by Digital Judy
JEA Mentoring Committee
An announcement for a new learning site from TED Talks called TED-Ed looks interesting.
The idea behind TED-Ed takes videos from TEDTalks or YouTube and “flips” them for the students.
Just so you are comfortable with the verb flip you should know that:
“Flip” is meant to indicate that teachers of all stripes can propel/catapult/slingshot the video to a wider audience. And “flip” is also a reference to a nascent and evolving teaching method called Flip Teaching. (from About Ted-Ed)
And Flip Teaching, you ask? It’s described as:
“A method of instruction where classroom-based teaching time and traditional “homework” time are reversed (flipped). A teacher provides video lessons to be reviewed outside of class, which in turn gives teachers more time in class to focus on higher-order learning skills.” (from About TED-Ed)
Flip learning will likely become widely adopted given stricken school budgets and ongoing porting of all information online.
Some advisers might be delighted to have access to online instructional videos for classes. Schools that have blocked YouTube (and other Tubes) may be willing to grant access to an educational site like TED-Ed.
What really excites me about the TED-Ed videos is the ability for a teacher to add his or her own questions. Students can answer multiple choice questions during or after viewing the video.
If the student logs in to the site, the teacher can also see how (or if) the student answered. Genius.
You need to see how this works and decide for yourself. I chose a video that was already available (vs. uploading my own on YouTube) on TedTalks. I watched all 17 minutes and trust me, all of you will find it quite interesting.
Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink, Tipping Point, and Outliers, tells the story of how we came to have so many kinds of spaghetti sauce. But he doesn’t stop there. There is, of course, a much bigger picture and application to life.
I flipped this video specifically for you. Some of the quiz questions and “thinking cap questions” were provided and some I modified because I wanted to see how hard it was to edit questions. Your advisees will find editing questions straightforward and time-saving.
I’d be interested in what you think. TED-Ed is still in Beta, meaning that it may have some tweaking to make — which it could do if we gave feedback.
Grab an iced tea (or your choice of drink) and enjoy watching. Click on this link provided here that is our special link to a flipped video for the Mentors from TED-Ed http://ed.ted.com/on/2EAZeRDz
Enjoy.