A TEDx March Break

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So, what seems like a lifetime ago – although it was only two weeks ago – I got the opportunity to take part in a TEDx conference at Western. A friend of mine from high school is at Western, and was one of the organizers of the whole thing. It was a really inspiring day. There were many great speakers, all completely different… but I was so happy to attend, especially since many of the talks were extremely relevant to a young teacher. The theme was “Own Your Passion” which I loved. I think that statement sums up what I have been trying to accomplish this year. I am extremely passionate about teaching, but this year has been about me gaining honing my skills and gaining confidence, so now I can “own it”.

Now, onto the super cool talks which directly relate to teaching – how awesome is that? There are two that stand out for me… completely different things… one is super inspiring and awesome, and one is just downright useful.

The first was actually a TED talk that is online and we just watched all together on the big projector screen. You can find it at:

http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html
He’s basically designed this website of online videos with accompanying exercises which I think promotes mastery learning. Now, generally, when I hear about these online ways of teaching things, I feel like robots are going to take over the world, and I’m never going to get a job. However, how teachers have used this resource is ingenious. They have assigned the video lectures as homework, and then do the interesting math (or science or whatever) in class! Leaving more time for interesting questions and teacher help in class! I think that this is such a great way of using technology to our benefit. He obviously explains it better… I highly recommend watching it. He’s got lots of good ideas as to how to use his technology in the classroom!

The second was Ray Zahab, who is an ultra marathon runner, who ran across the Sahara with two of his friends. If this weren’t interesting in itself (because who am I kidding here?) he also decided to spread the word about the water shortages in Africa, and then decided to walk to the South Pole, but this time, had live webcasts and blogs about their journey. He’s now founded this organization:  http://impossible2possible.com/i2p which takes youth ambassadors with him on these crazy journeys, still blogging and webcasting their experiences. What a COOL mix of experiential learning, technology, and interactive learning. This guy is awesome. I found another short TED talk of his online, which has some cool pictures which illustrate just how crazy-awesome all that he does is. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ray_zahab_treks_to_the_south_pole.html

Anyhow, if you have some spare time, these things are well worth taking a look at. This was a great day – great atmosphere, great people, great speakers, great food – and the best twenty dollars I’ve spent in a long time!

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