The TED app

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You're probably aware of what a TED Talk is. You might have had a teacher put one on because it was related to a topic your class was discussing one day. You might have seen an ad for one, or seen one in your YouTube recommendation feed. In case you aren't familiar with them, TED Conferences is a non-profit American media company, that spreads ideas by inviting people to present short yet impact "talks" in front of a live audience. These talks are then posted online to be shared with the internet for free. You might have also heard of TEDx talks. TEDx talks are an offshoot of TED talks. They follow the same idea, but they are local and independently organized.

But what are these talks about? Well, anything really. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, but the subject areas that these talks discuss have broadened over time. They can range from educational, to comedic, to serious. They can be about science, technology, business, practical jokes, psychology, sociopolitical issues, personal stories, inspirational stories, etc. If you can communicate an idea in 18 minutes or less, it could be a TED talk.

    I'm in the group of people that learned about TED talks mostly through YouTube. Every so often a TED or TEDx talk pops up on my feed, and if it looks interesting I decide to give it a watch. If it's educational, at least it will be worth my time. I recently learned that TED actually has an entire app dedicated to their talks, called TED. It's available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, and is free. It offers a full selection of TED talks, with subtitles in 100+ languages. It's updated continuously so you can always watch the latest talks, and it has a "Surprise Me!" feature that gives you a random talk to enjoy if you're feeling indecisive.

This is always a plus, as I often find myself scrolling through YouTube or Netflix, never being able to make a decision because I'm overwhelmed by the amount of choices I'm presented with. I can see this app being very useful in the classroom. I can't count how many times a teacher wanted to show our class a TED talk on YouTube, but ran into problems. Maybe they can't find the Ted talk because it gets lost in the search results. Sometimes they would click on the video but get interrupted by an advertisement. The TED app has no advertisements, as far as I'm aware. You can download and watch talks offline using the TED app. There's no need to sit around, waiting for the TED talk to stop buffering because the school WiFi is bad.


I personally feel that in a time where a lot of people, including myself, use their free time to mindlessly consume social media content, an app like TED is perfect for providing entertaining, yet educational content as an alternative. I definitely see people using this app in a similar manner to podcasts or e-books.

TED app -

More information about TED Talks -
TED website: https://www.ted.com/

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