How BrainNook keeps kids safe

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Worlds in BrainNook can get pretty crowded

We receive many questions from teachers and parents about whether their kids are safe playing BrainNook. As parents and educators, we take these questions seriously.

BrainNook offers an extensive set of features that help keep children safe as they play. Here are some of the ways in which BrainNook helps keep kids safe while providing a friendly and supportive social environment that helps kids learn:

  • Messaging between friends, reporting players: Children can only send messages to their friends. Children can un-friend any player who is not behaving appropriately, which will prevent that player from messaging them. They can report specific players to a moderator, which may result in that player being banned from BrainNook; and they can block any player entirely, which will make it impossible for that player to contact them again through friend requests or chat messages.
  • Safe Chat: All chat messages can only be typed using a set of “safe” words, which prevents children from revealing their real name, physical address or any other personal information to other players.
  • “Friending” outside the classroom: Teachers can control whether their students can communicate with players outside their class. If this setting is turned off, students cannot message anyone other than their classmates, eliminating the opportunity for unsafe interaction with strangers.
  • Disabling typed chat: Teachers can also entirely turn off typed chat for students who violate school rules of conduct. Students with typed chat turned off can only compose messages using a drop-down menu of phrases, which prevents them from combining words together to create an inappropriate message. Since students enjoy typing messages to one another, this alone may be sufficient motivation for disruptive students to behave better!
  • Chat Log Review by Teachers: Teachers can review a chat log of all messages sent and received by their students, allowing them to identify any inappropriate messages and to take the necessary action.
  • Friend List Review by Teachers: Teachers can even review each student’s list of friends, allowing them to remove friends they consider inappropriate.

For more detail on the safety features in BrainNook, check out this page.

Are there other safety features you’d like to see in BrainNook? Let us know!

BrainNook on the Edmodo platform

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Edmodo is a great social network for teachers, and we’re thrilled to announce that BrainNook is now available on their application platform! In simple terms, this means that if you or your teacher have an Edmodo account, you can play BrainNook right from there!

The BrainNook app on Edmodo allows teachers to set assignments, track performance and give awards and badges, just like on the BrainNook site. It’s all the goodness of BrainNook wrapped within the power of Edmodo!

Edmodo’s platform will be launching in the next few days. Check us out there!

Common Core-aligned performance reports for teachers!

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We’re happy to announce our new, Common Core-aligned performance reports! Teachers can now see detailed information about which topics from the Common Core their students have mastered, and which areas they need help in.

When used with BrainNook assignments, performance reports can be a powerful way for teachers to get students practicing the areas they need to work on. Here’s how:

1. Teachers use the performance reports to pinpoint the areas that each students need improvement in. Each area lists a number of games that map to that area.

2. From the Assignments section of the teacher’s BrainNook account, he or she can assign students a game which maps to their weak areas. Teachers can give assignments to individual students, groups of students, or their whole class.

3. The next time students play BrainNook, they’ll see the assignment as a brand new mission within BrainNook, with a cool badge and bonus points for completing it! Teachers can even print award certificates for students who have completed the assignment to create a little healthy competition between their students!

Teachers, give it a spin, and let us know what you think! Email us at support@brainnook.com to let us know your thoughts!

Weak Areas per student, based on the Common Core

Assignments

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One of the things teachers have told us most often is that they would like to see more control over what games students can play. Now, with assignments, teachers can do just that!

Assignments allow you to help your students practice just those concepts that are relevant to what they’re learning in the classroom. You can pick any game from BrainNook and set a goal in that game for your class. For example, a teacher could pick the game “Eat the Sums”, which covers basic addition, and ask her class to reach a score of 100 points in that game. Students will see this assignment as a new mission when they play BrainNook. If they complete the mission, they win a cool new badge directly from their teacher!

Performance graphs show you who has completed the assignment and which students are avoiding even attempting it!

Students will love tackling assignments since they’ll be competing with their friends from school to see who gets there first!

Teachers, try out the assignments feature by logging in to your BrainNook @ School account now!

We’d love to know what you think at support@brainnook.com!