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5 TED Talks to inspire you on International Literacy Day
8th September is International Literacy Day. Today, we bring 5 TED Talks by eminent educators and edtech pioneers to inspire you and help you in promoting reading, literacy and learning.
8th September is International Literacy Day. Today, we bring 5 TED Talks by eminent educators and edtech pioneers to inspire you and help you in promoting reading, literacy and learning.
Let's teach for mastery — not test scores: Sal Khan (Khan Academy)
Would you choose to build a house on top of an unfinished foundation? Of course not. Why, then, do we rush students through education when they haven't always grasped the basics? Yes, it's complicated, but educator Sal Khan shares his plan to turn struggling students into scholars by helping them master concepts at their own pace.
Why massive open online courses (still) matter – Anant Agarwal (edX)
2013 was a year of hype for MOOCs (massive open online courses). Great big numbers and great big hopes were followed by some disappointing first results.
But the head of edX, Anant Agarwal, makes the case that MOOCs still matter — as a way to share high-level learning widely and supplement (but perhaps not replace) traditional classrooms. Agarwal shares his vision of blended learning, where teachers create the ideal learning experience for 21st century students.
The History of Reading and the Literate Life: Seth Lerer at TEDxUCSD
Professor Seth Lerer is Dean of Arts and Humanities and Distinguished Professor of Literature at the University of California at San Diego. He had previously held the Avalon Foundation Professorship in Humanities at Stanford University.
Lerer specializes in historical analyses of the English language, in addition to critical analyses of the works of several authors, including in particular Geoffrey Chaucer. Lerer won the 2010 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism and the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism for Children's Literature: A Readers' History from Aesop to Harry Potter.
The Importance Of Your Mother Tongue: HantzHessouh at TEDxYouth@ISBangkok
This TED Talk is about the importance of keeping your native language focusing mostly on International Students. Overall HantzHessouh wants the audience to understand that this is an important topic and talks about why it is relevant as well as shares some of the negative impacts losing your native language can have on an individual.
Hantz is 17 years old and a junior at the International School of Bangkok. He is Canadian-African and lived in Quebec, Canada for 10 years before moving to Ghana followed by Thailand. His first language is French and he started learning English upon his arrival in Ghana. He enjoys participating in activities such as basketball and track and field, as well as helping out with play productions. His Ted Talk focuses on the importance of your mother tongue and the effect losing it can have on you and the people around you.
Rise of the global teacher: Lord Jim Knight and Mina Patel at TEDxMidAtlantic
While serving as Education Minister in the UK, Lord Jim Knight saw classrooms being transformed by new technology and teachers using the internet to share lessons to millions of students around the world. Mina Patel says that video conferencing is ushering in a new era in teaching, where students can be on different continents and connected live to experts wherever they are. The next-generation classroom is here.
Jim Knight is the Chief Education Adviser at TES Global Ltd, a member of the House of Lords and a visiting Professor at the London Knowledge Lab of the Institute of Education. He was a Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom from 2001-2010 and served as Education Minister and Employment Minister. Mina is the founder and Executive Director of Video Conferencing for Global Learning (VCfGL). Mina jointly chairs the UK VC Partnerships Group, where she has worked alongside national advisers from across the UK, to put together broadband guidelines for the Department for Education to support VC technology in schools.
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Image and content courtesy: TED.com