TED-Ed is a free educational platform that allows visitors to engage in, create, and distribute “Lessons worth sharing.” Every Lesson in the TED-Ed library is a result of a collaboration between some combination of educators, learners, animators, and the TED-Ed team. Every feature we’ve built is based on recommendations from members of the TED-Ed community. In this post we’ll elaborate on a five practical ways that we hope you or your organization will continue to help build the TED-Ed platform. 

1. Create a Lesson around your favorite educational YouTube video, and share it with the world.

For inspiration, we’ve listed just a few of our favorite YouTube channels below. You can view and flip their videos within TED-Ed, and, if you like what you see, we recommend visiting their YouTube channel page and subscribing.

Veritasium - Smarter Every Day - Numberphile - Minute Physics - Vihart - C.G.P. Grey - Sci Show - Smart Girls – Bite Sci-zed - Crash Course – Vsauce – PBS Ideas Channel – Asap Science – The Spangler Effect – ThinkrTV –  …tons more channels on YouTube/Edu.

Of course, you could also create a Lesson around any TED Talk, any TEDx Talk, or even around your own videos that you’ve uploaded to YouTube. If you take the time to create a particularly awesome Lesson, please also take the time to nominate it as a Best Flip. We will systematically feature the best community-made Lessons within the TED-Ed Library.

2. Nominate an Educator to be the writer and performer of a TED-Ed Original.

TED-Ed Originals feature audio lessons recorded by educators brought to life by talented visualization artists. We’re constantly seeking nominations for educators (and animators!) in the get involved section of our site. It is also completely appropriate (and common) for people to nominate themselves.

3. Submit a script and/or audio file to be featured in a TED-Ed Original.

We’ve opened up a new tab in the “get involved” section of the site called “Submit a Lesson.” Submitting a Lesson is an alternative to nominating an educator and allows you to go ahead and submit a script and/or audio directly. Selected pitches will be developed into full-blown animations and featured within the TED-Ed library.

4. Tell us how you’re using TED-Ed in your class, at your organization, or in your life.

We enjoy hearing from you, and we love understanding how TED-Ed is being used throughout the world. Your stories help us know what we’re doing right, what we can improve, and what we should do next. They also help us share best practices to the greater TED-Ed community. So, if you’re using the tool, let us know via this form, Facebook, or Twitter.

5. Volunteer to be a BETA tester for TED-Ed.

We’re always looking for willing volunteers to help test out new features and to evaluate the current user experience on the site. If you’re interested in helping us out, please send an email to education@ted.com with the subject line “Beta tester,” and a brief description of who you are and how you’d like to help.