The non-profit group behind thought-provoking TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conferences yesterday launched an education channel on YouTube in a bid to make learning irresistible.
The alliance with the world’s top online video venue marked the start of a TED-Ed initiative to combine exceptional teaching with eye-catching animations to make captivating lessons available to anyone on the Internet.
“We want to show that learning can be thrilling,” TED “curator” Chris Anderson said.
“By turning great lessons into vivid scholastic tools, these TED-Ed videos are designed to catalyze curiosity,” he added.
Videos made available at www.youtube.com/tededucation were designed to be captivating and short, lasting no longer than 10 minutes so teachers could easily show them to students in real-world classrooms.
Lessons are geared for students and teachers, but should appeal to “lifelong learners,” according to TED.
The TED-Ed channel launched with about a dozen videos and the promise that more would be added weekly. Educators from anywhere in the world can upload lesson proposals at education.ted.com.
“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,” TED-Ed “catalyst” Logan Smalley said.
“TED-Ed has the potential to take a lesson that might normally reach just 20 students and extend it to the world,” she continued.
The channel’s offerings joined more than a half-million education-oriented videos on dedicated pages of Google-owned YouTube at www.youtube.com/edu.
“Views of educational content on YouTube doubled in the last year,” said YouTube Education head Angela Lin. “Schools, parents, and lifelong learners are turning to YouTube to help bring topics to life and the new TED-Ed channel is a wonderful addition.”
TED is a series of conferences dedicated to “ideas worth spreading.” Speakers are given only 18 minutes to give deliver “the talk of their lives.”
Videos of “TED Talks” have attracted a global following online.
TED presenters are known for combining dizzying brain power with mind-tickling spins on concepts as weighty as climate change and the devastation of sea life or as playful as dance and music.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in