TED Talks Education on PBS

Last night I watched TED Talks Education on PBS, and it was really good. It was hosted by John Legend who added some pizzazz by playing the piano and singing between speakers. Geoffrey Canada presented, and he was a keynote speaker at ACRL. Since I did not attend the ACRL conference it was nice to hear him speak. Bill Gates spoke as well, he discussed teachers recording part of their lessons, and being in control of the camera. I know many teachers would not like having their lectures/lessons captured. The issue of using MOOCs in lieu of actual instruction is another big issue. This was recently discussed in an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education titled Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad MOOC?.A couple of things stood out to me. The first was Geoffrey Canada’s statement about how educators keep implementing the same education plan, but it did not work 50+ years ago and it still continues not to work in our schools.The second was Sir Ken Robinson’s statement that we have heard many times before that educators are facilitators of learning. The teacher is in the classroom and delivers the lesson, but the students may not be learning.