TEDx Is Not Dead. But Science Education Might Be.

A Natural News article was circulated on Facebook recently with the title “TED aligns with Monsanto.” Loosely, it claims that the organizers of TEDx events, which are independently organized events similar to the well-known TED conferences, are shutting down talks about contentious issues, as though it were becoming a more hardened, conservative organization. What is true about this is that TEDx isn’t going to be quite as generous with their stamp of approval in the future. Some months ago, complaints were made on the /r/tedtalks subreddit about the quality of speakers…

TED Tuesday: Build a School in the Cloud

Sugatra Mitra presents a model for education that I absolutely love — present students with a problem to solve, a practical challenge that demands to be solved, and then provide them the resources that they need to learn for themselves the skills required to solve the problem. What a great idea–put the students in charge of their own skills development! I question, though, how effective that would be in certain situations. Can a student become a skilled communicator without feedback and refinement? Can a kid learn organically the relationship between…