Quick overview: A website containing over 200 on-line videos of inspirational talks by the “world’s greatest thinkers and doers”. A great site to get class discussions going!
What does it do? The TED website (http://www.ted.com) is an annual conference that features over 50 speakers who are “challenged to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes or less”. TED is an acronym for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. The TED site allows you to search by themes such as technology, tales of invention, storytelling, business, history, unconventional explanations, education, and so on.. The “sweet and short” 18 minute format works great in a classroom environment and is one of the reasons the site is popular with educators across the world.
How can this be used in the classroom: As a teacher, you could search the TED website a video of a “talk” related to your classroom curriculum. Afterwards, why not show this video to your class in order to spark a debate or discussion? This can be accomplished by bringing your class into a computer lab and exploring the site together with on a digital projector. Alternatively, you could ask the students to visit the site from home or at school, watch a particular video, and then write an essay on one of the speakers. (Source: Ninfa Spagnolo, Galileo Adult Centre, EMSB)
