Friday 20 September 2013

TED Ed - Because You're Worth It .....

TED (http://www.ted.com/) has been around for a while; Ideas Worth Sharing (in 20 minute videos).

This week I wanted to focus on TED Ed (http://ed.ted.com/); Lessons Worth Sharing (in short video clips with extra content).


A lesson is built around a video clip, or animation, with the scaffolding (http://www.edutopia.org/blog/scaffolding-lessons-six-strategies-rebecca-alber) components:
  • Let's Begin - the hook to motivate student engagegment.
  • Watch - the subject matter in video format.
  • Think - up to 15 multiple choice and short answer questions.
  • Dig Deeper - resources for discovering more about the topic.
  • Discuss - a forum for students to respond to a posted question/comment .
  • And Finally - what to do next.
 The site contains around 300 TED Ed Original Lessons - those created by renowned educators or subject experts and the TED Ed team whos mission is to capture and amplify the voice of the worlds greatest teachers.

The really cool bit:
  1. You can simply re-use the existing lessons.
  2. Each lesson can be customised by you - see the red 'Flip This Lesson' button.
  3. You can create your own lessons using Youtube video clips.
The site contains another 40,000 user generated 'Best Flip' lessons that you can search for and many more lessons that you can only access if you know the web address.

TED Ed is therfore both a learning resource bank and a tool for creating new resources!

And there's more....
When logged in, you can share a lesson's web link with your students (an individual or a group) and if they are logged in too, you can keep track of their responses to the lesson questions and discussion topics and provide feedback.
NB: Students under 13 are not allowed to create an account (due to US legislation). They can still use the lessons but as an anonymous user their answers won't be tracked.

The observant amongst you will have realised that TED Ed is a perfect companion for anyone wanting to try out Flipped Teaching where classroom-based teaching time and traditional "homework" time are reversed (flipped). You provide lesson recources to be reviewed outside of class, which in turn gives you more time in class to focus on higher-order learning skills.

Create an account and give it a go.
See the FAQ for further information - http://support.ed.ted.com/
Enjoy the weekend .....

TGIF

PS One part of the FAQ might be worth keeping in mind as you create your own lessons:

What are the criteria for Best Flips?
  • To be selected as a Best Flip and featured on TED-Ed's lesson list, your lesson should start with a great video that people can learn from. Generally speaking, the video you select should be under 10 minutes, however there are a few exceptions. The videos can be serious (as in something from the History Channel's YouTube or National Geographic's YouTube).  They can also be silly (like a cat video uploaded by an individual). Videos should never include content that's inappropriate for a typical high school classroom.
  • Lessons that are nominated as Best Flips should have a creative introduction written in the Let's Begin section that alludes to the objectives that are learned in the lesson. The best introductions are a couple sentences long and serve to intrigue or hook the learner into watching the video and completing the lesson. 
  • A Best Flip should contextualize the video using the Let's Begin, Think, Dig Deeper, and Discussion modules. A lesson does not necessarily need to include all of these sections to be selected as a Best Flip, but it should use several of them to present engaging material.
  • The Think section is pretty straightforward -- multiple choice questions should gauge understanding using information gained directly from the video (include the time code that points to the video hint), and open answer questions should challenge a learner to think critically about the lesson. As a general rule, for a 5 minute video, Best Flips should contain 5 multiple choice questions and 3 open answer questions, though this is only a loose guideline.
  • The Dig Deeper section should be robust and challenging. This is not simply a place to spoon feed resources to the learner. It is a place to provide avenues for the learner to explore further. You can share links to other videos, links to magazine articles, links to blogs or op-eds. You can also further explain difficult topics here. The point of the dig deeper is to help the learner understand as much as possible about the topic at hand. Generally speaking, five resources for a five minute video seems to be a good start. This is where the learner has the potential to spend most of his or her time.
  • Lastly, the Discussion section should provide a prompt that encourages meaningful, healthy debate and/or conversation. The questions often skew a little more personal. They may solicit opinions, but they are rarely looking for a single fact. For example, it's better to say, "What do you think is..." rather than, "According to the video, what is..." Hopefully, this measures an entirely new kind of understanding. Learners will share original abstract thoughts and challenge each other to think more interestingly about the lesson.

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