If you haven?t already checked outwww.ted.com , you really should. The site is brimming with video segments of 15-20 minute presentations from some of the most innovative and well-known thinkers in the world. These presentations are grouped into eight general categories: technology, entertainment, design, business, science, culture, the arts and global issues. The presentations take place at the annual TED: Technology, Entertainment, Design gathering in Monterey, Calif. The website currently contains about 150 talks. You can also download any of the video segments to your desktop or to an iPod. All the videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so you can share them freely and even use them in class. You can assign students to watch them out of class, and I?ve had great success in using these as thought-provoking discussion starters to introduce a related unit of study.
TED participants comprise a virtual who?s who of science, technology, business and the arts. Science clips currently include talks by Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, biologist E.O. Wilson, medical illustrator David Bolinsky, biologist Craig Venter, neuroscientist Jeff Hawkins, primatologist Jane Goodall, environmentalist Alex Steffen, genetic pioneer James Watson and many, many more. The technology category contains talks by MIT Media Lab graphic designer and computer scientist John Maeda, philosopher and cognitive scientist Dan Dennett, Segway inventor Dean Kamen, computer interface designer Jeff Han, MIT engineer Amy Smith and others. The business category has talks by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, designer Paul Bennett, architect William McDonough and dozens more. In terms of educational innovation, be sure to check out Ken Robinson?s talk, ?Creativity and Education,? MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte?s talk on his One Laptop Per Child initiative, and the engaging presentations of open-source courseware pioneer Richard Baraniuk and Wikipedia pioneer Jimmy Wales.
Another potentially valuable web resource is a site called www.fora.tv . To watch complete videos, you need to register, but it?s free (at least for the time being). Most materials are for personal use, but you could easily assign students to view video materials as a class assignment by logging into the site themselves. FORA.tv gathers up videos of various conference sessions and other public gatherings from a host of sources along the general topical areas of arts and culture, business, education, environment, giving, health and wellness, politics, religion, science and technology. Featured partners include a wide range of organizations, including the Brookings Institution, the Aspen Institute, the Chattauqua Instituion, C-SPAN and a dozen others. In the science category, current offerings include sessions by the other half of the DNA team, James Watson, Walter Isaacson on Albert Einstein, a panel discussion on the role of science in society, and many others. In technology, FORA.tv has dozens of programs from September?s Meeting of the Minds Conference on topics such as developing smarter transport systems, vehicle redesign, megacities and alternative futures, mobility strategies and more. In the business section, FORA.tv has Robert Reich on ?Supercapitalism,? Pascal Lamy on global trade, Michael Moe on making companies great and Pamela Swingley on internet marketing. There?s a gold mine of engaging and entertaining material on FORA.tv.
I have found using short videos to be a great way to provoke classroom discussions, as they painlessly provide students with a common experiential base that cuts across many levels of student interest, background and level of enthusiasm. I encourage you to spend some time reviewing these resources and to give it a try in class from time to time. Let me know if you find others we should share.
