The long awaited TED-Ed website has launched, promising to help teachers get the most out of video in their lessons. The wonderful website, currently in its Beta form, provides an innovative and structured approach to using video in the classroom. The website is based around providing excellent curated educational videos, created by collaborations between teachers and animators, and in providing a structured lesson around them- which includes quizzes, extra materials and big questions! The new platform will also allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED's but from YouTube perhaps, and easily create a customized lesson around the video. Users can distribute the lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on the world, a class, or an individual student. It's genius! The video below actually explains things better than I could (showing the power of video, perhaps!)
The Beta version of the website currently has 62 curated videos, from a range of curricular areas, on their system with 670 "flips" or personalised lessons based on those videos. One of my favourites is this short video on "just how small is an atom?", a tricky concept for some kids which is presented in simple terms in this excellent animation. Of course, TED-Ed also provides you with a quiz and other learning tools to effectively use the video in class. There is also the the option to "flip the lesson" and edit it to suit your own class. It is such a brilliant idea but more importantly TED, having taken their time developing this, have created a portal that teachers will feel comfortable using. I'm looking forward to getting involved! Visit TED-Ed now!