Reliance on Ourselves, Jessa Gamble

After watching Jessa Gamble's video on how every living organism with two or more cells has an internal clock, I found it slightly controversial because the examples that she used weren't very numerous and convincing. She spoke as though she expected her audience to believe her instead of having their doubts about what it was she was saying. Her presentation technique was also really bland and boring, which made the four minutes of her presentation seem longer than they actually were. I can honestly say that this TED talk was not one of the greatest ones done; a fifth grader could've done better.

She spoke about how if you took away the light, regular and artificial from a person, then they would start to run on an internal clock called the "body clock". Does that mean then that their clock starts running because of the person's habits, or because that's just the was their clock runs? Does every body's clock run on a different time, or on the same? I feel that if every body's internal body clock ran on the same time, we wouldn't be as diverse of a society as we are now, but it would also be interesting if clocks did run on the same time because we all have the same body parts.

Ms. Gamble said that the internal body clock was chemical, but does the battery every run out? Is that when you die, or does the clock not have any influence on a person's life itself? If we as a race don't use our internal clocks, because of environmental influences, then wouldn't we just evolve them away? Why do we all have internal body clocks? Her presentation was so short that either they haven't studied body clocks for very long, or scientists just don't know the answers to these questions. Of course, both of these scenarios wouldn't qualify her for a TED talk because there isn't enough information known and therefore isn't worth the time of the public knowing.

This connects to me because I know realize why I have a hard time waking up so early in the morning and on weekends, my internal clock hasn't set an alarm and the sun is up interfering with my sleep. I don't however know how this TED talk topic relates to education and the world because I don't know why having an internal body clock is relevant to our everyday lives because may of us don't use them. Why do scientists study our internal clocks if we don't use them because of the external clocks we use?

Daniel Pink, Drive and Motivation

I found that this video was more interesting than the others, not for the content, which was fascinating but for the drawings that accompanied it. This showed another way of learning and thinking, this presentation had a different design that was charming. I know that it wasn't technically a TED talk because of the lack of a person, but if it was considered one instead of just a lecture with pictures and phrases to help with the explanation, it would be a great idea for the TED talk final. Doing this as a final would talk a lot of time and effort, but it would be worth it because it would be incredibly creative and inventive.

From this video, I would take away the already known information that the carrot and the stick doesn't always work with businesses and motivation. When a task requiers R-directed thinking (more right brained than left), it actually worsens performance if you entice them with a reward. I found this very interesting and slightly confusing, but with back up scientific studies it was proven true.

Mr. Pink's speaking techniques were more along the lines of putting life into his speech instead of just telling a story, mucking it up with humor and using a lot of power point slides. He made the topic even more interesting than it would have been because he sounded excited about what he was saying. He didn't just explain in a monotone voice because he has talked about motivation a lot, but he instead sounded like he was speaking for the first time to a large group who had never even considered the idea of self-motivation.

The video that we watched, didn't really show a presentation style unless you count the way the information itself was presented. The key phrases from his speech were written on a white board accompanied with pictures to demonstrate another form of teaching instead of lecture which most of educated humanity has become accustomed to. This was a tad bit more interesting.

To me personally, I was able to watch Mr. Pink's video once and get the entire concept without having to go over it agian. This form of presentation help with my learning, but regular lecture would've helped me more in researching for my own TED talk final. I think that if students have trouble paying attention during lecture periods of class, that the education system and teachers should incorporate these kinds of videos. The kid would get the same information, but they would be able to process the information better because they were paying more attention to the topic being discussed. The topic in this video can relate to the world which mainly consists of business because now economists and other businessmen can create a better environment and eliminate the problems of motivation in the work place of R-directed thinking (A Whole New Mind).

I honestly don't understand why this particular youtube video was chosen as opposed to the video shown in class where it actually showed Daniel Pink's face in a standard TED talk. The video shown in class was just like the readings that we were given in class but in the summary version of 20 minutes, and that video was actually pretty well put together, and I would've found it more interesting if we hadn't read all of the material before hand. From that video, I would incorporate the summing up of information that he did at the end of his talk to make sure that the audience understood what his points were; that was a smart move.

Ken Robinson-Creativity in Schools

After watching Ken Robison's video I found it interesting how he incoorperated humor into his speech while still trying to maintain the seriousness of the point that he was making. He also broke his point into two pieces for the first few minutes and then put them together for the end of the intro to his speech. I will take away both of those concepts from the video and try to make them work for my own
presentation.

It seemed as though Mr. Robinson didn't have his speech very organized, because he would tell a story and then make his point, which was a bit confusing considering the fact that the story is put into the speech to restate the point he made or was making. When first watching the video, it seemed as though the humor of the speech was the main part of the TED talk instead of schools killing the creativity of children, this was because there were so many jokes interlinked with his stories and points. His overall ideas though were very fascinating and made me understand why he was chosen to do a TED talk.

I think that his TED talk was so effective because the topic of creativity and schooling relate to everybody who has had public schooling. Of course in today's schooling world it's not as much of an issue, but it is still an issue. Even though schools are now keeping the art and music classes, the content within the classes is still debateable. I personally have never taken an art class that said 'just create whatever you would like' or even 'create something that represents a part of you'; instead they say 'draw that bowl of fruit so that it looks like a bowl of fruit'. Having the art classes seems to make schools look like they are well invested in a child's creativity, the fact of the matter is that they don't let the children flourish with their own ideas. The parts of the world that have that kind of freedom, are the parts with the most indeviduality and probably the highest IQs because they are allowed to develope that part of their brain and can connect their art to other topics being studied in school.

Overall, Mr. Robinson had a good idea with a less than perfect execution, but still good enough to be entertaining and interesting.