What Makes A Good Ted Talk

    This week, we saw a lot of amazing Ted Talks made by professional public speakers. Many of the speakers had similar techniques throughout their speeches, but there were different qualities involved as well. Our class learned a lot on how to make a great Ted Talk for our upcoming project.
Every Ted Talk we saw had excellent visuals in the background, while the speaker was talking. That seems to be one of the main things that makes a Ted Talk different from a regular speech. Visuals allow for listeners to stay interested in what the speaker is saying. Having pictures can also remind a speaker what they are going to say next. Another thing the Talks had in common were they were all spoken by adults. An interesting thing I would like to research in the future would be seeing if there are professional Ted Talks made by children or teenagers like us. I don't watch Ted Talks too often so I don't know the answer to this question yet but it is just something I noticed that interests me.
There were also things that people did differently in the Ted Talks. For example, some talked longer than others. Even though I believe there is a time limit for each Talk, I still just thought to note this difference. Since the limits were different, some speeches seemed more rushed than others. Some people spoke very clearly while others were harder to understand and the number of visuals in each presentation also were different each time. Although all Ted Talks have a main takeaway, some of the Talks have a more serious ending statement than others. This was evident as we watched the speeches where some topics were overall more serious then, say, the one before it.
We learned a lot of ways to make a good Ted Talk. We learned that we need an introduction that establishes credibility and grabs the audiences attention. The body of the presentation should have all your content and talking points. Putting humor throughout the presentation is also helpful. In the conclusion you need to have a clear take away. You can end in a question, you want the audience to continue thinking about, or a call to action, making the audience want to do something about what was said. These techniques ensure that the audience will remember the clear, main point of your argument.
Overall I am pretty excited to start this project. This project is taking place over a long period of time but I plan on starting research as soon as possible. I need to do a lot of research on my topic to obtain a decent amount of credibility. I also want to find some direct quotes from professionals that actually work and live learning about my topic, which has to do with the myth of having to go to collage to succeed. I am planning on saying my speech, recording it and putting it into iMovie. I will then add my pictures to add visuals to the presentation. I'm really glad that we got to choose our topic and I am excited to start research. I think that this will be a great learning experience and will prepare us for other projects in the future.

http://blog.ted.com/10-tips-for-better-slide-decks/