Eric Whitacre TED Talk

Eric is a very open minded man that came up with some great ideas, and knew how to execute them. His presentation about a virtual choir with 2,000 voices was not only genius, but has a lot of future potential. Eric, through a lot of convincing, joined choir in college and became very acquainted with his whole class and choir teacher. At the end of his years at college he wrote a piece of music as a gift to the choir director. A few weeks later, a girl on the internet sang the soprano part to one of his pieces, "Sleep". This triggered a huge thought in his mind. He wondered if he could get enough people to do the same thing, he could possibly make a virtual choir! So, he took action and added a video of him conducting the song, and he got a HUGE amount of people that joined in and sang the song that he had composed. Then, a voluntary editor edited the whole entire thing and put them all singing together in a video. I think that these ideas have even more potential for the future. Just watching this made some of my own ideas spark in my head. What about a virtual play or virtual game? Or even a virtual movie!!! With all of the parts put together by the people of the internet, we could accomplish some pretty crazy stuff!!!!! This definitely excites me and I want to almost take action myself! Overall, this presentation blew my head off and I may consider trying some of my own ideas too!!!

Ali Carr-Chellman TED Talk

Ali's TED Talk, I think, has been the best one that I have seen yet. This was mostly because I agreed a lot with what she had to say, but also because what she was saying so SO deep and IMPORTANT, I almost felt like I needed to help the effort myself! Basically, she talked about the disconnection of boys from school. There were a few reasons for this. One, was because of zero tolerance. This means boys not being able to express what they want to in school, because their ideas are so called "not appropriate". Video games, violence, and that type of stuff is definitely not present in girls the way it is in guys. This makes guys feel like they are rejected and that school is a "girls thing" which essentially demotivates guys and makes them do worse in school! I mean, why has no one realized this yet!?!?!?! These things are what a typical boy IS and what they THINK about. Video games seem like a very general part of a boys life, but when introduced to teachers and others, the boys' ideas are REJECTED. Also, she made a point about how more boys today are taking less interest in writing. This is because the things that they want to write about are no longer accepted and the things that the teacher wants them to write are the things that they have to write! The second reason was fewer male teachers. Throughout history, our male teachers are slowly fading away, again making school look like a girls thing to guys. But not only this is happening. Male teachers acting like roll models for young men is a HUGE important thing for the future development of maturity. When a young boy starts to see nice, composed, older men who are smart, and have dedication, the boys look up to them and finally get the click in their heads at a certain age to change. A lot of this change is not happening because of this, causing more behavior problems, and less hope in boys. The third reason that Ali had was that Kindergarten is the new second grade. As you and me may have noticed, all of todays education wants to be at the top, so things that used to be learned in second grade are now standards in kindergarten. This is definitely going to lead to some problems. Not only will students at a young age have more stress, but we will eventually get to a level where it will almost become impossible for the kids to catch up! For me, elementary school was more of a life skills teaching environment, where you learned to work with other kids, and how to manage different things. Now since I have a younger brother, his elementary "life skills" environment is being replaced by much more academics and "you have to learn this and that" stuff. This overall leads to kids not learning the skills that they needed to, when they needed to. The answer to all of these problems, were a few smart ideas made by Ali. Designing better games (that involve education and can be very entertaining), talking to teachers and everyone involved with the problem to get them to come to their senses too, and to find more money for this type of game design. Hopefully, these ideas will get spread around because I COMPLETELY agree with everything that Ali said and I think she has some of the most important ideas that we have seen yet. This TED Talk was AMAZING and I hope to learn even more!

Dave Eggers TED Talk

I have a TON of take aways from this video. I think that this is the best TED Talk that we have seen yet. Dave talked about a different type of tutoring, and enviornment, that completely enveloped the kids into it. These kids (in one case) got "addicted" to finishing their homework early and it made a huge impact on what they could do afterwords. Dave's idea of this free tutoring business worked pretty well until he ran into a road block. Dave needed a way to cover the cost of the property and other things! This meant building a "mini-shop" inside. This shop, for Dave, was pirate themed and had a ton of pirate themed items that were up for sale in the store. This managed the cost and created a way to attract more people to the business. Also, one of the things that Dave stressed a lot in his presentation, was one on one tutoring. This means, one parent or adult helping one kid at a time. The reason that this is so successful is because the student is forced to focus on their work without anyone having to prompt them to do it on their own. I also think that this is better because kids feel like they have more confidence when they know that they can ask any questions at any time if they do not understand anything. I think that sometimes, with all of the distractions these days, students need time to relax, while doing homework at the same time. Dave's speaking techniques were not the highlight of his talk. Although, a lot of times I got what he was trying to say, all of his thoughts were scrambled around in his language. He also used "um" a lot, which for me was a major distraction at the start and he talked very fast, without going back to recap on what he was saying. But, other than all of this, I really liked his presentation style. On the powerpoint, there were no more than one or two things going on at a time. I really liked this because the one picture or whatever really had to do something with what he was talking about!!! All the pictures of the places shown were very helpful to his overall presentation and left me with the pictures connected to the words in my head. There is a TON that matters from this video. Dave has an extremely important point about how the future of education is shaping to be, especially with after school tutoring and help. He has devised a way to make learning fun and focused at the same time, which in my opinion is how it always should be. I also think than more things like these will be popping up throughout the United States, and the idea that Dave has now shared will be built and built on until it reaches its maximum potential, which in my opinion, will be the future of our education. I really enjoyed spending time watching his TED Talk in class and I hope to hear more updates on these ideas in the future!