BreakoutEDU visits BrainPOP!
Posted by Andrew Gardner on
BrainPOP teamed up with BreakoutEDU’s new CEO and longtime education thought-leader, Adam Bellow last week for an in-house visit at our New York office to showcase some of the great things they’re doing for classroom games. For those of us who don’t already know, BreakoutEDU uses a format similar to ‘Escape the Room’ games, but tailors the clues and puzzles for students to solve collaboratively in the classroom! Adam gave a brief presentation on how BreakOut Edu came to life and the mission of the organization, followed immediately by breaking our group up into two teams for some hands-on game experience.
We played a game called Time Warp that centered its riddles on forms of communication throughout time. Before we arrived, Adam had scattered clues and objects around the room for us to find. Each item was part of a larger puzzle, with some sequential order to follow, but no guided instructions were given. The room buzzed with excitement and teamwork as the timer ticked down from 45 minutes! The game seamlessly intertwined physical objects with technology to guide participants to solutions. On one side of the room, people were trying to figure out the meaning of a painting with knotted ropes, while others were poised over a laptop translating language to uncover the clue of an excel spreadsheet. Each clue provided an answer or code to open one of the many locks protecting the BreakOut Edu box. In the end, we solved the puzzle with the help of a hint and some guidance from Adam himself.
To conclude our session, Adam played us a video – featuring POPstar teachers Micah Brown and Dyane Smokorowski – that showcased how teachers have combined Breakout Edu and BrainPOP tools to make the most of the classroom experience for their students. It was a wonderful way to bridge BrainPOP and BreakOut Edu products, and show how they can be used hand-in-hand to bring fun and technology together to enrich children’s educations.
Are you using BrainPOP and BreakoutEDU together? Let us know about your experience in the comments!