Join new TEDinClass conversations with Jessica Green’s Biodiversity students

Engaging in dialogue and conversation is a great way to learn. Which is why, this semester, TED Fellow Jessica Green is teaching a Biodiversity class this semester at the University of Oregon, and her students are starting great TED Conversations around topics that come up in class. And you are welcome to join!

How does affluence influence biodiversity?  – asks Drew Thompson, inviting you to discuss the role of affluent societies in environmental harm. Sudni Rucks, also a student, challenges us to think and talk about the ecosystems we use: What are ecosystem services that you rely on everyday? Are you willing to pay for them?

These conversations run for one week and new ones will be posted every Monday and Wednesday every week until early June.

This is the second time that Jessica Green has involved TEDinClass Conversations in her class. Find more student-run conversations from Jessica Green’s previous course on Population Biology. We asked Jessica about her motivations in using TED Conversations to teach:

“University of Oregon students motivate me. The students in my Population Ecology this year are exceptionally gifted. Inspired by TED Fellow Nina Tandon’s experience, I brought the option of initiating TED Conversations to my classroom. The students have embraced the process wholeheartedly. It is clear that individuals and groups are the most creative when they take ownership over the learning process. I am motivated to continue teaching in ways that serve our continually evolving student needs. I think the students are slowly getting the hang of things — and they are getting VERY excited! This is so special for the students! I have never seen students this engaged. WOW. I’m inspired as a teacher.”

New Conversations from Biodiversity class can be accessed through special tags: TEDinClass, TEDinClassroom, Biodiversity class, or simply by visiting this page:
http://www.ted.com/conversations/topics/Biodiversity+class

All of the TEDinClass conversations so far can be found here >>

View the original article here

Catch up with the trending TED Conversations …

Among many TED Conversations, below we are highlighting some of the TED.com community’s most-discussed ones:

Technology doesn’t create loneliness, it reveals it – Join the conversation here >>

Willis Phu: “When relationships become out of balance, would technology really fill the void or is it a vapid substitution? Like Dr. Turkle stated, the fantasies of technology have simplified interactions. When relationships become difficult, people look to technology as something quick to fill in the vulnerable gaps that they experience instead of dealing with confrontation. I think Dr. Turkle references technology as an isolating force because people often prefer to deal with interaction solely through technology. The idea of using technology to connect to an actual community is part of what Dr. Turkle would probably refer to as “first steps”. It is utilizing technology to affirm values in our own lives. If an individual is lonely, they may use these simple means to connect, but unless the individual takes further steps to foster actual human interactions, I believe that individual is still alone. The individual seeks out ‘virtual worlds’ that simplify interactions because the ‘real world’ is difficult to access, but when confronted with the ‘real world’ problems, that’s when the individual becomes turned off from dealing with their ‘real’ life, further perpetuating this vicious cycle towards isolation.”  >>

Matthew Ward: ”Technology can fill a gap that missing in your life, so if the gap is friendship it can help. If the gap is connecting with people that have the same or similar interest as you it can help…”  read more >> 

Do introverts make better leaders?   — Join the conversation here >>

Farrah Charanek Dassouki: “I watched Susan Cain’s Video as well. I found it quite enlightening and motivating. As an educator it solidified my belief that each child is special and unique with their own learning style. Susan Cain’s video was an invitation to celebrate diversity and encourage it at various levels in our daily lives. To ask the question whether introverts make better leaders is really to generalize and risk stereotyping. I believe it depends on the disposition, inclination and expertise of that particular person in a given profession. Leaders, introverts or extroverts must be visionaries always mindful of the big picture or destination and the means to accomplishing the end.”  Read more >> 

Is history an important subject in school? Or should we be focusing on the future?  – Join the conversation here >>  

Jason Pounds: “ I feel that history illustrates our failures, and without history, we do not have the tools to create a successful future.” — read more  >>

Alex Cordero: “It seems irresponsible to not study history–history of anything! But to think that we “learn” from history is somewhat of an illusion. I feel that we only learn selective elements in history and probably pay more attention to history when it cost resources such as time, money or material. As we say in my field (information), if you want to learn from history, indicate how expensive the mistake was. Yet sadly, no mention is ever made of how many jobs a mistake cost meaning that welfare is an insufficient learning motivator. I know that this sounds terribly materialistic and almost wrong but I assure you that it’s probably not–just difficult to realize. Think of the number of times genocide has happened in our recorded history and despots–even today–continue genocidal practices falsely believing that their regime is justified. Study history because it’s the responsible thing to do but also realize that we don’t necessarily learn from it.” Read more >>

For more conversations, check out the TED Conversations page.

View the original article here

Using TED Conversations in the classroom

All semester, TED Fellow Nina Tandon has been using TED Conversations as part of her class in bioelectricity at Cooper Union. Yesterday in the TED offices, she hosted a Live TED Conversation to answer questions about using  TED Conversations in her class. Here are some highlights:

Sarah Meyer:  So your students asked questions of the TED community as they studied? Did any of their conversations get particularly good responses? Did you or your students learn anything from any of the comments?

Nina Tandon: We’ve been just blown away from the response — our TEDinClass Conversations, for example, have been trending in the top five for 9 weeks straight, and each conversation is being viewed in up to 60 countries. And in total, the conversations are reaching about half a million Facebook users via shares. The students are also learning a ton content-wise through responding to comments. And then there’s the more-difficult-to-measure but equally important lessons in poise and maturity that comes from leading. It’s been amazing.

Emily McManus: What did you worry about most when starting this experiment, and how did you control for it?

Nina Tandon: When we first started, I was worried most about coming up with topics with the right balance between being general enough to relate to the TED community and yet specific enough to relate to class material. I decided to just be upfront about this with my students and to ask them each week to check in and let us know their thoughts. I’ve noticed that as weeks go by that the students are having more and more fun with coming up with these types of questions. One common way we traverse between the “super specific” and the “general” is via analogy. One student last week, for example, hosted a conversation loosely based on an analogy to muscle fibers. He’d noted that we have different types of muscle fibers with different “specialties”: fast twitch and slow twitch — so he drew an analogy to collaboration between specialists and asked: “Does society need more interdisciplinary work? Or more well-rounded individuals working together?” I could never have predicted conversations like this to come out of my class, but am so heartened to see it happen!

Melinda Dvisa: I’ve been using TED Conversations as journal prompts in my class for the past year. My students can use their journals to come up with topics for writing or as pre-writing. It’s proven effective. I’m now teaching developmental reading, and I often select TED Conversations to feature authors. Again, this has proven popular.

Nina Tandon: Wow Melinda, these are all great ideas! Thanks for sharing :)

Join the latest conversation from Nina’s class: “How does virtuality translate into reality?“

Check out all the student-run Nina’s Class Conversations: www.ted.com/conversations/topics/Bioelectricity

If you have further questions, or are thinking about using TEDConversations in your classroom, please email us at conversations@ted.com and we’ll be happy to work with you!

View the original article here

Happy birthday, TED Conversations

One year ago today, we launched our platform for long-form conversations: TED Conversations.

Since that time the TED Conversation community has held 6,435 Conversations, on topics such as:

How can computer models help us build intuition?

Where do you use math in your profession?

Can we ever know how another person “senses” the world?

And about education … philosophy … technology … and hundreds more.

Including 40 Live Conversations with TED and TEDx speakers and TED Fellows. (The Live Conversation phenomenon started with Hans Rosling and his first live conversation.)

Browse Live Conversations >>

Most recently, check out the TEDinClass initiative, as TED Fellow Nina Tandon uses TED Conversations in her college classrooms to open class discussion to the wider world.

We’d like to say a special thanks to our volunteer hosts and moderators, who’ve done so much to support the platform and the community.

Explore TED Conversations >>

View the original article here

TED Conversations in the classroom

Can students learn better by sharing what they know? TED Fellow Nina Tandon believes in the power of sharing ideas and using TED Talks in her classroom. In addition to that, she is now using the TED Conversation platform in the Bioelectricity course that she’s currently teaching at Cooper Union in New York City. After hosting her own conversation on TED Conversations, Nina was inspired to use the platform in her classroom and let students take the role of sharing knowledge and leading discussions with the global community.

Here, Nina Tandon shares her motivation on using TED Conversations in her class:

“I’ve been hosting a class blog each year for the past four years as a way for students to share amongst each other, but this year I wanted to extend our reach into the global community, to have the students engage in “external participation.” I’m hoping that the students will learn by teaching, and will appreciate the unexpected lateral connections that may develop by engaging with the diverse TED community in the context of their developing classroom expertise! It’s an experiment, but I’m really looking forward to seeing how this experience contributes not only to the students’ growth, but hopefully to the TED community as well. Thank you so much to the TED Team for collaborating with us in this exciting endeavor!”

Each week throughout the semester, students will be starting new conversations. You can track them by searching the following tags: TEDinClass and Bioelectricity. Each conversation will be open for 1 week, until the next students starts a new one.

One of the students Samantha Massengill kicks off the conversation series with this question: How immune should science be from the political environment of its time?

And Ariel Habshush suggests an idea: Our bodies are amazing nano/micro electrical factories! and hopes to share his knowledge on this topic throughout the conversation.

You can access all these classroom conversations here as they are added, every week until mid-April. Students will be sharing what they’ve learned during the course on TED Conversations. Come to learn, participate and share, at ted.com/conversations/topics/TEDinClass.

View the original article here

Don’t Let These 4 Habits Ruin Your Conversations

Bad Habits Can Ruin Conversations

Why didn’t he call me back?  Why didn’t she laugh at my joke?  Why don’t they want to hang out again?

Do you ever get the feeling that maybe something you did or said sabotaged your conversation (or worse, your relationship!?).

In a perfect world, we could all take the Conversation Skills Assessment Aggregator 2000 and it would spit out a printed analysis of our entire communication profile.  It would detail our every strength and weakness, our every good and bad habit, and even our conversation style.  Maybe it would even make polite suggestions for you in a British accent.

Luckily, you have a good friend who always advises you on your conversation habits.  Oh, you don’t?  Neither do I.  If we are making a conversation mistake, most of us will never find out.  People will just choose not to talk to us as much.  You may not think anything of it.

You may not have a friend or a machine that can politely make suggestions, but there are very common conversation mistakes you can look out for. With a little self reflection and self awareness, you can at least ensure that you are not damaging your conversations and relationships any further.

Let’s look more closely at four of the bad habits:

Do you find yourself just paraphrasing or repeating what the other person said?  If they say, “that was a cool movie!” do you say, “Yeah, that was a really cool movie!”?  Parrots act like they are having a conversation, but in reality, they rarely actually offer anything substantive.  Parrots rely on echoing and paraphrasing others.

Suggestion:  If you find yourself just echoing what they are saying, try to offer substantive opinions or observations as well.

You may have fascinating stories and opinions to share, but if your energy cannot support the comments, people may find you hard to listen to.  Lacking energy or emotion when you talk can ruin your conversation faster than almost any other bad habit.   Good conversation is alive; good conversation flows with energy between the conversationalists.   If you are not adding to the flow of energy, then you are probably subtracting from it.

Suggestions:  Think of your voice as a roller coaster ride for your listeners.  Are you creating a flat, boring ride?  Try to make your roller coaster ride enjoyable for your particular audience; add some vocal drops, some inclines, and vary your speed.  Vary your inflections and emphasize key words as well.

Also, record your voice in private.  In fact, re-read this section in your normal voice and play it back.  If you have never recorded yourself before, you’ll be surprised by what you hear!

The Predictable Talker lives in the serious and literal world.  If they get up to use the restroom, and you ask them where they are going, they will always respond, “to the restroom.”  Everything they say is predictable; they’ll never surprise you with something unexpected.  In contrast, a Playful Talker may respond to that question with a number of unpredictable playful responses.  For example, “I thought I’d leave you with the bill,” or “I’m going to pickup that girl,” or “I’m trying to escape.”  The best conversation is playful and unpredictable; Predictable Talkers have trouble playing!

Suggestion:  Train your mind to start considering the unexpected responses.  Next time someone asks you a question or makes a comment, mentally think about what response would be unexpected or unpredictable (within reason!).  Once in a while, try one of these unexpected comments and see how you do.  You may surprise yourself.

Conversation Narcissists love nothing more than to talk about themselves.  The only reason they ask the other person a question like, “How was your weekend?” is so they can circle it back around to them again, “that’s nice…let me tell you about what happened to me…” They rarely inquire seriously about the other person or ask follow up questions.

Suggestion:  This is easy to fix, be genuinely interested in the other person.  When someone tells you something, keep the focus on them, ask follow up questions, recall previous comments the person said, etc.

Geoff Peart, M.Ed., is the author of the blog, mysocialupgrade.com, where people can learn how to improve their social skills and their lives. All of the content is free and updated weekly.

View the original article here

Now: Join Alice Dreger in a live Q&A on TED Conversations

On anatomy, destiny, marriage … 1-3pm Eastern.

She asks:

The recent passage of gay marriage rights in New York demonstrate what I talked about in my TED lecture — the steady historical movement away from dividing people based on anatomical differences. What do you think our democracy is going to look like in the future, given the ways that we’re increasingly able to see anatomical complexity (variations on categories we thought were simple) and able to change our bodies?

Jump in! http://www.ted.com/conversations/3869/live_ted_conversation_join_te_2.html

View the original article here

Saturday: Join a live Q&A with Morgan Spurlock on TED Conversations

At noon Eastern / 9am Pacific on Saturday, jump into our question-and-answer session with filmmaker Morgan Spurlock — maker of The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. You’re invited to use TED Conversations to ask questions for Morgan to answer. (We just had fun doing one of these Q&As with Hans Rosling.) It’s a chance to ask a longer, more considered questions than in a typical livechat, and to dive into the issues that Morgan explores in his new movie — about how branding and advertising are changing world culture.

At noon Saturday, come to the front page of TED Conversations and join in! And if you want to know more about “the greatest movie ever sold,” here’s the man himself:

View the original article here

Announcing TED Conversations!

We’re thrilled to announce today the launch of TED Conversations, a new social platform on TED.com that connects people for conversation, collaboration and debate. TED Conversations was designed and built from the ground up to foster meaningful conversation among the global community who watch, share and discuss TEDTalks.

Anyone who participates in online communities will find the interface familiar and intuitive. But there are a few unique TED twists:

TED Conversations all fall under 3 categories: Questions, Debates and Ideas. Each can be used to foster a particular type of conversation: By asking a question, you can tap into the expertise of the TED community. By proposing an idea, you can elicit constructive feedback. And by initiating a debate, you can lay out a key issue for spirited discussion.

TED Conversations have an expiration date. We believe that conversations, like talks, benefit from time constraints. So just as TEDTalks are limited to 18 minutes or less, TED Conversations are set to last one day, one week or one month. When you start a conversation, you also decide when it will end; afterward, you can summarize the discussion with a closing statement.

TED Conversations can be linked to specific TEDTalks on TED.com. Users can ask a question, debate an issue or propose an idea that was sparked by watching one or more TEDTalks. This allows a thoughtful exchange among a global community with a shared experience and knowledge base.

TED Conversations can be tagged — and found — by subject. To ease navigation, users can search for specific topics such as “architecture,” “alternative medicine” or “clean energy.”

TED Conversations include speakers and other community rock stars. At launch, TED Conversations includes discussions with TED speakers such as global health expert Hans Rosling, behavioral economist Dan Ariely (author, “Predictably Irrational”), game designer Jane McGonigal (author, “Reality Is Broken”), entrepreneur and marketer Seth Godin (author, “Permission Marketing”, “Tribes”), Rhode Island School of Design president John Maeda (author, “The Laws of Simplicity”), tech gurus Tim O’Reilly and Kevin Kelly, and many more. TED Translators, TED Fellows, TEDx hosts and TED staff are all active on the site.

Start or join a conversation on TED Conversations >>

Or check out these conversations (and dozens more):

Tim O’Reilly asked this question:
William Gibson said “The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet.” What futures have you seen that are here, but unrecognized?

Game designer Jane McGonigal (“Reality is Broken”) started this very active debate:
We spend 3 billion hours a week as a planet playing videogames. Is it worth it? How could it be MORE worth it?

RISD President John Maeda asked:
When will Google’s dominance in search end?

TEDx organizer Zeid Abdul-Hadi (A venture capitalist in Amman, Jordan) asked:
To what extent has social media contributed to the spreading of the People’s revolutions and call for Freedom in Tunisia & Egypt?
(TED Fellows including Ethan Zuckerman and Evgeny Morovoz have replied so far …)

View the original article here