Every Friday, I share a website (or app) that I’ve heard about, checked into, been excited to use. This one is a math app. Since ‘math’ is by far the most popular search term of readers who seek out my blog, I know you’re going to enjoy this review.
Age:
5th Grade+
Topic:
Academic, curiosity
Address:
Review:
In a nod toward the importance of video in today’s educational environment, TED--one of the leaders in spreading ideas and inspiration through conferences, media and research fellowships–has launched an educational game-changer in their new interactive website, TED-ed. This is a collection of three- to eight-minute K-12 animated educational video lessons. Educators can browse the videos by themes (like health, math, business) or curiosity (featured, series, subject). Every video is accompanied by a lesson plan, a quick multiple choice quiz (with feedback on answers), open-ended questions in a section called ‘think’, and more information to percolate curiosity in the ‘dig deeper’ section.
In a true open source mind-set, teachers can use, tweak, and/or entirely flip any lesson–redo it for their unique classroom needs–or create lessons from scratch based on any video from TED-ed’s YouTube channel. Flipped lessons can be tracked to measure student activity and their affect on classroom goals. Don’t know what I mean by a ‘flipped classroom‘? Click for the basics.
One of the most amazing features of TED Ed is a special tool that allows you to take any video on YouTube and flip it–customize it to classroom needs.
It won’t surprise anyone in education that one of advisers to this endeavor is Salman Khan, founder and faculty of the Khan Academy (click to read more about Khan Academy).
Overall, educators find the website intuitive, easy-to-use, and are excited about a free method of extending their lessons, making them more student-centric and individualized,.
Need more info? Here’s their YouTube video:
Have you flipped any of the lessons for your class? I’d love to hear your experiences.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and author of two technology training books for middle school. She wrote Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a tech columnist forExaminer.com, Editorial Review Board member for ISTE’s Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco blogger, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Any suggestions? Contact Jacqui at her writing office, WordDreams, or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
