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What are you doing without G3/Brainpop/Discovery?


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I was so excited for this year, it was the first time I would even consider getting brainpop/jr, I signed up the the mailing list, only to receive that "email of doom" (as linked by others on previous threads)

 

I'm a veeerrrryyy sad panda right now. :(

 

To get Brainpop & Jr costs so much, that I just keep thinking its not worth the money. And it would be an ongoing cost every year.

 

What is everybody else doing? Are you going to get Brainpop and/or Discovery elsewhere? Direct? Giving up?

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I buy them both from HSBC. Many people complain about the quality of Discovery but we don't watch TV and don't have expectations of HD programming and I can find a video to supplement just about everything we do so we use Discovery and BrainPop both a lot. You definitely have to work hard to find the gems on Discovery because search and navigation aren't great, but it has been well worth it for us.

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The kids really enjoyed it this year. Sometimes ds would say something and I would say "where did you learn that?" and he would reply "on BrainPop!" :D But, we don't use it often enough to justify paying full price.

 

This is our experience too. I am so disappointed (over BrainPop, not so much Discovery), but can't really justify paying full price either. I was surprised to see how much it costs if purchased directly from the site.

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I am really disappointed in Discovery Streaming Plus. Honestly, I find more videos on the web or on pbs or netflix than I do DE. I feel it was a waste of money. Maybe I am missing something? People seem to be getting all sorts of stuff out of it. This week I was looking up the Assyrians. They have a lot of great articles and images but no video to watch. Very sad.

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What email? What other thread? I looked but couldn't find another thread about this.

 

We have the G3, which I guess is ending soon since I think it's a school year thing? We actually haven't used it that much and I think if we buy the Magic School bus dvd's that will take care of most of our needs for a while, along with youtube and general internet sites.

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What email? What other thread? I looked but couldn't find another thread about this.

 

We have the G3, which I guess is ending soon since I think it's a school year thing? We actually haven't used it that much and I think if we buy the Magic School bus dvd's that will take care of most of our needs for a while, along with youtube and general internet sites.

 

G3 sent out an email last week letting everyone know that the DE/Brainpop discount would no longer be made available to anyone/everyone. The only way you can get the great pricing is to sign up for one of the G3 courses and then you will be able to purchase the bundle separately for the same good price.

 

FWIW - I wasn't impressed (nor were the kids) on either of them. Yes, they enjoyed the Horrible Histories and all of the resources we were able to link from (thanks to SatoriSmiles!!!) but overall - it wasn't great. Not enough for us to buy it again - even if G3 was offering it.

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I may go back to Cosmeo if we decide to use Elementary Spanish this year. We used Cosmeo for a few months last year before finding the onlineG3 subscription. It lacks a lot of the content for older kids, but mine are still fairly young.

 

BrainPop I'm probably going to have to subscribe to, because my kids love it. I'll email the company and find out how difficult it would be to set up a co-op for WTM'ers.

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I am really disappointed in Discovery Streaming Plus. Honestly, I find more videos on the web or on pbs or netflix than I do DE. I feel it was a waste of money. Maybe I am missing something? People seem to be getting all sorts of stuff out of it. This week I was looking up the Assyrians. They have a lot of great articles and images but no video to watch. Very sad.

 

It is possible that you might not be using their somewhat difficult to use search engine correctly. If you just hit search without any words in the search box and then hit "full video" on the side bar then you will pull up all of their thousands of videos. Then you can hit narrow it down by subject or grade. I like to browse the whole lot to give me an idea of what they have since I have found their search engine to not be that good.

 

As for their content, I have found hundreds and hundreds of amazing videos:)

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I buy them both from HSBC. Many people complain about the quality of Discovery but we don't watch TV and don't have expectations of HD programming and I can find a video to supplement just about everything we do so we use Discovery and BrainPop both a lot. You definitely have to work hard to find the gems on Discovery because search and navigation aren't great, but it has been well worth it for us.

 

:iagree: We get a lot of use out of both.

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I bit the bullet, and ended up subscribing to Brainpop & Jr. :blushing:

 

The kids were always going on about the robot and wanting to learn with the robot, that I figured, hey, if they listen to it, and be excited about it, its probably worth it. I've had to stop school for a few days to clean up the "playdoh disaster" (don't ask, I guess I finally found something I failed at making LOL) and because I have to concentrate on one of our cats that got sick.

 

So, in the meantime, I wrote up a list of everything we done in the past few weeks in our curriculum and found related movies on brainpop. So wel'll do brainpop review school on the ipad.

 

I did notice one drama with the "apps" and everything. I must of closed one of my internet pages without logging out of Brainpop/Jr. I accessed Brainpop fine, but when going into Jr app, it says I have too many simulataneous logins (more then 2, which isn't possible! I went into the computer, logged in, logged out, then back to the app, same thing (if I access Brainpop app first, even after logging out) the only way to "fix" it, is to "google" on ipad browser, one of the videos for Jr, thus bypassing the "landing iOS" page you get, and logging in & out, then going back to the app. The App doesn't seem to have te same abilities as computer logins (i.e. the ability to "kick" out one of the inactive logins, in order to log yourself in) added to that, I can't seem to fine the logout on the Brainpop (not jr, just normal) app. It got me quite a bit frustrated last night.

 

I would maybe be interested in Discovery, but I tend to just use youtube and other sources for "videos". Plus, since I'm in australia, most streaming sites work awfully. there is only a few select "streaming" sites that work properly for me. I don't really want to shell out that sort of money to find out the streaming plays up. :tongue_smilie:

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The 4 free movies a month are related to the standard free movie per month.. it doesn't sound like you get to choose and it requires an iPad:

 

http://www.brainpop.com/faq/?q=node/77

There is an iPhone app as well. You do not get to choose (other than choose which of the four you want to watch). Kids like it, but really the lack of content change is a bummer. It's more like a promo app to indices you to get the full subscription.

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I may go back to Cosmeo if we decide to use Elementary Spanish this year. We used Cosmeo for a few months last year before finding the onlineG3 subscription. It lacks a lot of the content for older kids, but mine are still fairly young.

 

BrainPop I'm probably going to have to subscribe to, because my kids love it. I'll email the company and find out how difficult it would be to set up a co-op for WTM'ers.

 

Oh, please, please do!!

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There are so many freebies out there...

 

Maybe I am missing something, but I just don't see what the heart break is.

 

My kids do LOVE brain pop, but they love other websites too. Have you checked with your local library to see if they have a subscription? I know it won't replace the everyday home use, but you could perhaps plan one day a week for visitation? :)

 

I hope you find something you love mama...:lurk5:

 

http://www.thinkfinity.org

 

Searchable by age, grade, picture, lesson plan, video, etc.. and best of all FREE!

 

For example I queried Newton and received this: http://www.thinkfinity.org/community-search?query=newton

Edited by kerryfrank73
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I was looking at cosmeo yesterday' date=' it's like $10 a month and seems to have tons on it. Not sure I want to buy it yet, but I'm thinking....[/quote']

 

What is Cosmeo? I'm looking at the site and it looks like it has Discovery videos? It says "Only Cosmeo has Discovery Videos" but obviously Discovery Streaming has that too.

 

FYI, My mom is a middle school educator and she has let me look through Discovery Streaming using her account. I'm kind of on the fence as to whether it will be worthwhile for us...as others have said, there are lots of free videos out there too.

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

www.thinkfinity.org

 

Searchable by age, grade, picture, lesson plan, video, etc.. and best of all FREE!

 

 

What a wonderful site! It has a great search function, and I love the video clips. Looks like some of the National Geographic videos are available on Netflix is we want to watch the entire video. Thank you for sharing this resource!

 

Darlene

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I am really disappointed in Discovery Streaming Plus. Honestly, I find more videos on the web or on pbs or netflix than I do DE. I feel it was a waste of money. Maybe I am missing something? People seem to be getting all sorts of stuff out of it. This week I was looking up the Assyrians. They have a lot of great articles and images but no video to watch. Very sad.

 

It really depends on what the topic is. When we were doing modern times I found tons of videos. This year we did ancients and there were very few. There have been lots of science videos for all of the topics I've wanted so far.

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It really depends on what the topic is. When we were doing modern times I found tons of videos. This year we did ancients and there were very few. There have been lots of science videos for all of the topics I've wanted so far.

 

I have DE's search engine to be not that good. DE has thousands of great videos. To find them all just hit search without putting anything into the search box. Then when the results come up, hit "full video" on the side bar. Then you can narrow it by grade. I do this to get an idea of what they have.

 

 

Also, DE is much better than Cosmeo hands down IMO since DE has many more videos and full videos.

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When does the subscription end? I went on today, and noticed they have a new interface, and that I am able to download full episodes. So excited to get a few for when we don't have access anymore.

 

How do you download? I'm not seeing anything different in my interface (subscription through HSBC, not G3---had planned to switch this year:glare:). There are a few things I would love to download that my daughter particularly enjoys, like Horrible Histories.

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How do you download? I'm not seeing anything different in my interface (subscription through HSBC, not G3---had planned to switch this year:glare:). There are a few things I would love to download that my daughter particularly enjoys, like Horrible Histories.

 

When I go to view a video, there is a yellow bar at the top asking me if I'd like to try the new Discovery Education back to school release, and then there is a download button.

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Is anyone using BrainPop for older students in high school, or for ELL learners who are older?

 

Cindy

 

 

BP is available in Spanish too if its Spanish. I've used BP to help me get though intro history/bio/science/math college classes so yes it would work for high school.

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How do you download? I'm not seeing anything different in my interface (subscription through HSBC, not G3---had planned to switch this year:glare:). There are a few things I would love to download that my daughter particularly enjoys, like Horrible Histories.

 

The download feature is disabled for HSBC since it is individuals and not schools like G3 per DE.

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I have Discovery Plus through HSBC and have the new back-to-school interface.

 

I've had Discovery Education for about 3 years now, always through HSBC, and originally we could download videos, and then that feature went away, and now it seems to be back again with the new interface.

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I bought Discovery Streaming and Brainpop last year. It was the biggest waste of money. My kids, ages 9, 10, and 10, didn't seem to get much out of the Brainpop videos. Also, I found that the Discovery Streaming videos were often poor quality. I am sticking with Netlfix and library DVDs this year.

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We haven't had either and I don't think we're missing anything in our lives. From what I've gathered they are short little videos about different topics. I'd rather read a book or talk about stuff like that - I'm rather low-media for young kids anyways.

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