Ted Talks

Presenter: Sir Ken Robinson
Title: Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
Topic: How our schools are killing creativity
Sir Ken Robson gives us a comical yet deep, moving speech on how we should build an educational system that promotes instead of squashing creativity.
Sir Ken Robson is an expert in the field of creativity. His Ted Talks often focus on the idea of a radical rethink of our school’s educational systems. He believes that we should cultivate creativity and promote multiple types of intelligence. Sir Robson says that we don’t get the best out of people because they are taught to be good workers rather than creative thinkers.
The main point of this topic is that schools are crushing creativity, instead of inspiring it like they should. He is saying that we need to rethink our school’s educational beliefs and systems to invite a more creativity-friendly environment.
I think it is a really interesting point. Especially for someone who is in the arts community. Before I came to this school many people would have put eachother down for enjoying things such as art or drama. It would be an odd or weird thing to be seen painting a picture out of sheer enjoyment rather than because you have to do it to pass a certain class. I found that even some of the teachers stopped creativity. Instead of trying to find some sort of outlet for a student who is jittery or unfocused during class, they simply gave them a detention for being a distruption to the class.
Sir Ken Robson’s talk has showed me how badly we need to remake our educational systems. We are far to academic focused in most schools for my liking. We need to look for solutions to problems that lay outside of the usual answers. Instead of giving a student detention, try to find a way to give some sort of outlet for energy or find a new way to keep their attention. Get more students to participate in a creative activity be it in sports or the arts.




Presenter: Matt Cutts
Title: Matt Cutts: Try something new for thirty days
Topic: Trying something you have really wanted to do and sticking to it
Think of something that , for the longest time, you have wanted to try or have been meaning too do. But unfortunately you just never got around to do it. Matt Cutts gives you the idea of trying that thing for thirty days as his challenge to you.  It’s short, sweet, and offers up an interesting way to reach your goals and try out new things.
Matt Cutts works for Google on the search engine. He was the man who wrote the first version of Safe search, a family setting, for Google.  He enjoys aiding webmasters in learning how the Google search engine actually works. He is an advocate of cutting down such internet problems like link spamming.
The main point of this Ted talk is to get people trying new things, to get them to finally go out and give parasailing a go! To finally stop drinking so much pop. Even if it is only for thirty days, it could change your life!
There are certain things I’ve always wanted to try, but have been to nervous or fearful to. I think this idea that he has is brilliant.


Presenter: Richard Seymour
     Title : How beauty feels
    Topic: Do we feel beauty or think beauty?
     Beautiful objects surroud us. Great works of art, breath taking scenery, or a body or face, but how do we know it's beautiful? Why does it matter to us. Richard seymour delves into the reasoning behind why we believe things are beautiful.
     Richard seymour is a designer who works with soul. He creates a diverse menagerie of objects from iron to sleek, modern motorcycles. His partnership, SeymourPowell is considered quite high up in the business world. They have worked with such companies as Ford and Nokia and the pair can often be seen on british television.
    The main point of Richard's Ted Talk is why we find things beautiful. He shows us that a simple picture drawn by a five year old appears boring or uninteresting to the general populace. But when he reveals that the picture was the last thing that 5 year old Heidi did before she died our perception of this drawing changes. It draws up new meaning and feelings for us. What once was a simple picture is now a beautiful work of art with a story.
   I really enjoyed this Ted Talk.  It sort of opened my eyes to the truth of why we find things so beautiful. Not just by how it look but also by how it makes us feel. It's incredible how easily our ideas of beauty are changed with a few simple words. Not only that but beauty is also a matter of opinion. I may find something about a story beautiful, but from the point of view of someone who hates books, it can't be beautiful.
  The one image I will remember is that picture drawn by 5 year old Heidi. It explains most of this talk quite well.

 Presenter : Gever Tulley
  Topic: 5 dangerous things you should let your children do or use.
    Title: 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do
Gever Tulley gives us a lesson on what sort of the dangerous things we should be letting children do and how it would be good for both us and parents.
     Gever Tulley is the co-founder of Tinkering school, a week long program for lucky kids who get to work with power tools, solve puzzles and create! He is also a software engineer and paragliding teacher.
       This man shows us the five main things that we, as society, consider to be dangerous should let our youth and children do. From playing with fire, to dismantling electronics, and even to owning a pocket knife, Gever Tulley makes some interesting points. This all relates to how we may be stifling children's creative sides or puzzle solving skills by not letting them do these things or use these items. A pocket knife can teach a child about survival skills and using the tools at hand. Dismantling objects allows them to see how things tick and function.
         I enjoyed this talk quite a bit. The mix of humor and seriousness was well put. It sort of challenges the way society thinks too. We've been taught that these are bad things that we should stay away from or not do. This man is telling us to do the complete opposite of what society thinks. Let our children do it.

 Presenter : Graham Hill
     Title: Less stuff, more happiness
   Topic: Owning less, and living in a smaller space will reduce carbon footprints, money problems and happiness levels
   Graham showed us his home. A small space less than 600 square ft. He revealed to us how much space Americans of today are actually taking up with all their stuff!!  And the amount they take up has increased drastically over the past 50 years. Not only do we need more space at home for everything we've bought, but we also use storage lockers now! A billion dollar enterprise. Imagine how much happier we could be, he tells us, if we just had less.
   I think that this can apply to everyone. Everyone stresses out over having things. I have to have the newest iphone, the newest computer, the newest car, just endlessly wanting things. We take up as much space as is, we really oughtn't try to take up more. People have problems with letting go aswell. You can't keep the shirt you havent worn for 3 years forever you know.

Presenter: Mike Biddle
   Title: We can recycle plastic
     Topic:  The development of a cheap and super effective plant that can recylce most all plastic
 Compared to the huge amount of metals that are recycled, a mere 10 percent of plastic is recycled. Mike Biddle is fed up with this and has developed a plant that can and will recycle any type of plastic.
    Mike Biddle is a plastics engineer who in the early 90s set out to find a solution for the lack of recycling being done.He eventually came up with and pateneted a 30-step platics recycling system that includes such things as magnetism and use of plants! He also uses a process called above ground mining.
   There are those who see a giant pile of smashed cars in the local landfill as trash to be disposed of through the use of a furnace or some other contraption. But then there are people like Mr. Biddle who see it as an above ground mine. He says that there are many useful raw materials in trash such as cars or plastic. All w ehave to do is use them. He showed several pictures and diagrams showing why metals ( the less valuable resource) are more recycled than plastics. He says, because it's easier, simple as that. Companies will actually burn most of the plastic so they can get to the metals.
         I find this to be an interesting and to be honest very inspiring topic. We truly do not put enough effort into keeping our planet healthy. Just burning or landfilling isnt going to help. And neither will just mining more and more out of the earth. We need to take some action, like Mr. Biddle. Unfortunatley we are not all plastics engineers so we cannot doexactly what he did. But we can work on a smaller scale.

 Presenter: Edith Widder
    Title: The weird, wonderful world of bioluminescence
    Topic: Showing glowing undersea life and bioluminescent creatures
Bioluminscence specialist Edith widder was one of the first to film deep sea life such as this. Now she has decided to share it with us.
     Edith Widder is a bioluminescent specialist and uses her knowledge to help design and build new submersible equipment for studys on these creatures of the dark deep. In 2005 she founded an organization known as ORCA. This organization is dedicated to the protection and preservation of  aquatic ecosytems and the species within them through use of technology.
  Edith Widder is quite enthusiastic about this topic. With her natural comedic ease, this presntation goes from being a possibly boring idea to quite entertaining. Just seeing the presentation you can't help but gape. It's simply amazing what these creatures of the deep oceans are capable of.And even more surprising is how practical the use of these light shows are! They arent just for show, they almost like a language. A way that these fish can communicate with eachother, attract attention to predators or even scare other fish away. The array of colors that can emit from a single organism is purely fascinating and awesome.

Presenter: Pranav Mistry
    Title: The thrilling potential of sixthsense technology
    Topic: Pranav demonstrates some of his sixthsense items that allow the physical world to connect to the digital.
      In TedIndia, a man named Pranav Mistry is showing to us how there are objects that help us connect the physical world to the digital world. This includes delving deep into the Sixthsense tools. During an onstage Q&A he will be opening software of SixthSense for all to use in the near future.
   Pranav Mistry is a graduate of IIT and a PhD in the Fluid interfaces group at MIT's media lab.
I found this to be quite an interesting topic. Isn't it odd how we seem to be more and more connected to our technology. First we have cellphones, then computers with knowledge at our fingertips. Then we could control household objects through the use of our phones and now this! It's almost like we're becoming dependant on technology.Who knows what we'll be doing  next. Adding chips into our brains that allow us to access the internet? Maybe we'll have wristwacthes that allow us to see the person we're calling while playing a video game at the same time! With the direction we're heading, virtually anything is possible.