Film-strips for the 21st Century! Animated multi-minute clips on all kinds of subjects.
Community Review for BrainPOP Featured Movie
My Take
Great introductions to topics with throwbacks to the earlier (for me) days of education including references to film strips, Oregon Trail, and other random items. But the appeal is definitely there for my current students. I teach ELL students and the ability to put sub-titles on is a huge help, as is the supplementary documents that BrainPop offers.
My high school students really enjoy the two characters - a human and robot and I find that their humor really helps my students language development (in areas like sarcasm).
How I Use It
I use BrainPop to introduce a number of subjects (from math to social studies to science). My students (who are all ELL) first watch the video with subtitles. They then re-watch the video and complete the supplemental documents that BrainPop provides or teacher-made ones if my students to take something else out of the video.