TOP 10 TED TALKS
If you’ve found out anything about me here beyond running and running at the mouth — it is that I love TED > Technology, Education and Design, a series of talks by the best in the world. I even made our own updated page/feed which you can access and share publicly HERE.
TED is my own steroid, growth pill, it puts the world back into place and gives me perspective. It is the dry wood on my slow burning fire….
TED recently put up a page of their “Top 10”. Only two of them are on my own list. Both sterling.
1. Ken Robinson’s classic deadpan delivery and passion, wit (only a Brit can do). Amazing!
2. Jill Bolte Taylor’s passionate story of how she became “more” through the lose of her dominating left cerebral hemisphere. A call for a better way.
Others that I simply LOVE and didn’t make the list. Enjoy when you have 20 min.
3. Chris Jordan speaks from the heart as an artist who puts strange numbers into perspective…WOW! A real human.
4. Jonathan Harris is a genius who describes the WWW in pictures we can understand. He reveals what we might never see…. Investigate his many projects at www.number27.org/
5. Wade Davis started as an ethnopharmacologist and has gone where no man has gone before for Nat. Geographic.. Now he cries out for us to pay attention to the diversity of the linguosphere and ethnosphere as languages die every day. Close to my heart and background as an anthropologist.
6. Larry Lessig rules — this is an almost perfect presentation of a very difficult topic > copyright. He let’s us see how copyright is outdated and harming the future of mankind and creativity…
7. Nicolas Negroponte tells about the genesis and development of his quest for “One Lap Top / Child”. A bright light of goodness in this world of corporate greed. It can happen!
8. Steven Pinker, the “brillant” Canadian, gives us Food for Thought – especially all us Language mavens. He reveals all the quirks and regularity of words and thought visible…..fascinating.
9. E.O. Wilson, a biologist of those little things , a biologist without equal — shows us how the world “unseen” is really the world which makes things happen and which matters….eye opening. Thank you E.O.!
10. THE BEST FOR LAST. Please watch but be prepared to be changed…..not images to watch lightly…. War photographer James Nachtwey tells how little he/we have learned….he reinspires those who MUST be witnesses.
So many more… On Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihali, Sugata Mitra on “the hole in the wall” and how kids can learn by themselves, Tony Robbins and so many more…. TED.com Thanks for letting me share these wonderful MINEs.
Hey Dave! Thanks for sharing your top 10. I have been dying to be able to put some time aside to watch more on TED. Now you have given me an idea about what YOU think I should check out first. I don’t think I’ve seen any of your suggestions- have been looking only to TED for very short ones I could employ in the classroom for EFLers…
Yes, so much there! But Ken Robinson’s talk is essential. Beyond that – almost everything lights up the old, damp and dark upstairs. At least once a week I click our player and take a look….wonderful stuff! Let us know what gems you’ve found when you do sit down….
David