BrainPOP vs TED-Ed

BrainPOP offers animated educational movies and learning activities for students, with products for grades K–3, grades 3–8, middle school science and English language development. Activities include vocabulary practice, quizzes, challenges and creative responses such as drawing. Family subscriptions include BrainPOP Jr. for K–3 at $119 a year, BrainPOP for grades 3–8 at $129 a year, and a K–8 Combo at $159 a year; each lists two child profiles. Teacher classroom licenses range from BrainPOP ELL at $210 a year to BrainPOP for grades 3–8+ at $330 a year. The listed classroom licenses provide front-of-class access; the Jr. and 3–8+ licenses omit student accounts and progress tracking. School and district subscriptions add student, administrative and integration features, with prices by quote. BrainPOP supports Clever, ClassLink/OneRoster API, Google SSO and LTI, and lists Google Workspace and Schoology among supported tools. A school can use only one SSO integration at a time. Family access is available on the website and through BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. iOS apps.

TED-Ed is TED’s youth and education initiative, with a web library of video-based lessons arranged by subject and age. Educators can create lessons around TED-Ed Animations, TED Talks, or YouTube videos, adding multiple-choice or open-ended questions, resources, and guided or open discussion forums. Lesson creators can monitor student progress and view answers. Published lessons receive unique URLs, but are not shown in TED-Ed site search or indexed by search engines. Users can organize lessons into themed collections, and TED-Ed Explorations are interactive experiences created with other organizations. The Student Talks program offers customizable activities for educators working with students ages 6–18; approved educators receive access to its virtual learning platform for 12 months and must reapply to renew. Students must be at least 13 to create accounts. Lessons can be accessed offline through partner offerings Endless Key and Kolibri. YouTube videos selected for custom lessons have not been filtered or vetted by TED-Ed, so unfamiliar videos should be reviewed. The service is free on the web.