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TED Releases YouTube Videos for Teachers
23, Mar 2012
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Announced over a year ago, TED, an organization dedicated toward spreading information and ideas through technology, has launched a new YouTube channel, called TED-Ed, dedicated solely to providing short online lessons and video clips to be used in the classroom.
“Right now there’s a teacher somewhere out there delivering a mind-altering lesson and the frustrating thing is, it only reaches the students in that class,” TED-Ed project director Logan Smal¬ley said to The Washington Post. “We’re trying to figure out how to capture that lesson and pair it with professional animators to make that lesson more vivid and put it in a place where teachers all over the world can share it.”
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly 100 percent of schools have access to the Internet, making it a nearly essential tool for teachers in their lessons as more teachers are using streaming videos and overhead presentations.
The TED-Ed videos are, however a departure from the regular streaming videos from TED. TED-Ed videos are usually shorter, employ animated visuals and are designed to be used in the classroom on specific subjects, whereas videos produced by TED are often 18- to 20-minute long lectures discussing big ideas. Additionally, advertising is barred from the videos, and if the videos are carried over YouTube for Schools, there will be no advertising imposed by YouTube.
For example one video has neuroscientist and engineer Greg Gage showing high school students how the electric functions of the brain work by connecting metal wires to a cockroach wire and having it move to music from his iPhone. Other videos have animated videos discussing subjects like symbiosis, quantum theory, and spreading pandemics.
“TED-Ed has the potential to take a lesson that might normally reach just 20 students and extend it to the world,” Smalley said in a statement. “The topics we can cover are endless, and the more teachers and animators who contribute their lessons and talents, the more impactful this resource becomes. This is an exciting first step for TED-Ed, with more ideas, tools, and announcements to come in the months ahead.”
While TED-Ed is open to many different subjects, the hope is to build a solid base of videos that apply directly to standard high school subjects like math, science, social studies and English.
The first batch of videos, around a dozen, has already debuted. It is estimated that there will be at least 300 more added to the channel by the end of the year. Additionally, TED-Ed is inviting teachers and animators to voluntarily submit ideas for lessons to be produced as well.
In the next few months they will also launch a website to be used as a supplement to the videos. Teachers will be able to download and view assignments and lesson plans, as well as insert questions into the video and then send links to the annotated video to their students.
“We want to show that learning can be thrilling,” said TED curator Chris Anderson said to The Washington Post.