Ted Ed brings written articles to life!
Community Review for TED-Ed
My Take
I love using Ted Talks in the classroom. The only problem that I found with the Ted Talks was that they weren't always on the level that I needed for my students. Ted Ed is a great way around that! It can be a great hook for a lesson or a wrap up summary. The fact that it comes with questions at the end is even better to make sure the students stay on task! Many of my students do not have the background knowledge before we read articles in class. This allows them to make connections to the material before we even get started with it! It makes them feel more empowered and aware of the outside world.
How I Use It
Some of the talks are a little bit dry, I will say that. However, I recently paired one of the talks after reading an article with my students from the StoryWorks magazine. The article was about what life will be like 100 years from now. Some of the concepts seemed so ridiculous, but one of them talked about 3 D printers. To my students, they associated that with a printer they see in school or have at home. After discussing and reading the article, we watched a Ted Ed on 3 D printers. The students were actually able to see one, how it worked, what it did and hear from a live person that had a bladder implant created from a 3 D printer. It was quite shocking to some of them. I will continue to use Ted Ed to encourage and motivate my students as well as pair it with concepts learned academically.