The AT&T Hands Ad

Hard to believe that the painted hands in some of the ads run by AT&T are real, but the video shows you that they really did started as intricately painted human hands. Examples of the ads can be found here. You can find links on YouTube for other work by the actual artist, Guido Daniele. Great discussion starter for ideas about illusion, but also the idea of an ad campaign that is genuinely eye catching... say less, communicate more.

A 2,000 voice virtual choir

Eric Whitacre tells the story of his unexpected introduction to the world of music, then goes on to show how he worked with a "virtual choir" of internet friends to create a stunning piece of music. Even though this is art music students will be intrigued by the technology, the human stories behind the production, and the beautiful sounds. Check here for an earlier video with 185 voices. Ask students what makes this story so interesting. For me, it is because it was not a planned concept, but something that arose from a serendipidous event (someone univited posting sung parts to one of Eric's compositions). You can also ask the students what might have had to be done in production to make all these voices fit together, and also what role social media had in this process.

Ze Frank runs a website that invites visitors to play in all sorts of ways

Ze Frank tells a Ted Conference about his website where he devises all sorts of ways for visitors to playfully interract. For instance he asked people to try and make an "Earth Sandwich" by simultaneously laying two pieces of bread on opposite sides of the Earth, and of course post pictures and geo-tag information. There is a great deal of zany playfullness. His site is http://www.zefrank.com/ and there are literaly hundreds of areas to explore. However, his siteis not expressly made for schools, so explore first and go to links you have checked! Students can talk about the process of becoming a "web name"... what is a viral video? How can you earn a living from posting stuff free?

Siftables... toy blocks that are really computers

Imagine... childrens blocks that are actually each tiny computers, and each block is aware of the other blocks on the table. What could you do with that? This is a demo that is probably worth watching all the way through. It includes some adults doing demos, but also some children having fun. You can talk about the bigger issue of whether we actually WANT all our toys to be expensive computers, but also ask if students can imagine how this idea came about. Sometimes great new ideas arrive by pushing two quite disparate ideas together (wooden blocks, computer). What else could students come up with just with that starting point? I wonder if https://www.sifteo.com/ is selling the same object or some kind of copy? Can students work out the issues of moving this from prototype to sale?

Andrew Lack

Hans Rosling has multiple TED gigs... a rare honour in itself. This is a video of one of his earlier talks. He demonstrates a way to visually interrogate complex multi-dimensional statistics, with fascinating results. This video will not run full lenght in some classes, but will captivate the more intellecutally adventurous and capable. You can discuss the idea of "a picture tells a thousand tales", and also take students to visit http://www.gapminder.org/ where he provides the same wonderful graphing tools free, allready loaded with UN data. Gapminder can also be downloaded if you are having 'net issues. If you want to expand on the joys and traps of stats, I can strongly reccomend How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff.

Controlling a crowd of 3,000 via a pre-loaded mp3

Another stroke of genious from the group Improv Everywhere. In this event, over 3,000 people downloaded an mp3 track of music and instructions then everyone pressed "play" at an exact and specific time. This is well documented, including a public "Freeze", dance with an item in a shop, and a mass mumification in a park, with amazing results when the video sky shot is fast fowarded. You can talk with students about the idea of pranks and stunts that amuse and entertain without being destructive, and ask why people get involved. "Flash Crowds" is a broader term for one type of event. You can cross reference to the other video I have posted about a musical TED event.

A musical event takes a conference by surprise

In the grand tradition of Improv Everywhere the team set up an event that takes a TED conference by surprise. What is supposed to be an announcement about a new social media website actually turns into a fully scored musical comment on social media, with a cast of hundreds. This is fairly short so you might even play it, discuss it, then re-run it. The TED version is not available to share, but is available on the TED site here. The group Improv Everywhere has a website that is worth a look. However, in a school setting I would not trawl through this without checking first. They are never horrid but can be edgy or at least "adult".