Some Oceanside high school students are learning the art of the international phenomenon known as a TED Talk.
The video platform famous for spreading ideas and inspiration now wants the input of young people.
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. But in the past two decades, the video platform has grown to include talks by experts in science, business, education, and the arts among many other disciplines.
Sarah Watson, 15, took her first steps toward someday delivering a professional TED Talk earlier this semester.
She is a ninth-grade student at El Camino High School in the Oceanside Unified School District. The school offers a unique entrepreneur class that prepares freshmen for public speaking and in-depth research.
“I want to teach art, so I was like, I should make a website but I also want to do the business," Watson said after delivering an eight-minute presentation on her passion project for an audience of her classmates. It was done in the format of a TED Talk.
El Camino High School was recently chosen as an official TED-Ed campus. The honor included access to the video platform's extensive curriculum and library.
“We have a certain curriculum that we have to do with them. We report every week. We have the students online talking to TED instructors taking it step by step," said Tom Voris, the teacher who got the attention of the TED Talk platform because of the entrepreneur class he developed.
It is a chance for students to create, design, and execute their more ambitious ideas.
Ninth-grader Katelyn Ho, 14, combined her love of math and reading and published a picture book. She shared her process in TED Talk style during an assembly, Friday. She used her sense of humor to calm her nerves.
“I try to seem as social as I can even though I’m really shy. So, I try to make a lot of jokes to lighten up the mood and use it to get to know other people.”
El Camino in Oceanside Unified is one of just seventeen schools across California given the TED-Ed designation.
