Giving Compass' Take:

• Kim Pershoff shares her experience submitting scripts for educational videos to TED-Ed, which runs a YouTube channel that is designed to "spark the curiosity of young learners".

• Pershoff says that these videos are very successful in the classroom with her students. Can TED-Ed create partnerships directly with schools for more exposure?

• Read about other successful learning methods and spaces for students in the classroom.

When Kim Preshoff’s students watch some animated TED-Ed videos, they don’t know that she was the one who came up with the lessons and wrote the scripts until the credits roll.

TED is best known for its videos showcasing its difficult-to-get-into talks from experts and creative thinkers. But the nonprofit also has an education arm with its own YouTube channel filled with animated explainer videos, generally about four to seven minutes long, on topics that may surprise you, such as the “most successful pirate of all time” and the “world’s most mysterious book.”

The organization’s YouTube channel started in 2012 as part of YouTube’s Channels Expansion initiative. Stephanie Lo, director of TED-Ed Programs, tells EdSurge the videos are geared toward people aged 13 to 21, but viewers fall into a broad age range. Currently, the channel has more than seven million subscribers and hundreds of videos, which together have racked up more than a billion views.

Any educator can either suggest a topic she wants to see TED-Ed create a video on, or pitch a lesson herself, as Preshoff does. The core driver of TED-Ed’s content, Lo says, is the question of how to “best spark the curiosity of learners.”

Preshoff doesn’t get paid, nor does she expect to (although TED-Ed gives her and other educators who develop lessons gift cards). For her, it’s enough to help “make a difference in the world” and help other educators have something they can use in the classroom. “It feels like you're giving back.”

“I’ve been teaching for 30 years, I can recall maybe 30 times that my kids have said, ‘thank you so much, we just love you,’” she says. “But to watch the comments from across the world come up on the bottom of my YouTube video, it was pretty astounding and pretty humbling.”

Read the full article about TED-Ed educational videos by Tina Nazerian at EdSurge