Can learning be “thrilling?” Can lessons “catalyze curiosity?”
TED Talks curator Chris Anderson believes so and said as much in a press release announcing a new TED initiative on YouTube.
Launched Monday, the channel TEDEducation takes refined lessons submitted from teachers and turns them into fun animated shorts.
“TED-Ed has the potential to take a lesson that might normally reach just 20 students and extend it to the world,” said TED-Ed Catalyst Logan Smalley. “The topics we can cover are endless, and the more teachers and animators who contribute their lessons and talents, the more impactful this resource becomes.”
So far, there are 11 lessons, ranging from two to nine minutes long and covering topics as diverse as the creatures of the ocean to how pandemics spread
TED-Ed is the latest addition to “YouTube for School”, one of many educational resources on the Google-owned video sharing site. (Household Hacker airs a science-themed episode on its channel every Tuesday, and the vlog brothers John and Hank Green conduct a science and history show as well.)
“Views of educational content on YouTube doubled in the last year,” added Angela Lin, the head of YouTube Education, in the release. “Schools, parents, and lifelong learners are turning to YouTube to help bring topics to life, and the new TED-Ed channel is a wonderful addition to our corpus of half a million educational videos on youtube.com/edu from some of the world’s best teachers.”
Given the immediacy of the channel launch, few YouTubers have commented so far. Those that have though, are overwhelmingly supportive.
“Amazing. Can’t wait!” commented Jinelle23 this morning.