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Volume 30, Number 1

January/February 2014

TED-ifying School
By ALEXANDER RUSSSO

In 2010, when Gunn High School librarian Meg Omainsky first got the idea of broadcasting TED Talk videos
weekly on the library’s big screen during lunchtime, she had no real idea what she was about to start.

A group of students quickly came to love the short videos made famous by the annual West Coast TED Talk
events, which highlight “ideas worth spreading.” The Silicon Valley students were joined in their enthusiasm by a
handful of Gunn teachers who were already using the videos in class to introduce new ideas or get students to
practice analyzing others’ work.

Then, in 2011, the students lobbied to become one of the first schools in the nation to organize its own TEDx
event, a nearly full-fledged version of the annual event sanctioned by the TED franchise. The talks “bring ideas
not normally introduced into the classroom into school,” says Soham Tikekar, a former student who saw his first
TED Talk—about creativity in school—in photo class.

This month, students will host their fourth TEDx event with the theme “Be the Variable,” which will include a mix
of student presentations and outside experts. The event is anticipated to have an audience of up to 1,000,
including students from nearby schools and a mix of adult and youth speakers. As in previous years, the
presentations will be videotaped, streamed live to the Internet, and then posted online for all to see.

It’s become the most popular event of the year—and a source of understandable excitement for students. “At
school all you do is take notes, prepare for the test, and do the work,” says student organizer Jamie Shen. A
TEDx presentation is a chance for students learn how to organize information and ideas into a compelling
narrative and “have the chance to have an impact on the community,” she says, and for organizers to experience
“the feeling of responsibility for pulling off a professional event.”

Launched in 1984 and originally limited to a handful of entertaining but brief 18-minute (or less) presentations
given live each year, “Technology, Entertainment, and Design” (TED) Talks went online in 2006 and quickly
became a classroom staple. Some of the videos—such as Sir Ken Robinson’s talk espousing the benefits of
creativity in the classroom—have been viewed millions of times.

Over the years, some student-delivered presentations have created hits at the main TED Talks event in Long
Beach or at regional events hosted by nonprofits and universities. A handful of student-aged speakers have
been invited to speak at the main TED event, and some students’ TEDx talks (like this one from Nashville about
our flawed food system) have become popular online.

In addition, a small but growing number of students and educators are now creating their own school-based
events—nearly full-fledged versions of a daylong TED Talk event hosted at a school and organized in large part
by students.

Hosting a standalone TEDx event is no easy feat. For student organizers, the event requires the ability to

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organize and coordinate, to think through logistics and ideas, and to work with adults as well as other students.
Students at Gunn spend an entire year getting ready. Organizers' duties include finding speakers and a venue
that's appropriate, creating a program and TEDx event logo, deciding which TED Talks to play in between live
presentations, scripting and shaping presentations, recruiting an audience, and arranging with teachers and
administrators for students to attend. TEDx events are supposed to be filmed from three different angles,
streamed live online, and uploaded to the Internet. (The head-mounted microphone, use of buzzwords, and
dramatic pauses are optional.)

For student presenters and attendees, the events help connect information being learned in class with the
outside world. “It’s not easy to come up with 18 minutes of information,” says former student organizer Tikekar.
Students and faculty members help presenters figure out how to personalize their talks “so that it’s not just
information that’s being presented.” Students also have to memorize what they want to say and deal with
unexpected audience reactions.

Outside speakers can also be inspiring and mind-expanding for students. For example, Stanford computer
science professor Mehran Sahami gave a talk about computers and magic. “He wasn’t being super technical
about computer science,” recalls Shen, now a senior. “He just showed us all the different ways technology
integrates itself into our lives.”

And yet the students clearly love it. Attendance at the first year at Gunn was relatively small—less than 100
people were in the audience—and featured just eight speakers. But students and faculty members worked hard
to educate teachers about the event’s purposes, and won support from school administrators to allow students to
attend the event during the school day as long as they took attendance. It’s become one of the most popular
clubs in the school, and the daylong event is one of the biggest events on the bustling school campus. [See
Flickr photos here.]

TED doesn’t track the exact number of schools that have gone so far as to host their own full-fledged TEDx
events. So far, at least, the number seems small: the Denver School of Science and Technology held a TEDx in
2012. New York City’s Stuyvesant High School held its first TEDx in 2013. Gunn rival Palo Alto High School is
doing its first TEDx this month, as well.

The number could soon be growing. “I've been contacted by three schools this year looking for guidance on
organizing an event,” says Gunn photo teacher Jennifer Hogan, who’s helped students with the event for the
past four years.

“The process was incredible from so many perspectives,” reports DSST teacher Jim Stephens, who had begun
showing TED Talks in his classes and saw their potential to help promote student literacy. “I wanted to students
to have a voice in not just the content but in the production,” he says about the 2012 event which was organized
around the theme of “Thought, Emotion & Amazement.” And it worked even though the school didn’t have the
resources to videotape and stream the event properly. “The students felt a part of a larger mission in spreading
ideas,” says Stephens. “They are constantly asking me when our next TEDx will be.”

There are even a few local school districts hosting their own TEDx events. Southern California’s Conejo Valley
claims to be “the first TEDx to be produced in association with a Unified Public School District.” The district
superintendent says he supported the idea because of its potential to engage students in a creative, but
concrete, event. It’s also some students’ first chance to be in “an adult, conference-like environment,” says
counselor Jane Carlson, who helps organize the event.

Short of hosting a full-fledged TEDx event, there are many other ways that schools can use the TED format.
They include:

Classroom Uses: Teachers are increasingly using them for “flipped” classrooms, where students watch
presentations at home and then do supervised homework in class. The TED-Ed YouTube channel allows
teachers to find suitable talks (How Folding Paper Can Get You to the Moon; The Power of Simple Words)
or add quizzes and questions to their own creations. Sacramento teacher Larry Ferlazzo has compiled a
list of great TED Talks for teachers.
Culminating Presentations for Project-Based Learning: In Portland (Maine), King Middle School, the TED
Talk format has been “a great way [for students] to present their knowledge” at the end of a semester-long

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unit on energy, says teacher Peter Hill. He cites the authenticity of the TED Talks as a key appeal for
students and teachers. “This is what experts and academics do,” he says.
Capstone Presentations: In Houston, middle school students from the region’s KIPP Charter Schools turn
yearlong independent study projects into 4–5 minute talks, present them to classmates, and then attend a
district-wide event where the best talks are presented to a 3,000-student audience. Though TED
examples are used to inspire students and are part of the rubric the district has created, “It’s not a TEDx
event,” says KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg. “We just use a similar format to have our KIPPsters learn
from each other and celebrate the joy of learning.”
“Youth” Events: There are roughly 100 TEDxYouthDay events held around the world each November
—shorter (half-day), more student-centered events hosted by universities, nonprofits, and K–12 schools
(including elementary and middle schools). Younger students can’t do as much of the planning and
implementation of the event as high school students, says technology coordinator Karen Blumberg, who
works at a private K–8 school in Manhattan called The School at Columbia University that recently hosted
its fourth TEDxYouth event earlier this year. But “any event that can get middle schoolers literally on the
edges of their seats is an accomplishment.”

TED is developing new avenues for schools to use the format all the time. In 2012, TED created a site called
"TED-Ed" to help teachers share and TED-ify their lessons, prompting Gawker to trumpet: “In the future, all
children will be taught by TED Talks.”

This past summer, TED launched “TED-Ed Clubs” for kids 8–18 to support and coordinate schools having kids
watch, analyze, and write their own TED talks for in-class or school-level use.

For some educators and students, however, only a full-fledged TEDx will do.

Hosting their own TEDx “gives [students] the opportunity to become a part of something much greater than their
own school community,” says Gunn’s Omainsky. “This is the transformative type of learning we strive for as
educators.”

Alexander Russo is a freelance education writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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