in a way,
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through like a narrative arc, right? So we know teaching through narratives is like such a great
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way to make learning stick. And I think brain pop is just sort of like so well positioned to continue
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to do that. And so I know I said rigor our word, but not but and for me, rigor is really around like
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holding that complexity of thinking meeting kids where they are and just supporting and nurturing
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them up to up to that place. So it's almost like differentiation on from your end on brain,
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we're just talking about brain pop is using that as an example, differentiated on that end so that
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whatever level that child is on, there's your rigor. Yep. And knowing the goal, right? Knowing where
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you're going, knowing where everyone's sort of got to be, but also knowing that kids not only take in
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not even kids humans, right? Take in information in different ways, process, information in different
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ways and express and show what they know in different ways that really are more aligned to what they're
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like just learner preference is. And so really that's a huge part of a rigor for me in thinking around
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differentiation because it's really that that place of it's coming from universal design for learning,
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which I could talk about in nauseam. But when we think about proactively designing for a diversity
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of learners, then we invite more learners in from the beginning. And so holding that alongside
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the kinds of questions we're asking in our pause points or the kinds of questions we're asking in our
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quizzes and challenges or the kinds of learning artifacts that kids get to create with tools like
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our makeup map, which is our concept mapping tool. It really gives kids like for me, I am a I will
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concept map anything all day long. That is how my brain works. And so you give that to me and I can
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show you that can show you my ideas in a much stronger, more concise way than I can in writing
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any day. And I think brain pop holds that well being really intentional around making sure that those
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questions that that are driving it are getting into the meat, the deep the deep thinking and the
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the complex ideas in that topic. It's interesting. I do one of the units I do during the
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core city is digital sketch noting. And just that whole visual aspect, you know, going along with
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what you're saying with maps and things like that, the visual part of that almost you have to see,
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you know, just the kids ideas come out so differently. And I think they feel like it's so much easier to
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get the ideas out that way in that visual way that it actually their projects or whatever they're
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working on becomes so much more embedded into what they're trying to learn and the memory of it
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and the understanding of it and the higher order thinking portions of it. It really does come together
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when you start to look at that. Totally. The mirror is their brain process, right? Your brains don't
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aren't like linear and and and perfect and concise. They're they're connected. They're tangentially.
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You come back to ideas. You connect to ideas. And so yeah, I love it. I love this. So you're saying
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there's no one size fits all in edge of that. That is that is if I am if I go out with anything,
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that is my my line. There is no one size fits all. Learner diversity is at the center of every
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human, every classroom. Yeah. Yeah. I hope people who are listening that always feel like it's okay to
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do one size fits all will understand that that it doesn't work that way. Yeah. And that's okay, right?
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And it's a key that it doesn't work that way. That's okay. That's the norm that it doesn't work that way.
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Yeah. I think it's I think it's better than it doesn't. 100% I like pouring in the kitchen.
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Absolutely. So let's get some to some fun stuff too, right? So for those teachers who have
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used Brainpop and they do know what it is and what it does. They're very familiar with some of the
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characters like Moby, but for those teachers who aren't so familiar with who those characters are
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and and all the rest of the brain pop cast of characters are in all the movies, you know, how would
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you explain where that came from and who they are? Yeah. I'll start a little bit. I'll give you some
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Brainpop lore, the origin story of Moby. Legend has it that Mike Watnabi are a chief creative officer
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and first and foremost, a brain pop actually drew the first sketches of Moby on the back of his resume
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when in conversation with Dr. Kudar, who is the founder of Brainpop. And it's sort of Moby was this
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genesis of a robot is relatable because it's not a certain gender ethnicity ability, right? A robot is a
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robot. And so having Moby, it started in having Moby in these short topics, starting a boy and a robot
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Mike voiced the boy Tim and and Moby made beeps and what has sort of evolved in terms of Moby's purpose
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is Moby is an every brain pop movie and he's almost standing for any questions that a kid might have
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when Moby beeps, it's because he's asking a question or he's queuing up for there's an important idea
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coming or a misconception that I need addressed. Moby doesn't say a word, Moby beeps, but those beeps are
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really, really intentional in supporting kids thinking and sort of queuing them up to here's a point
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that might be really great to dig into and so that has not stopped. Moby, Tim and Annie became sort of
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the Annie is our character who leads brain pop junior. Tim and Moby were sort of our first explainers.
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As popularity grew, we felt a growing need, not even a growing need, a growing responsibility.
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for all the kids to be able to see themselves in our characters and we added Cassie and Rita and
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Nat and Mateo, their characters from many different backgrounds and speaking with different
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viewpoints and it was a service of a point that kids could see a little bit of themselves in those
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characters and also see those characters sort of being the explainers, being the ones sort of
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sharing that knowledge and bringing kids in and so giving kids that opportunity to see themselves
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in that light was a has sort of been the journey of brain pop over the years.
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That's a pretty cool historical insight because I don't think many people know that the
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history of that that's pretty interesting. He actually drew it on the back of his resume. Yep.
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And fun fact, if you go into brain pop, brain pop 101, which is a little bit of a like, hey teacher,
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you can get an overview in our primary source activity, you can see those sketches from the resume.
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See, so it pays to do something different on a resume sometimes, too, doesn't it? Yeah.
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Talk about thinking outside the box and differentiation and you know, not doing the norm, right? That's
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amazing. Yes. Mike Wattenabi is the testament to that in all the ways. There you go. You author to
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paper titled Equity in Learning with Brain Pop Fostering Access and Impact for All. In the paper,
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you mentioned Make a Movie and this totally got my attention because with Make a Movie and I'm
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quoting here, students produce their own unique brain pop style movies, flexibly creating scenes with
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animated clips, images, simple text and varying background colors using voiceover or computer narration,
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students can explain a focus point or process. How cool is that? Because in a nutshell,
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that's really content creation in the classroom, which has become such a huge thing lately. It's
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exploding with TikTok and YouTube videos and Instagram and you name it. And from mostly because of,
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you know, engagement purposes, creativity, differentiating purpose, all the things we were talking about
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already with higher level thinking. So with that said, how else does brain pop engage students with
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different learning styles and accommodate diverse needs in the classroom? Yeah. That's a great question.
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And you know, it's interesting because I haven't ever heard of this frame to sort of content,
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like content creators, but maybe we were early influencers in that content creation space.
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You were a little ahead of your time. But no, that's a great example of, and I'll talk a little
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bit about making a movie, but then sort of segue over to this sort of bigger, how do we support
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diversity of learners and their learning experiences? And we've added a little bit about it, but
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I think when you look at make a movie, for example, it's such a great example of complex thinking and
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a complex task in a way that is accessible. And when I say accessible, for me, that means all learners
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in the classroom have an entry point and that entry point is into a meaningful learning experience.
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Quick aside, again, my background in special education was there for many, many, many years. And
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my sort of other rallying cry is that like accessible meaningful instruction is a right,
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not a privilege. And so when thinking about that frame and thinking about the learning activities
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that are in brain pop, it's just that there is such a beautiful overlay because if you think about
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something like make a movie, which a student has to plan what the sequence is, what they're communicating,
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they have to look at the variety of tools to do that. How am I going to best communicate this point?
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What is the point that I want to best communicate? How should I say it? Should I say it with a visual?
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Should I say it with words? Should I pull in a little text box like that we have in the movies?
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There's a bunch of ways to make that communication and kids are getting to make decisions moment by
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a moment that you can't do or you can't show in other forms. And so, and as an aside, that's if that is your
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preference. I have students in my life who would prefer to write a, I'm not one of these students,
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but I have students in my life who would prefer to write a bioparigab essay to explain to me,
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let's say the causes of the American Revolution. That is just the topic that's close to mine because
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that's what I just recently was digging into. And that's great. And you can do that on BrainPop, you can
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have a worksheet, you can have a graphic organizer, you can choose to have that as your mean of representation,
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or you can make a movie, you can make a map. And so, one of the things that I often say about BrainPop
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is we're driving learners to share learning goal. Whatever that learning goal is at the teacher has
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named that BrainPop can support, but we're giving them the tools to really give kids the choice
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about how they show their learning and how they process that learning. And so, if you are a student
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who drives in taking sort of more like auto graded, like, let's, like, I want to get a quiz, right? I want to,
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I want to know it, I want to feel right, I want to move on. Like, there, there's a space for you. If it's,
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I need some time to process and I need some time to jot some notes and collect my thinking,
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there's an activity for that. And same thing, with our creative tools, there's if, if making a concept
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map is how you best show what you know, there's a tool for that. And that tool is designed
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for supports and embedded. So, like, if we think about our make a map tool, which is our concept
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mapping tool, it's not just kids pulling in nodes or circles and making connections. They can use
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images from the movie. They can go back the movies embedded so they can go back to a point in the movie.
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If they want to revisit an idea, we have any label that's come up in the movie, you can click a
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little play button, it jumps right back there. So it's just like this embedded support. So it's not only
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just, I have different ways to show what I know or, or process. It's, it's also this low risk,
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safe space to, to make meaning in deep and connections to ideas. Yeah.
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I love it because it does bring out that's, that's like creativity 101, right? Like, that's,
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that's self, self-directed learning 101. That's all the cool stuff and the good stuff that you would
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want to see in a 21st century classroom, you would want to see in a classroom in general. I think it just,
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I love how it just embeds it and kind of promotes it almost automatically, very naturally.
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You don't have to really push any, any kids to, to do more or less, they kind of take it and make
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it, you know, what they want it to be and how they want to kind of build it and, and, and,
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scaffold it themselves. Yep, 100%. It's there. Use it. Don't, it's, it's really up to you and you get to be
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the driver of, of your learning experience. I love that. Yeah, it's great. And also like, even like
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establishing a strong groundwork is crucial in any aspect and acquiring new knowledge in any
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scenario you can think of, especially in the classroom. In what instances does the use of
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brain pops films and those interactive elements contribute to the development of foundational knowledge
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and that essential literacy skill that you're trying to build? And why is it such an important
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pivot point in learning? Yeah, that's a great question. And, and again, I think this comes back to
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that sort of beginning high level. What is brain pop where I said it's, it's engagement and
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it's rigor and that drives learning outcomes because I think we just nailed so, not all the ways,
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but some of the ways that brain popping ages kids and brings them in. But there's also a real intentionality
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behind the learning design of not just the movies, but all of the learning activities that are
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connected to the movies in that topic. And so we know that again, a background knowledge is super
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important for how you're going to engage in texts in the world. And I mean within a school context
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and outside of a school context. So if I'm deep in, I'm going to use, causes of the American
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revolution is top of my insoluble use that as an example. If I'm starting my American revolution
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unit, I'm giving kids that entry point to build some background knowledge or I'm like, what,
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what is the quality? Right? Like, what is a, what is a revolution? Right? Like, what are,
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what are these sort of core ideas that I need to be like a very specific, a very specific,
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just nugget? Yep. And as a, as a, not even just a reader, but a consumer of information,
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I need to know that they're, I need to constantly be asking myself questions to help me make meaning
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what I'm viewing, what I'm reading, what I'm engaging with. And that is something that
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brain pop very intentionally builds into its learning activity. So the pause points, for example,
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and for those who don't know what pause points are, they're one of our newer features and they are
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grade leveled sets of questions embedded into the movie. So they're stopping points that are
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specific for those grades and those questions that are asked are helping that grade level learner
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sort of scaffold to that grade level understanding. But the questions are framed in a way that are almost
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all of them that are cognitive. They're asking kids to not what, what is the main idea of this
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portion of the movie? But it'll say something like, hey, and these causes of American Revolution
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movie at this point, why Tim say XYZ or, or what do movies beat mean? And it's, again, it's a really
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super low risk way for, for kids to almost see a questioning and think aloud model. Like if you're,
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if you're watching that movie, teachers stop brain pop movies all the time and say, pause.
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Let's have a conversation really quick. Why did Tim say that? Or, or what did you notice about that
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image that was shown when when Moby beeped in Tim said XYZ? And so pause points help you, you know,
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do the lifts so that teachers don't have to come with all the questions, but those questions are
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really intentionally designed because they're getting at literacy skills, they're getting at
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meaning making skills, they're getting at vocab skills. So it's, it's not, it's not even that lower
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level recall anymore. Now you're really pushing those higher level, those, those depth of knowledge
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push points where you are expanding the understanding of it and not only just building on the literacy
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points of it. Yeah, absolutely. One of my favorite skills that we hit, I just love to talk about
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this question and we're talking about American Revolution is around sort of unpacking the word choices
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that are being used. And so there's a question in one of the pause point sets that stops and says,
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it's about guerrilla warfare and it says guerrilla and Spanish means little war. What does that tell
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you about guerrilla warfare? And so you're stopping at a really strategic point to make great level
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meeting. You're having kids say, huh, like words and they're alternate meetings have these sort of
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transform and you're sort of modeling a skill. And so it, I don't want to say it sneaks it in
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there. It just eating, eating beds it into that learning process for kids. Yeah, no, and you know what's
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great about that is that it's it's kind of like buying one, getting one for you, you know, in terms of
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the lesson. So you're buying one, getting one free in terms of like a teaching point, you're buying
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one, getting one free in terms of expanding knowledge or language or vocabulary, like you mentioned.
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It's a great way to push the thinking of a child who may just be ready just to give you that recall.
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But now there's multiple levels, multiple dimensions that you can actually then pivot off of
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and get into. Absolutely. You know, it's interesting. I often hear subject matter teachers say,
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gosh, I need to help my kids with their literacy skills, but I'm a social study teacher or a science
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teacher or a technology teacher. Like, help, how do I do that? I can't do both, right? Yeah.
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Like, I don't have time to teach those literacy skills and then there's another campus is, but we're
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all literacy teachers and like brain pop really holds that. Eat those and says like, so we are, and we're
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going to embed those literacy skills, which are just their meaning making comprehension,
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folk have acquisition skills into different subjects and sort of help do a little bit of the lift
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for you. Yeah. So our podcast is really dedicated to reaching a worldwide audience of teachers that
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provides professional development. And I think you're doing a great job just if we have stopped right now,
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if we stop right now, this has been really fantastic. And teachers do appreciate good professional
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development. And more importantly, they really do know when they've received good professional
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development. They know when it's been a waste of time, they know when it hasn't been worth it,
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they know when they haven't learned anything new, they know when it's good and they really celebrate
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that kind of stuff. What professional development resources does brain pop offer teachers to effectively
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integrate it into their existing lessons and into their existing curriculum? Yeah. You make such a
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great point about it. It really spans the spectrum of relevance. And I think one of the most
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important tenets that sort of spirals through all professional learning at brain pop, whether it's
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our professional learning services or whether it's a brain pop 101 that's for your lesson planner
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or certified brain pop educator course is that it has to be relevant to what you're teaching and who
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you're teaching. And so that that ethos really drives everything. So for a professional learning
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services team, they will go work with schools and say, what is your priority? What are the instructional
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strategies that you're really focusing on this year? Tell me about your learners. And then they
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will design an experience for that teacher, that school district, whoever that really links up and
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says, and here's how brain pop fits. We have a curriculum alignment team that says show me your
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state standards, show me the curriculum you're working with. I will show you how brain pop topics
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learning activities fit that curriculum that grade level, like whatever your instructional goals are
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because don't make me do the work. You know what I mean? Don't make me do the work of trying to have
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to figure it out myself. I have enough going on in the day. Show me how it fits. And I think that
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that is really a really powerful tenant for how brain pop approach is professional learning. We have
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a sort of brain pop educator course, which is near and near to my heart. I used to work pretty closely
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with it. And it's a it's a free course for anybody who has brain pop. But it's really a deep dive into
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like what is the learning science behind each of these instructional activities in a brain pop
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topic? And how does it fit into an instructional strategy alongside bringing together this community
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of professionals from across the country to share ideas to be in that collaborative space? Because we
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know that that is also how professional learning sort of indoors and like gets sticky for adults and
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gets in there. It's when you're talking about your ideas and sharing, oh my gosh, I am this class. And
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I tried this topic and I used the the quiz and the make a map. And this is what worked and this is
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what didn't what about you and share, you know, really being in that conversation. So our certified
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brain pop educator both course and then community that endures after that is really powerful. But they're,
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you know, there's there's a ton. There's a ton. But that's that's really good though because, you know,
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in terms of just relevance, right? You know, teachers who and like you even just said it yourself,
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they, you know, there's so much going on throughout the course of the day. You know, forget about like
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just the curriculum part. You also have social emotional like things to look at and think about and
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kind of marry, you know, into what you're teaching that day and whether or not it's going to work or
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not and and, you know, who's feeling well and who's not. And there's so many things, so many variables
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in a classroom. It's nice that a teacher could get a very specific, very, you know, very relevant
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professional development to kind of guide them and help them so that it does, I don't want to say
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make their life easier, but the understanding becomes a lot easier so that it can be intertwined, so to speak
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into that curriculum or into that lesson that they're doing that day. 100% and I, and I think you're
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bringing up a really good point about the role of just educational technology in general
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and teacher capacity, right? Like the role of that tech is to make learning better and make your
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jobs easier because it's embedding good learning into the product. And I think that is,
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that is a commitment that's sort of held across brain pop. It starts in the way we build new features,
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we do it in collaboration with teachers, we do code design sessions with teachers to say,
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what do you mean? Look, we have this idea, we've got, we've got a lot of data that this is important,
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but like, what are they doing? Do you want to tell us and really doing that code design with teachers?
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All the way to our learning design team who holds on to this is what learning science is,
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is really good for learning and this is what we know about instructional strategies. So let us
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build as much as we can in the most seamless way to make your job a little easier and have one less
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thing for you to do because you're trusting and knowing that this is that, that this engaging and
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rigorous learning is happening and, and driving those learning outcomes. That's big too because if you
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really, you know, look at professional development, a lot of times a school district or a school itself,
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an administrative team will say, this is what I want you to do today versus what I would like to do
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today to, to make my job, you know, like you said, a little bit easier, but also so that it's relevant
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and it's solid. I want to use this. I don't want to be told, you know, to use something that may not
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really do me any good. I want to actually get something that's solid and concrete so that I could
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then incorporate it in and I could marry it into everything that I do. So that, that, you know,
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that, that such a fine line, you know, the tell, I have to, you know, tell me I have to do this yet,
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I kind of really want to do that. Yeah. That's more important to me. I love that. Yeah. And teacher
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agency, like teachers are smart, they make really good decisions and you empower them to make those
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decisions, right? And I think that's a lot of what we see it, like partnering with BrainPop, it's like,
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it's a good, I don't mean to be like, it's a good decision, but, you know, like, it's a good decision.
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So this obviously a lot of thought and effort that goes into BrainPop, you're hearing it now,
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right? Just from this conversation. And it with, especially with the topics, the wide range of topics,
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curriculum areas, and I'm sure I know that teachers appreciate that. What factors does BrainPop
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consider when creating just new content, new things that are happening, you know, at tech upgrades,
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things that are happening historically? How does BrainPop ensure that it's, it's content remains
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up to date, number one, and also aligned to all the curriculum standards that teachers are being
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faced to incorporate and use? Yeah, 100%. I will say that just from a, from a genesis, the place,
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standards drive, what concepts are tackled in the movie, right? We know that teachers are using
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and kids are learning, and so it has to be connected to what the, their great level expectations are.
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But when it comes to choosing a topic, there's a little bit more openness. It's sort of what the
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standards require are there sort of gaps that we want to make sure we can address? We'll get teacher
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write-ins, that's a, I would love a movie on trying to think of the most recent one we got. I would love
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a movie on computational thinking. My kids are getting into coding. I need to back this up with,
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with the what and the why. And so we'll get requests in and it's also thinking around and those requests
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take different shapes. So we had a bunch of requests in that said more content on African history,
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and that's sort of not all of African history, but from that perspective and where that took shape
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from our, from our editorial team was actually sensing, ending up with our most recent Mansemusa
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movie, because it was like, okay, there's, we have connected topics. What sort of a piece that's missing
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that can connect a lot of them? And in this particular instance, it just happened to be that. So
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there are lots of different ways that those topics get chosen, but we also know that events happen,
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life changes, and there are lots of keeping up on what changes happen in events. We're in constant
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dialogue with content experts around writing, like what, how are we referring to people of this
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community and this instance and this context, and it's really, really nuanced. And those writing
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guides, lines change over time because humans change over time when events happen like Queen Elizabeth
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passing or Queen Elizabeth movie got updated in record time might I add it without like the next day.
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Because we had folks on our script writer team and our editorial team who were, were, had the
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fourth thought to be like, there's this event, change is coming, we're going to sort of hold, you know,
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hold it. And so there's, there's a constant sort of pulse on events and changing and discourse
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with subject matter experts that really anchor when and how movies are updated and what level and
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grain size of those. But I will say as somebody who also our team on the learning design team not only
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thinks about future learning, but the learning that is, and so we there, there is a, we do, we redo
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and make updates to a lot of movies because there is this sort of like recursive expectation of
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and responsibility. Yeah, I thought, well, you know, you even use a couple examples, these,
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because think about it, standards do vary worldwide. It's that we don't have a standard for the standards,
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you know, it isn't like a, again, that's not a one size fits all. And so to, you know, think about
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a worldwide level and that worldwide stage, you know, that's, that's what it's about, you know,
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and the fact that you could actually acknowledge that, that's pretty, that's pretty good, especially
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because it is something that everyone anywhere can really, you know, connect to and access.
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100% so can you share any, I don't know if you can't, but can you share any recent additions to
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brain pop that are designed to enhance student experience and support teachers and even administrators,
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or is brain pop launching anything down the line that you can kind of give us a sneak peek at?
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Oh, man. Yeah, I'll give you, I'll tell you about it. I'm going to speak some launches and then I'll
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leave you with a bit of a cliffhanger. So I had talked about them a little bit. Our newest feature
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a lot on brain pop, our core product is pause points and and they're, as I mentioned, these
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grade level sets of sort of scaffolding questions. You get to apply those literacy skills, but it
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really helps you have that grade level entry point into the movie viewing experience. And when we're
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thinking that we hold universal design for learning in their design as well, because sometimes they're
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a, like a low risk multiple choice question, you've got two to pick one because it's not about
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assessment. It's about giving you real time feedback as a student. Did I get it right? Nope. Okay,
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here's my misconception. I need to move forward. There are also open ended questions. And because,
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again, it's, it's, it's, it's low risk. It's really about meaning making. You can draw your response.
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You can write your response. You can record your response. If I am intimidated by writing and I
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sometimes shut down, that's okay. Record your response, right? You're still doing the thinking and
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just doing more. There's your content creation again, by the way. And we also just launched
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admin reports and teacher reports, which are super exciting. So our teacher reports were developed
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and co-designed with teachers. And we wanted to make sure that it fit within the ecosystem of assessment,
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kids are assessed in many different ways. But it was varying degrees, right? There's, there's
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benchmarks on there's practice tests. And, frame pop really takes an approach to assessment,
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that's assessment for learning. So keeping a really formative assessment approach to gathering info
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on kids and making it usable and actionable for teachers to use the next day, the day after. I
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don't have to wait a month for test results or I don't have to, you know, if this is really so,
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our teacher reports give that, that real time feedback. So the teacher can make instructional
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decisions tomorrow with what kids do on brain pop today. And it has so many fun functionalities that
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I'm going to talk about really quickly because I love them so much and I wish I had them as a teacher,
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which is I can see my whole class at a glance, but then they can like sort with most kids got this
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question wrong. So I'm going to group them and give them a different assignment to sort of support
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that misunderstanding. This group got kids rights, so I can group them in this interactive table
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and give them an extension activity. So there's just a lot of opportunity in their report
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to really give not even just actionable feedback, dynamic interface, but you can be inspired to do
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your next level of supporter push with brain pop too. That's awesome. That is really cool that you can
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go either way and really tap into the needs. Yeah, specifically right then and there. That's pretty
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cool. Yep. So this has really been a lot of fun. We only have a couple minutes left. I want to play
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a game called input output where I'm just going to ask you some questions and just give me the
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first thing that comes to your mind. Don't be nervous. You're ready. What's one app on your phone
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that you just can't live without? Spotify. Good one, especially because you can listen to classroom
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dynamics on Spotify. Best piece of advice anyone has ever given you. I will speak to as an educator.
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I had a professor who my first semester said I'm going to tell you guys three letters that's
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going to get you through teaching when we're like, okay, this is great. And it was a WSV and win small
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victories because in the classroom day to day, there are these moments that feel big, that feel
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sometimes in terms of I have so much there's there's less planning and there's PD and there's this
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and I have to talk to Johnny's mom and it's hard to say but like I worked with Barbara today
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and she could do two steps more than she could do the day before and that is a win. Hold that win
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honor that win and then meet Barbara and Maro and see where she can go then but that idea of like
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winning the small victory is I take it with me in life now beyond the beyond the classroom.
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That's that's great advice for a brand new teacher. That's great advice for a veteran teacher.
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That's great advice for everyone in between. I think that's really good. Besides the
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videos, what's one favorite part of brain pop that you still feel every teacher should use no matter
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what? Besides the pause points because they're part of the movie, I will say make a map. Make a map is
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my like, again, I don't know if I'm biased because I'm, you know, this is kind of my thinking but it is
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like the most accessible way to let kids show it. They know and support them and I will nerd out over
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over scaffolds and support and differentiation all day long. So my make a map is my sort of
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holy grail. Oh my gosh, please use that. If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece
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of technology from today, what would it be? Tell you what it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be social media
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because I am old, now I am a little mad. That wasn't now. It would be, oh this is a great question,
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one piece of technology of Apple tags. I am a notorious loser of things. They are my godsend now
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with like, where are my keys? Where's my kid? No, I'm kidding. Yeah, totally. So you have all the
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air tags are on everything. Yes, that's great. And uncomfortable about places. So when you pick,
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when you open up your Find My app, you have to like keep scrolling to find all, they're like, they're
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all here somewhere. Great. That's it. That's good. Hey, listen, you could always, you know,
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signal it to tell you where it is, you know, so that's my go, yeah, that is my go to. Finally,
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if you could create a new educational mandate or law, what would it be and why? Oh, oh, this is so great.
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I, I would really love for every teacher to get the opportunity, whether it's in pre-service
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and service, to dive deeply into learning and the brain of learner diversity. Their Todd Rose is
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a fantastic man. Look up his, his TED talk on YouTube and he just talks about this idea of
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jagged learner profiles and how no one has is either good in everything bad and everything.
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It's just we all have this slightly different jagged learner profile and holding how to design
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for that and supporting how to, how to build proactively into our classroom and have, have the
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resources and time and money to do it. Yeah, yeah. That's really, that's, that's what it is. It's,
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it's having the resources and time and money to really do what, what centering learning diversity.
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And access to meaningful learning. That's, and that's, that's the bottom line, I think, right? Yeah.
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That's the bottom line. So this has been awesome. We've had such a great conversation. You know,
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I think you gave a lot of awesome information to, like I said, even a teacher who's, who might be
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starting off at the first time this year or a teacher who's been doing it for 25 years, I think you,
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you really have, have given them some really great talking points that they can talk to with
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their colleagues and even some information that they could use with brain pop. But before we go,
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just tell teachers where they can go to get started with brain pop and what you even suggest teachers
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use for the first time if they're just getting started with it. If you want to learn more about
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brain pop, you can go to brainpop.com/forthslashclastroom-solutions week. We'll put the, I will share that link
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with you and you can put in this once you're in brain pop as a teacher, dive into brain pop 101.
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It will walk you through all the, the great amazing features, but it does it in this sort of,
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like, really fun and a cognitive way. So visit their brain pop 101 or just dive into a topic and
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tap that natural curiosity. That doesn't just live in kids, right? It lives in like all of us as
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a learner and like take the deep dive. That's awesome. Well, for those of you who have been listening
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today, thank you for tuning in and make sure that you've shared what you've learned or any takeaways or
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reflections that you've had and tag us on Twitter at class dynamics or Instagram at classroom dynamics
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00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:58,360
podcast. We always love to hear your thoughts on our episodes, ensuring waves in which you're using
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what you've learned, especially with brain pop today. You can also help support classroom dynamics
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with as little as $3 a month at classroom dynamics podcast.buzzsprout.com. Once again, I'd like to thank
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Dr. Barbara Hubert from Brain Pop for being with us today and also being such a huge inspiration in
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the world of not just education, but ed tech education because I think that's, you know, we mentioned
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that before too. I think that's important, especially with a 21st century classroom. Adam, thank you so
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much. This was a joy and the best way to sort of wrap up a Friday. Thank you so much for this
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great conversation. Thank you. We're definitely going to have you back. Happy to.
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For more on brain pop, visit brainpop.com on social media on LinkedIn at brain pop, Facebook,
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brain pop official, Instagram, brain pop underscore official and on Twitter at brain pop. Also,
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find more information at the blog at blog.brainpop.com and you can also check out the story of
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brain pop on YouTube by searching a brain pop style movie. And for white papers authored by Dr.
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Barbara Hubert, search how to maximize a knowledge building approach to literacy skills with
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brain pop and equity in learning with brain pop, fostering access and impact for all.
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And that brings us to the end of this episode of classroom dynamics where knowledge and inspiration
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meets innovation. I hope you've enjoyed today's discussion and founded both insightful and uplifting.
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As always, my goal is to provide you with practical strategies, engaging stories, and powerful insights
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that can fuel your motivation as an educator. I believe that when knowledge and inspiration do come
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together, incredible things can happen in your classroom. And for all of you who may feel that it's
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too late to strengthen your craft, I challenge you to make it your mission to do so. You've worked hard
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to get to where you are today and it's never too late to infuse new life into your work. So why not
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make today that day to do so? I'm Adam Todd and you've been listening to classroom dynamics, a teacher
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00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:09,000
podcast. You can follow classroom dynamics on X at Class Dynamics or on Instagram at Classroom Dynamics
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Podcast. If you haven't already, go to Apple Podcast and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast.
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00:48:15,720 --> 00:48:20,600
And if you know a teacher who may benefit from today's show, please share it with them. We'll be back
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soon with more captivating conversations, inspiring stories and strategies that you can implement
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into your everyday routines. Until then, keep igniting that spark in your classroom and never stop
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believing in the incredible impact you have as an educator. You're more powerful and inspirational
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than you think. If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my conversation with educational leader and
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author of Disruptive Thinking, Eric Shenninger. Join us as we sit down with the visionary educator
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and true trailblazer in the field of educational leadership and technology integration.
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Eric shares his unparalleled insights on transforming schools into dynamic hubs of innovation.
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From digital learning strategies to fostering a culture of continuous improvement,
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our conversation with Eric offers invaluable wisdom for educators, administrators, and anyone
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passionate about the future of education and disruptive thinking. And you know, what I always
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you know really think about is you know, two things. How are learning, how are students using
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technology to learn in ways they couldn't without it? And number two, if you're an adult,
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how does your use of technology represent a fundamental improvement over what you did in the past
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without it? And if you can't answer those questions, it's okay not to use technology.