I saw this come across my Flipboard TED talk feed and thought it was worth sharing:
From the “I have a dream” speech to Steve Jobs’ iPhone launch, all great presentations have a common architecture. At TEDxEast, Nancy Duarte draws lessons on how to make a powerful call-to-action.
What do you think? Are you ready to change the world?
You may have noticed a lot of sites on the web went “black” today. If you tired to find something on Wikipedia you were met with a black screen telling you that the internet must remain free. I’ve talked to many people that have no idea what this is talking about. Someone told me today, “The Internet isn’t free, I pay for it with my cable bill.” I had to explain that what this bill was talking about was the freedom to post and share what you want on the internet. At the heart of the matter is piracy, or the illegal sharing of copyrighted materials on the internet. That’s where SOPA comes from, Stop Online Piracy Act. Now, I need to say upfront, that I’m not in favor of piracy. People that create the movies, music, and books that we enjoy deserve to be paid for what they create (even the ones we don’t enjoy deserve it too). But where SOPA goes a little off track is that it doesn’t really accomplish what it says it wants to do.
I’d love to be able to explain it all in a way that makes the issue perfectly clear, but it’s complicated and there are people smarter than me that have already set out to do that. So if you’d like to know more about the issues that people have with SOPA or why people say it will “break” the internet, watch these videos. I thought they did a great job laying out the issue. Once you know the background and the how things work, you can decide for your self what you think.
Defend our freedom to share (or why SOPA is a bad idea)
Kahn Academy – SOPA and PIPA
What do you think?
This was super cool seeing this kid talk about what he loves. It was a great reminder to me to encourage kids in their interests, you’ll never know where it will take them.
I think the stuff that comes out of the TED conference is some of the best on the net. If you’re not familiar with TED it’s a conference and the name stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. The talks are diverse and I almost always find them fascinating. One of the best parts is they are almost all around 20 minutes, so you can get through one quickly.
This years TED conference is going on right now and here’s the talk Bill Gates gave. The title is How I’m Trying to Change the World Now. It’s worth a watch:
If you liked it I recommend subscribing to their podcast (link opens iTunes). Or if you’re an iPhone user they have an app too.
Here’s another TED video that came across my twitter feed this morning. It’s 10 years old, but it was fascinating to listen to his thoughts about technology, faith, and human short comings.
It has always been a passion of mine to encourage creativity in the students I work with. I love engaging a student in writing, painting, music, video, or what ever their gifts might be. Some parents have been grateful, and others just don’t get it. Sometimes in the busyness it’s difficult to take the time to do it. This talk from the TED conference was a great reminder to me about taking the time and encourage their God given gifts. Also for me as their teacher, to be willing to try to do things differently, and not rely on the same techniques I might have had success with over the years.
The talk is about the education sytem, but it’s totally transferable to the church. It’s definitely worth the 20 minutes to watch it, but if you don’t want to take the time now, you can download it here.
Take some time this summer and spend some time cultivating creativity in your students.