Monday 8 August 2011

TEDGLOBAL 2011: The Stuff of Life

Let's take a break from CLIL for a while, and concentrate on "the stuff of life". Sounds funny? On the contrary, that's something very serious indeed.

You may remember Sugata Mitra's speech - the one Elena found for us. That's one of the speeches recorded during one of the TED conferences (I think 2007). And the TED motto is "ideas worth spreading".
So, who is TED? TED is a number of people who, since 1984, are sharing their ideas for a better future, and a better life, for all of us. There are two conferences a year: one in Spring, in the US, and one in Summer, in Europe. This year's TEDGLOBAL took place in Edinburgh , July 11-15. And its subject was "the stuff of life".

I was in the UK at the time and dreamt of attending. I say "dreamt" because I soon realized that 1) couldn't afford it; and 2) every single place had already been booked looong before.
So I had to wait for the videos to be uploaded on the conference website.

The idea of TEDGLOBAL has been defined "the speed dating of ideas": short speeches about different issues/opportunities/perspectives on a subject (in this case, the stuff of life) one after the other. That means scientists, writers, philosophers, economists, actors, politicians... all of them sharing their point of view, their ideas, their discoveries.
A shower of ideas.

So have a look and be sure - you'll find something for you as well:


An important note: many of the speeches have subtitles in different languages. After all, they're ideas worth spreading...

3 comments:

  1. Hi Laura!
    Are you better with your leg?
    I've just come back from Apulia (the wonderful Valle d'Itria) and read your blog's last posts.
    The TED site is amazing, the idea in itself is outstanding. People from all over the world who give inspiring (and very short) speeches about their creative ideas.
    I'd really like to take part in one of their meetings (we can dream together about that!). In the meantime we can enjoy their videos. I've just watched one about the future of our cities (http://www.ted.com/talks/alex_steffen.html) that can be really useful for the development of my Comenius/Etwinning project.
    Read you soon
    Mariella

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  2. I was very impressed by your post and by TED's site.
    But what surprised me most is that i did NOT know about it. I suppose I'm "a little bit" more experienced than the average internet user but I'd never heard of it.
    The idea is great. Ideas are the real fuel of modernity and sharing experiences is what can skyrocket changes.
    Share the TED's knowledge !!
    Ste

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  3. Hi Mariella,
    thanks a lot for sharing some of your summer with me. I was very impressed by some of TED's videos as well, and I'm sure all of us can find something that suits their lessons.
    So, let's dream together :) who knows, maybe next year...
    Laura

    PS Ste, are you joining us?

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