“TED: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Ideas worth sharing.” TED is the newest advancement of education in technology. What started out as a small conference of experienced scholars of all professions, TED has now grown to a worldwide scale. TED conferences are characterized by short, concise, and often humorous speeches about interesting sets of information on all sorts of topics by the world’s leading professionals in the area. The TED website is filled with videos of every speech made at the conference and has gotten over 5 million site views in just five years.
TED has recently been looking for schools to participate in piloting TED-Ed clubs. Late last school year they posted a call to action on their various social media accounts. After completing an attached survey, teachers and administrators worldwide were selected to run summer pilots at their schools. This rallying cry was pushed to the masses just before the 2013-14 school year started. Elizabeth Potter-Nelson, the department head of science at ACHS, responded to this with “…an enthusiastic Yes!” Near the start of the school year, Potter-Nelson received an email stating that ACHS had been selected as one of the TED-Ed pilot schools, 1 out of 150 pilot clubs located around the world piloting a “Discussion style” club. As a pilot, TED will use the information the club provides to help them launch the official TED-Ed clubs in January 2014.
ACHS’s chapter of the TED-Ed club hosted their first meeting on Thurs. Oct. 24 after school in room 223. They began by outlining the goals of the TED-Ed club, and then proceeded to watch a highly accredited TED Talk about the evolution of language and communication due to texting. In true TED style, facts and studies were mixed with recent pop culture references and humor to make an all-around pleasant learning experience. The club then formed a circle and participated in lively thought provoking discussion.
A few days later, the members of the first club meeting received an email with a short survey attached to fill out to give information back to the TED headquarters. Members are eagerly awaiting information on the date and location of the next TED-Ed meeting.