Introducing TED-Ed
From nearly the beginning of this blog, I’ve been featuring TED Talks most Wednesdays. I discovered TED Talks the way most others have: someone told me about them. 🙂 And I remember having such a hard time believing that all these incredible talks were being made available for free and then an even harder time believing how lucky I felt to have found them.
So we know about TED. But do you know about TED-Ed? About a year ago, someone had the fantastic idea to create a web-based interface that allowed people to take these videos – and anything else off of You-Tube – and use them to create learning plans. Teachers can create lesson plans for individuals or groups complete with additional resources, quizzes, places for discussion, etc. Individuals can follow the courses that others have set up. Groups can set up their own space to discuss and follow individual videos or collections of videos grouped around a theme. And it’s all relatively easy…and still free.
All of which means that Sunday School classes, youth groups, confirmation classes, small groups, and whole congregations (as well as individuals like you and me) can make use of this site to learn, explore, discuss, and share. Very cool.
I have only just begun to dip into the TED-Ed world, but I wanted to share it with you via the TED-Ed introductory video below. Why? Because I’ve got that same sense of excitement I did five years ago when someone first introduced me to TED. And because I think this could be amazing.
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Until I subscribed, a little less than a year ago, I was never aware of the TED talks. Thank you for opening the world of TED to me! Now TED ED … where will I find the time to explore this new world! Thank you (I think)! :0)
🙂
I always go back and forth between a) a sense of great excitement about all these possibilities and b) being nearly overwhelmed with the thought of how much time it would take to take advantage of them all. At my best I find joy just knowing they’re available. At my best…
THANK YOU for sharing. Yes, now to find the time to play, create, learn, & teach!
Sounds good. No risk of ads and no “related” videos on the sidebar or horrific YouTube comments popping up in front of your church discussion group!
There’s an excellent piece in Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson (WIRED Magazine editor) on how TED has made tons of money and reputation capital by offering the talks for free. I listened to the book this summer as the Audible download of the book is, of course, free: http://www.amazon.com/FREE-The-Future-Radical-Price/dp/B0055PK366/ref=tmm_aud_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1380399364&sr=8-1
Thank you David. Sometimes I come to your website and it’s like an adventure in continuing ed — furthering both knowledge of the world and information/thoughts/insights for ministry. Thank you for the great work you do. I am so glad you’re back blogging.