Bring TED Into Your Classroom

Some of you are thinking "If you think I'm going to bring the President (Ted Long) in my classroom, you're crazy!" I'm writing about the website http://ted.com. It is the most stimulating website I have found. According to the site:

“TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

“This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. Almost 200 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

“Today, TED is therefore best thought of as a global community. It's a community welcoming people from every discipline and culture who have just two things in common: they seek a deeper understanding of the world, and they hope to turn that understanding into a better future for us all.”

You will find talks like the one given by Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?; or a riveting talk by brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight about how she “studied her own stroke as it happened.”

The talks are organized by themes including “How the Mind Works” or “Is There a God?” or any of these other themes.

This is a fantastic website and faculty will find great videos to stimulate class discussion.

Who Owns TED?

“TED is owned by The Sapling Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation, a 501(c)3 organization under US tax code. It was established in 1996 by Chris Anderson, who was at that time a magazine publishing entrepreneur.

The goal of the foundation is to foster the spread of great ideas. It aims to provide a platform for the world's smartest thinkers, greatest visionaries and most-inspiring teachers, so that millions of people can gain a better understanding of the biggest issues faced by the world, and a desire to help create a better future. Core to this goal is a belief that there is no greater force for changing the world than a powerful idea.”

Take Another Look at Wikipedia

Many people put down Wikipedia without really knowing much about how the articles are written. I encourage faculty and students to learn a little more about how Wikipedia articles are written and I present you with three references to assist you in this journey.

Read this blog post from the Association of College and Research Libraries.

Look at 7 things you should know about Wikipedia from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative.

If you are still intrigued I encourage you to view this 20 minute video by Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia.

Blogs for Higher Education Professionals

Are you reading blogs? Do you subscribe to them and read them in a news reader? This is an effiicient method of keeping up with the information that is published each day in our fields. For general news on higher education I would recommend subscribing to some of the blogs being published by the Chronicle of Higher Education. One could also check one of several blogs maintained by Inside Higher Education or subscribe to news feeds from their homepage. (It should be noted that the word "subscribe" is used but there are no charges.)

In addition to these generic higher education blogs, many of the professional organization now have blogs. The American History Association has a blog and the American Mathematical Society has a list of Math Blogs on the Internet.

If you happen to have a newer model cell phone with web services, I recommend getting Google Reader for your cell phone. You can keep up while waiting in line or at other times when you have a few minutes to spare.

Do you have your own blog that you 'd like to share with us? Let us know good blogs that you've found to keep up in your field.

Web 2.0 and Higher Education

Many of you may be familiar with Web 2.0 or what is being called the read-write web. This short video (5 min) gives one a good overview of what is encompassed by the term. It includes web logs (blogs), news feeds, collaborative writing spaces (wikis), social networks such as MySpace or Facebook, podcasting, social bookmarking and other interactive collaborative technologies. It is changing the face of the web and it is also changing the way many people teach and learn.

The Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) has some good resources to help one understand how these new technologies are being used in higher education. A good place to start would be their 7 Things You Should Know About .... Series. They have written over 25 of these two-page summaries in the past two years. I suggest starting with the ones on blogs, RSS (news feeds), wikis and social bookmarking. At first you may wonder why this is so hot. It takes some time for the power of these tools to be appreciated. Don't give up too soon! Use Technorati or Google Blog Search to search for blogs on your favorite topic. Create your own blog with Blogger. Once you find some useful blogs that you'd like to monitor, consider using Google Reader to keep track of the feeds. It is an extemely powerful tool which will allow you to monitor many sites and it can save you hours of time. Have fun!