TED-Ed
TED-ED: The benefits of a bilingual brain - Mia Nacamulli
It's obvious that knowing more than one language can make certain things easier - like traveling or watching movies without subtitles. But are there other advantages to having a bilingual (or multilingual) brain? Mia Nacamulli details...
TED Talks
TED: A visual history of social dance in 25 moves | Camille A. Brown
Why do we dance? African-American social dances started as a way for enslaved Africans to keep cultural traditions alive and retain a sense of inner freedom. They remain an affirmation of identity and independence. In this electric...
Crash Course
How To Speak Chemistrian: Crash Course Chemistry
Learning to talk about chemistry can be like learning a foreign language, but Hank is here to help with some straightforward and simple rules to help you learn to speak Chemistrian like a native. Table of Contents Determining Formulas...
Crash Course
Langston Hughes & the Harlem Renaissance: Crash Course Literature 215
In which John Green teaches you about the poetry of Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes was a poet and playwright in the first half of the 20th century, and he was involved in the Harlem Renaissance, which was a cultural movement among...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Romance and revolution: the poetry of Pablo Neruda - Ilan Stavans
Get to know Pablo Neruda, one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. -- A romantic and a revolutionary, Pablo Neruda was one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century, but...
TED Talks
TED: An honest history of an ancient and "nasty" word | Kate Lister
With candor and cunning, sex historian Kate Lister chronicles the curious journey of an ancient, honest word with innocent origins and a now-scandalous connotation in this uproarious love letter to etymology, queens, cows and all things...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The rise and fall of history's first empire | Soraya Field Fiorio
History's first empire rose out of a hot, dry landscape, without rainfall to nourish crops, without trees or stones for building. In spite of all this, its inhabitants built the world's first cities, with monumental architecture and...
TED Talks
Wade Davis: Dreams from endangered cultures
With stunning photos and stories, National Geographic Explorer Wade Davis celebrates the extraordinary diversity of the world's indigenous cultures, which are disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate.
Crash Course
Cultures, Subcultures, and Countercultures: Crash Course Sociology
What is culture? How do we define it and how does it change? We’ll explore different categories of culture, like low culture, high culture, and sub-cultures. We'll also revisit our founding theories to consider both a structural...
TED-Ed
Who decides what's in the dictionary? | Ilan Stavans
While the concept of a dictionary dates back to ancient civilizations, the first English dictionary wasn't published until 1604. In the centuries that followed, many more dictionaries were written by individual authors who chose what to...
TED Talks
TED: The unexpected beauty of everyday sounds | Meklit Hadero
using examples from birdsong, the natural lilt of emphatic language and even a cooking pan lid, singer-songwriter and TED Fellow Meklit Hadero shows how the everyday soundscape, even silence, makes music. "The world is alive with musical...
TED Talks
Rajesh Rao: A Rosetta Stone for a lost language
Rajesh Rao is fascinated by "the mother of all crossword puzzles": how to decipher the 4000-year-old Indus script. He's enlisting modern computation to try to read this lost language, the key to understanding this ancient civilization.
TED Talks
TED: Can a computer write poetry? | Oscar Schwartz
If you read a poem and feel moved by it, but then find out it was actually written by a computer, would you feel differently about the experience? Would you think that the computer had expressed itself and been creative, or would you...
TED Talks
Liz Kleinrock: How to teach kids to talk about taboo topics
When one of Liz Kleinrock's fourth-grade students said the unthinkable at the start of a class on race, she knew it was far too important a teachable moment to miss. But where to start? Learn how Kleinrock teaches kids to discuss taboo...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why should you read "Hamlet"? - Iseult Gillespie
Explore William Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, “Hamlet,” a play about conspiracy, deception and the tragic consequences of indecision. -- “Who’s there?” Whispered in the dark, this question begins a tale of conspiracy, deception and...
Be Smart
Why Music Moves Us
How can simple sound waves cause so much emotion? I went from my comfy chair to the streets of Austin to investigate how it might be written into our neuroscience and evolution. Modern neuroscience says our brains may be wired to pick...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
An animated interpretation of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken"
TED Talks
TED: The enchanting music of sign language | Christine Sun Kim
Artist and TED Fellow Christine Sun Kim was born deaf, and she was taught to believe that sound wasn't a part of her life, that it was a hearing person's thing. Through her art, she discovered similarities between American Sign Language...
TED Talks
TED: A one-man musical phenomenon | Jacob Collier
Jacob Collier is a one-man band and force of nature. In a dynamic, colorful performance, he recreates the magical room at his home in London where he produces music, performing three songs in which he sings every part and plays every...
TED Talks
TED: Wisdom from great writers on every year of life | Joshua Prager
As different as we humans are from one another, we all age along the same great sequence, and the shared patterns of our lives pass into the pages of the books we love. In this moving talk, journalist Joshua Prager explores the stages of...
TED Talks
Jacqueline Woodson: What reading slowly taught me about writing
Reading slowly -- with her finger running beneath the words, even when she was taught not to -- has led Jacqueline Woodson to a life of writing books to be savored. In a lyrical talk, she invites us to slow down and appreciate stories...
Crash Course
How and Why We Read: Crash Course English Literature
In which John Green kicks off the Crash Course Literature mini series with a reasonable set of questions. Why do we read? What's the point of reading critically. John will argue that reading is about effectively communicating with other...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why should you read "Waiting for Godot"? - Iseult Gillespie
Two men, Estragon and Vladimir, meet by a tree at dusk to wait for someone named "Godot." So begins a vexing cycle where the two debate when Godot will come, why they're waiting and whether they're even at the right tree. The play offers...
Curated Video
China Language
New ReviewSince 1950, the official language of China has been Mandarin, called Putonghua or “common speech.” All schools in China teach Mandarin, also called Standard Chinese, and it’s used on television, radio, and in most day-to-day business....