I discovered TED talks around 2007 or 2008… and I thought they were insanely fantastic. Recently, I have started to watch more and more TED talks. It may replace my “One Tree Hill” addiction.
This past December, Shilo Shiv Suleman gave a TED talk that introduces her new storybook iPad app “Khoya”. Her talk is the title of this post, “Using Tech to Enable Dreaming”. The app she created sounds amazing, it puts you inside the stories you are reading and makes it extremely interactive (there are parts where you have to GO OUTSIDE-a lost art in itself- and take pictures of flowers, or the bark of a tree, or an animal, etc.). In writing workshop I just started my unit on “Fairy Tales”, and my students could not be more excited. This app really works with that unit, the only thing is that it is rated for ages 9+ due to some fantasy violence (have you ever read the original fairy tales? they were dark!). Check out her TED talk here:
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. I just learned this today! Anytime you seen an x, it stands for an independent and local group organizing TED talks, which is great. I have come across some really interesting presentations over the past couple days.
What is your favorite TED talk?
two apples a day 
I don’t know if it was my favorite, but I liked a ted talk about the education system in Finland that I saw recently!