References
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May 12, 2019
Hi Team,
In your presentation you noted that anyone could prepare a Ted-Ed lesson. As a teacher, you would vet the information before linking it as a resource for a student, but as an independent learner you may not be able to identify quality and accurate information. I am curious if there any screening process for lessons before they are added to ensure accurate content? How will a learner know that the information is accurate? Is there any doubt to the level of expertise of the facilitator? How does Ted-Ed protect their brand? Thanks!
May 23, 2019
Great question Tanya.
This is a question that our team also considered as we immersed ourselves in to this learning experience. In respect to your very valid questions around validity and accuracy we did take a deeper dive in to some of those questions as well. As to who gets to create a lesson within TED-Ed we discovered content creators can be individuals that range from those that attended a conference to a professor and expert in the space of a particular subject or lesson. What was reassuring was there was a creative collaboration between several experts when creating TED-Ed lessons. Such TED Speakers and TED Fellows, as well as educators, designers, animators, screenwriters, directors, science writers, historians, journalists and editors that were also reviewed by TED-Ed staff and volunteer educators. When presented and paired with evidenced resources and articles, it created a sense of legitimacy and accuracy in our opinion. Having said that I personally feel we need to take the TED-Lessons for what it is from ones perspective and stories. Some of the subjects and lessons are very subjective and abstract and perhaps even newer in concept such as ‘mindfulness’. I feel it is sometimes portrayed in the lens of the speakers personal journey or truth to the subject and/or lesson and may be relatable and may not be at times for some learners. So, it seems like there are a measures put in place to ensure accuracy and validity of content presented in the lesson, however there will also be the perspectives of that individual speaker that comes to the forefront that is their opinion and truth.
As it relates to the comments posted in the DISCUSS section of TED-Ed Lessons, depending on if it is the guided discussion or open discussion, the guided discussions are vetted through the lesson creator before becoming visible to learners. Comments within the open discussion are posted immediately. As these are just comments, discussion points and perspectives of those in the community sharing their ideas and thoughts, not only as a learner, but as an educator, you’d want to take them just as that, an opinion unless further research is done on your part to validate what is being said.
May 26, 2019
Hi Tanya,
Thanks for your valid questions. As Dorothy mentioned above, when it comes to videos produced by Ted-Ed or Ted talks, then there is a vetting process that seems to take place; however, there is not a lot of information as to what that is.
When it comes to individuals creating lessons themselves, they can create them and share them with students or more widely. However, they are not automatically added to the public TED-Ed lesson pool. The best explanation I could find was from the TED-Ed FAQ, “If you have created a lesson page that you’re really proud of, feel free to share it with our team by emailing it to tededselects@ted.com. We’re always excited to see how people are using the TED-Ed platform, and we sometimes even feature exceptional user lessons in our public lesson library!” (General TED-Ed FAQ, n.d.). Thus there does appear to be some sort of vetting process, but it is not clear as to what that is and how much an individual could depend on that vetting process.
References
General TED-Ed FAQ. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://support.ted.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005374713-I-have-an-idea-or-skill-I-d-like-to-share-with-TED-Ed