Teach your students to use TED to spread ideas!

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. It is a wonderful resource for education is so many ways. It could be used for professional development and videos to engage students. The Educational Technology and Mobile Learning blog has devoted an entire section that contains everything about TED including lists of TED’s most popular videos.  You can expand your students to videos devoted to education and ideas that is beyond youtube.

 

TED has so many other options such as conferences, events, speeches, community, and conversations. I particularly like using TED Conversations with my AP Government class. As a debate team is preparing for a debate my class has a virtual discussion with the “world” about the debate topic. I have my students write their own opinion and then respond to classmate’s posts. Here is our TED Conversation on the Term Limits for Members of Congress and the Electoral College. This method is extremely powerful because students contribute to  an online community that extends beyond the four walls of our classroom. Students take ownership and feel they “have a say” about ideas in the world.

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