Connect 2.0

Have you ever heard of TED Talks? If not, here’s a brief introduction from their website:

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

Our mission: Spreading ideas.

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. This site, launched April 2007, is an ever-evolving work in progress, and you’re an important part of it. Have an idea? We want to hear from you.

The TED Conference, held annually in Long Beach, is still the heart of TED. More than a thousand people now attend — indeed, the event sells out a year in advance — and the content has expanded to include science, business, the arts and the global issues facing our world. Over four days, 50 speakers each take an 18-minute slot, and there are many shorter pieces of content, including music, performance and comedy. There are no breakout groups. Everyone shares the same experience. It shouldn’t work, but it does. It works because all of knowledge is connected. Every so often it makes sense to emerge from the trenches we dig for a living, and ascend to a 30,000-foot view, where we see, to our astonishment, an intricately interconnected whole.

Today we watched an especially inspiring TED Talk by Sir Ken Robinson, entitled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” This 18 minute talk is well-worth your time, take a look:

Sir Ken Robinson’s talk is so engaging and entertaining, and so clear in the need for revising our understanding of school and education. After watching the video we talked about the need for both teachers and parents to embrace and encourage children’s creativity, to provide outlets for exploring new avenues for learning, and to develop a more open-minded outlook about education.

In fact, the video is so good, we were encouraged to run it again next week!

So, on Wednesday, April 30th at 7:30 am in the Learning Hub Project Zone, we will show this talk again! Please come by for this excellent video and some stimulating conversation about the future of education!

Just in case you can’t make it, or you’re curious about the other fantastic presentations available for free by TED, you can easily subscribe to these talks using the TED website, or the iTunes store (for Mac and PC).

Our final Parent Coffee Morning will be on Wednesday, May 21st at 7:30 am in the Learning Hub Project Zone. Please join us!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under The Parent Connection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.