Our 5 Favorite eLearning TED Talks

The power of inspirational content can change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. TED talks exist in many ways to do just this. We have shared below five of our favorite and inspirational talks that relate directly to the eLearning industry.

Maria Andersen: Recipe for Free Range Learning

Maria Anderson says it isn’t enough just to have access to information. In order to engage in learning people need to have the necessary ingredients and a good recipe. Learning has to be nutritious! Maria poses some great questions considering what we can do today to better the effectiveness of free-range learning and how we can promote learning as a core value within our communities.

Daphne Koller: What we’re learning from online education

Daphne Koller talks about how knowledge is processed via an unprecedented pool of data she and her organisation have been gathering. Watch this talk to better understand how she is enticing top universities to put their most intriguing courses online for free, not just as a service, but as a way to research how people learn.

Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education

The how and why talk of Khan Academy by Salman Khan of Khan Academy! It’s a fascinating lesson in how a carefully structured series of educational videos can offer complete curricula in math. He shows the power of interactive exercises and encourages teachers to consider changing up the traditional classroom script. What about giving students elearning video lectures to watch at home and repositioning “teaching time” in the classroom as “homework” time instead?

Adora Svitak: What adults can learn from kids

Child prodigy Adora Svitak says the world needs “childish” thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. And we agree! She argues with great conviction and poise that children who dream big deserve to have high expectations placed upon them yet adults must allow themselves to learn from children, as willingly as they are teach them.

Clifford Stoll: The call to learn

If this isn’t an Oscar winning performance then what is?! Clifford Stoll captivated us with a fantastically energetic sprinkling of anecdotes, observations, asides. He even throws in a science experiment for good measure!