Recently I had the opportunity to explore The Webby Awards website (see link below). This website contains the "best" websites, apps, interactive advertising, online videos, and more from each year as far back at 1997. The awards are broken down into several categories, one of which is education. The 2011 winner for best education website was TED.com (it also won the People's Voice Winner for education). It does not surprise me that TED.com was the winner. I have had the opportunity to watch "TED Talks" during several of my education classes as well as in my own free time. The site is very informative, and I would suggest it to fellow educators as well as parents and/or students.
TED started out in 1984 and was meant to bring together three different areas: Technology (T), Entertainment (E), and Design (D). Since then the project has came to include many different areas, one of which is education. The main objective of TED is to display "ideas worth spreading". TED allows users to search their vast array of talks using tags. Currently under the education tag, there are 103 talks available to view. Talks can last upwards of 20 minutes or as little as 3 minutes, and they are about a variety of different ideas in the world of education. With myself currently being in teacher education courses, I have mainly viewed TED talks dealing with different ways to go about educating children as well as differentiation. One of my favorite speakers is Sir Ken Robinson. He offers great insight into a variety of topics in a funny, yet educational way. Overall, the website would benefit any teacher, whether they are a veteran or beginner, because the world of education is constantly changing. Teachers must always continue learning to be effective in their profession.
The possibilities with TED does not stop there however. Teachers could looks up TED talks on a variety of different topics to use in their class to start up an engaging debate. Students and parents could also use the TED website to explore any possible interests that they have dealings with the primary topics invested in the TED website. While people may not agree with all the opinions displayed on the website, they are still indeed ideas worth sharing.
More information can be found about TED at http://www.ted.com/ . More information on the Webby's can be found at http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current.php .
