Captivate your students with TED Ed videos!

Using TED Ed sources to make lessons more productive

TED Ed videos are great source of materials to develop listening skills and improve vocabulary. There are several subjects to choose in the catalogue that makes it useful for everyone with different interests. Another advantage is that the videos are designed to last 4-6 minutes which may not take too long time to watch. The videos provide reasonable information within this time. Also, this length of time can make them suitable to use in language classrooms.

Most of the videos are animated and can attract learners' attention easily. Videos are skillfully crafted with vibrant colours and amazing animations. 

TED Ed is not only useful for language learning, but also to learn other sciences like chemistry, environmental studies or history. Students will expand their horizons by watching diversity of topics.  To be honest, I myself as a teacher find TED Ed videos fascinating for giving me a lot of aha moments. Teachers themselves are learners through their careers, after all. 

I usually recommend my students to watch TED Ed at home too. These videos help to improve listening and speaking skills. Damayanti and Sumarniningsih (2022) noted that TED-Ed videos can be applied as authentic listening materials in EFL classrooms to enhance student’s listening skills. 

Generally, this source is suitable to intermediate level learners. Also, TED Ed sources maintain learner autonomy through independent learning. Interestingly, I sometimes find my students discussing and debating the issues they watched in the videos after the classes which made me believe that TED Ed videos stimulate group discussions and collaboration. Therefore, I recommend teachers to use these sources in the lessons. 

The videos have subtitles which may be helpful for learners to improve vocabulary and grammar. Also, subtitles may facilitate better understanding of the context. Moreover, the animations used in the videos based on interesting content can enhance involvement, promote learning by remembering the words easily (Rashtchi et al., 2021).

However, TED Ed videos have some limitations. Firstly, these videos are not specifically aimed for language learning. Language level of the videos are quite advanced that may make it difficult to understand for lower level learners. Teachers should take scaffolding into consideration while choosing TED Ed videos as lesson materials. Secondly, the videos often reflect Western perspective that might cause cultural misunderstanding in some other contexts. These factors may urge teachers to be more careful and selective. 

Overall, TED Ed videos can be used as stimulating materials in the lessons considering their limitations. 

A link for a TED Ed video

References

Damayanti, D. A., & Sumarniningsih, S. (2022). The effectiveness of TED-ED videos as audiovisual input in listening activities. Journal of English Language and Education, 7(1), 114-122.

Rashtchi, M., Khoshnevisan, B., & Shirvani, M. (2021). Integration of Audiovisual Input via TED-ED Videos and Language Skills to Enhance Vocabulary Learning. Mextesol Journal, 45(1), n1.

Canvas platform

 

My thoughts on Canvas

 

I have been working at MA TESOL programme at Webster University in Tashkent since 2023. This is how I started using Canvas online platform as a teacher. Canvas offers a lot of advantages to a teacher to stay organized, prepare for the lessons productively and deal with the cognitive and emotional load effectively.  

Here is how Canvas looks. It is well organized with Dashboard for the courses in the middle, teacher's account, Inbox for communicating with students via email, Help centre for emergencies on the left and teacher's To Do list for checking formative and summative assessments on the right. 

I find Canvas easy to navigate and comfortable to use. As most educational institutions in Uzbekistan still do not have an online platform to operate systematically, I would recommend them to implement Canvas to create  better and easier working environment for teachers and accessible sources for students to help them thrive in learning. Mpungose and Khoza (2022) investigated strengths and limitations of Canvas and found out that this platform can provide students with several useful options.

Each course has the following elements as given in the photo. The syllabus is outlined in the Home section that makes it easily available for the teacher and to students to address throughout the course. Also, grading policies, library guide, instructions for using APA citations and other important guidelines are placed along with syllabus. I find this layout very well-structured. 

A limitation I noticed while using Canvas is it requires passcode confirmed by Microsoft Authenticator app every 14 days. It does not require passcode in each access. If the device is lost or stolen within 14 days time, third parties can have access to sensitive information such as students' personal information and grades which is dangerous. Other drawbacks of Canvas mentioned by Oudat and Othman  (2024) are navigational difficulties, issues with integrating some third-party tools and difficulties with mastering the platform’s full capabilities.

Formative and summative assessments are submitted with a due date and there is an automatic subtraction for the scores for late submissions. Standard rubrics are provided for assignments so that the teacher will have a credible assessment while marking the students. Another useful feature I like about Canvas is there is a section for the teacher to provide feedback with several useful functions such as voice recording, video recording, writing text and emojis. I use all of these functions while I am providing feedback that help me to be more flexible.

Announcements section is an important element on Canvas. Teachers use it to send welcome messages in the beginning of the course that are motivating for students. Moreover, it is useful in emergencies to announce lesson time change or to inform about Office hours when needed. 

Organizations may facilitate both face to face and online learning through Canvas. Zoom is used for online sessions. I schedule 8 recurring Zoom sessions in the beginning of the term and announce it to students. Another useful function is the lesson can be automatically recorded in the cloud to make it accessible for the students who are unable to participate in the lesson to watch and learn later. 

 

In conclusion, Canvas can be a very helpful platform to create better teaching and learning environments. 

Here is the link if you want to try Canvas!

https://www.instructure.com/en-gb/canvas utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=canvas-redirect

References

Oudat, Q., & Othman, M. (2024). Embracing digital learning: Benefits and challenges of using Canvas in education. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 14(10), 39.

Mpungose, C. B., & Khoza, S. B. (2022) Postgraduate students’ experiences on the use of Moodle and Canvas learning management system. Technology, Knowledge and Learning, 27(1), 1-16.