TED talk

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We Are All Clark Kent, With Promise of Being Superman

You will change history. That’s the core message of author Brad Meltzer’s TED-Ed talk. Even famous change-makers — like Martin Luther King — had concerns like everyone else. They worried about failure and were lonely sometimes, but that didn’t stop them from changing history.

Meltzer sets out a simple path for each person to change the world in ways big and small: dream big, work hard and stay humble. But to follow these seemingly simple bits of advice, people must fight through failure, continuing to work hard even when the first attempt at a big idea doesn’t work. And, perhaps most importantly, good ideas often require other people’s help.

Great message to inspire our youth.

Is the “School in the Cloud” the Future of Learning?

Schools, the way they’re currently constructed, are not needed anymore, says educational researcher Sugatra Mitra, founder of Hole in the Wall project in India and winner of the 2013 TED Prize. At his recent TED talk asked the following provocative question: Is knowing obsolete? Sugatra made the following request: help him design the School in the Cloud, a learning lab in India, where children can explore, go on intellectual adventures, and learn from each other — using resources and mentoring from the cloud.

Video: “The Future Will Not be Multiple Choice”

Educator Jaime McGrath and designer Drew Davies explain how to create a “classroom of imagination” by turning lessons into design problems and giving students space to be creative in this Tedx video. In a New York Times op-ed The MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Competition’s co-director Cathy Davidson said she thinks it’s possible that 65 percent of students today will end up doing jobs that haven’t been created yet.

McGrath and Davies argue that school needs to keep up with the times by promoting creativity, entrepreneurship, design thinking and hands on skills. McGrath’s experience teaching design problems has convinced him that the approach includes all learning styles, brings the best of project-based learning, encourages cooperation and integrates subject matter horizontally. But mostly, McGrath and Davies are impressed at the cool stuff kids design.

Eight Things in Education That Will Change in the Digital Age

http://youtu.be/sXpbONjV1Jc

“Are we asking our students to collect dots or connect dots?” asks author Seth Godin, who wrote the book Stop Stealing Dreams. In this TEDxYouth Talk, Godin enumerates eight things that will change in the Digital Age. The nature of homework, memorizing facts, and the end of compliance as an outcome, are just a few.

And in closing, Godin encourages us to question, “What is school for?” and let the answer guide what we do next.

Letting Fourth Graders Solve the World’s Problems

John Hunter puts all the problems of the world on a 4′x5′ plywood board and lets his 4th-graders solve them. In this TED Talk, Hunter, who’s been named one of Time Magazine’s education activists for 2012, explains how his World Peace Game engages schoolkids, and why the complex lessons it teaches — spontaneous, and always surprising — go further than classroom lectures can.

Students must deconstruct a 13-page crisis document with interlocking problems like ethnic and Continue reading

The Educational Value of Games: A 13-Year-Old’s View

http://youtu.be/kgEoG04IcOc

Lewis Tachau is a 13-year-old middle school student and avid online gamer. In this enjoyable TEDx Talk, Lewis talks about how his favorite online game taught him not just everything he knows about World War II, but also how to socialize with his peers, and share his interests, knowledge, skills, and thoughts with others, and how that builds upon each others’ work.

“All in all this makes for a great educational experience, offering me a feeling of community, opportunity for co-regulation and training in self-regulation — a well-rounded education, if you ask me,” he says.