The four ideas I stress in teaching social entrepreneurship are these: Big Picture Design (which, itself, encompasses “designing everything,” and “stealing shamelessly” the ideas of others); Making It Appropriate; Making It Stick; and Making It Bigger.
Most people have a handle on the last item — Making It Bigger — equating this with the important idea of taking a small business or non-profit activity and then “scaling it up.” But this definition does not go far enough.
Importantly, another kind of scaling up involves increasing awareness–even if that only indirectly leads to an increase in size of a business or some other social endeavor. A wonderful example of this is the well-known series put on at com, where free talks introduce us to remarkably informative video-bites from people with big ideas. But recently, expanded its focus to include educators whose powerful ideas can be enhanced via animation and then shared with the world on YouTube.
What is taught without animation can be brought to fuller life through animation. And this animation-enhanced great lesson can spill well beyond a single classroom to be viewed by anyone, any time.
-ED’s role is soliciting ideas for lessons (and the person who can deliver it) and recruiting animators whose work may help crystalize the idea. The award-winning, fee-based program, Hey Math!, is one demonstration of the power of animation in teaching math. Ted-ED promises to extend the range of topics that become more accessible through animation and deliver them to the world without charge.
The launch of this effort is fast approaching. Take a lookat this simple, but powerful, way to Make It Bigger.