Why should attendance at a TED conference (in any of its versions: Active, Global, Women, Youth or TEDx) be mandatory Professional Development for educators? 1. If we are teaching for the future, then we need to know about the future. Do I really need to say more?
2. TED-ED. TED-Ed had a real presence at TEDActive 2013 and 2014. Once educators and the general public realize what this education platform is capable of doing and then begin to use it, education will never be the same again. Check out the remarkable TED-Ed Lesson Library. It has about 139, 544 FREE lessons. That's like 139, 544 remarkable educators banding together to build the best curated library of lessons the world has ever seen.
3. Practice the art of being an entrepreneurial educator by facilitating a TED-Ed Club or curate, organize or volunteer at a TEDx Event. Go to one of these big events. Learn how it's done and then bring the excitement of "ideas worth sharing" to your own community. It will change your life.
4. Multi-disciplinary learning at the forefront. In this day and age, why are educational institutions still insisting on putting up walls instead of breaking them down? The wicked problems of today are not going to be solved by specialists working by themselves, but by millions of minds working together, sharing and synthesizing so that crowd accelerated innovation can work it's magic. Watching great minds discover other great minds is truly a pleasure. Listening to them coming up with innovation is an eye-opening experience that is profoundly humbling and inspiring all at the same time.
5. Network, network, network: there isn't one person who attends TED, TEDActive, TEDGlobal, TEDWomen, TEDYouth or, for the most part, many of the major TEDx Events, who doesn't bring their A-game to the table. The application process alone ensures that a highly motivated and curated group of change-agents end up converging upon the conference locations with the sole intent to learn and then go back to their communities and do something with their newfound knowledge.
6. You leave dreaming bigger than you have ever dreamed before.
