TED: Ideas Worth Spreading
Renshia (a prolific commenter here) sent a suggestion that I spread the word about one of his favorite websites – TED. What’s TED? From their about page:
TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year’s TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.
The jewel on the TED website is undoubtedly their collection of videos. Again, I’ll let TED speak for itself:
The annual conferences in Long Beach and Oxford bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). On TED.com, we make the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 450 TEDTalks are now available, with more added each week. All of the talks feature closed captions in English, and many feature subtitles in various languages. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.
Under those broad categories of Technology, entertainment and design, TED covers a lot of ground – especially for the scientifically inclined, or those simply looking for some inspiration. Suffice to say, I am in complete agreement with Renshia – TED is an amazing place. One of the best the web has to offer. The fact that their videos are free to view or download (in many formats including mp3 and high-resolution video) is a testament to the power of the web as a learning tool.
With that, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite TED videos. Enjoy!
Tags: inspiration • Science • TED • Video
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Greetings Ya’all,
Thanks for putting this up. I don’t know if you all now about this, but they produce many good videos. Leading the sheltered life way out here in the back forty, I must admit I do look forward to the weekly podcast I get.
I highly recommend taking a few moments to check out their site.