TED Ed videos

I'm sure by now you've seen the new TED Ed website to help with flipped classrooms. The site provides some premade videos but allows the teacher to customize the lesson. Supposed to help a teacher with flipping a classroom.

I think it's a great idea but as I've said before, I see the potential for misuse of this comcept as well. A good teacher would take this idea and fly with it. A poor teacher would use this as a substitute for teaching--it's basically watch a video and answer questions at home. It's what you do as a follow up in the classroom that counts. And that's honestly my concern. Without followup, then all you have is an assignment to watch a video at home.

This blogger says it better than I can--Teach Paperless. And here's the video from the TED Ed site explaining how the site works. Great concept--great idea--I just hope teachers use it properly.

The boy who harnessed the wind

A book we recently purchased is entitled The Boy who Harnessed the Wind.  (cover courtesy of Amazon.)  I haven't read this book yet but I found the TED talk from the young man in the book.  Now I need to read this book.  Hopefully, his talk will inspire you as well.

TED talks

So am I the only person who is just now figuring out how valuable this site is?  I've heard about TED talks and seen a few videos, but oh my goodness!  The wealth of information available on this site is overwhelming. Short videos from experts in whatever field about new ideas, explanations of old ideas, new uses for current technology-- you name it, it's probably there!

@TEDtalks is the Twitter feed to see what new information is being posted to the site.  And @TEDNews is their general Twitter feed of information.

I'm not sure the site would be something you would want to use with students but for professional development, it's priceless.  Whether it's something you want to know or you want to share with your teachers, check the TED site.  Each video listed also has a transcript of the video so you can get a quick overview of the content without watching the whole thing. 

I also have downloaded the app to my phone so I can watch some on the go.  Guess I'm getting a bit obsessed about this site!  Check it out and see what you think.

TED talks -- 5 million books

Here's a great video on the digitization project at Google. They scientists are looking at words used though history and using the data to analyze historical trends. Fascinating stuff!
Enjoy!