Customize With TED-Ed LIS568

In an attempt to add more digital and web based learning into my classroom I created a TED-Ed lesson.  If you are unaware of what TED-Ed has to offer you should certainly check it out.  It is a great free resource to use just for its video content alone.  However, if you want to customize your students’ experiences you can create your own lessons that include video content, comprehension questions, extended content, and discussion threads.  For example, a lesson I have created in the past is called Basic Geography, and the content provides students with exactly what the name suggests, a chance to support their understanding in basic Geography.  My specific purpose for the lesson creation was to support my current students with both review material as well as an introduction to new material.  TED-Ed is a great resource if you are attempting to flip your classroom, a librarian teaching information literacy, and overall any educator’s experience regarding educating our youth.  As an educator and coach, my time is valuable, thus the ease of high quality customized content that TED-Ed allows me to create is essential.

Within the lesson Basic Geography students are given a prompt that allows them to engage in a digital conversation with their peers.  Through their discussion they demonstrate their ability to interpret, organize, and ultimately share read material.  As an assessment, students construct an at least five sentence discussion post.  The discussion post allows students to convey their ideas on the information they received within the lesson.  When using TED-Ed in the classroom I make sure that the discussion portion of the lesson (Discuss section) is a significant aspect to what students are asked to complete.  In my TED-Ed lesson I synthesized the given information found within the Watch, Think, and Dig Deeper sections to lead to a meaningful discussion post.  Where I do find the Watch and Think section to be a beneficial aspect of the lesson, more importantly students get to explore relevant information in the Dig Deeper section allowing for a greater sense of understanding.  By tying the Discuss section to the previous sections, my students get to partake in a social media based/connected lesson.  I also ask my students to respond to at least two other peers’ responses, making the lesson that much more collaborative and social. 

What makes TED-Ed so valuable is that I am able to supply my students with direct instruction through the Watch and Think sections, then allow them to share and create their own content through the Dig Deeper and Discuss section.  The flexibility of the lessons allow me to assign students such lessons for home work or provide opportunity to review material outside of the classroom, knowing that students will receive the direct instruction needed to partake in the social aspect of learning.  I can also expand the Discuss section to have students share articles or other found information from the web.  Honestly, it provides me the proper organization to allow elementary students to begin to expand their learning experiences through digital and social means.  Furthermore, applications such as TED-Ed give students the ease of becoming content creators rather than simply content consumers.