TED-Ed is a newly launched YouTube channel that is dedicated to educating the world one video at a time. The forum invites teachers to share what they think are their best lessons to enhance connectivity between instructors and students, exchange curriculum and pedagogy, and spur curiosity.

The channel was created by the non-profit foundation behind the “enlightening” TED conferences and contains thousands of short (10 minutes or less) animated videos.

The following video was uploaded by David Gonzales who wanted to teach people about symbiosis. It explains that different species often depend on one another and describes the remarkable relationship of the Clark’s nutcracker and the white bark pine, to illustrate the interdependency known as symbiosis:

Youtube channels like TED-Ed are extremely useful to educators and anyone who wants to receive overviews on informational topics because they aid visual and auditory learners . While the lecture isn’t dead, media like the above video is gaining ground in classrooms across the globe.

The process makes adding videos for teachers very easy. After the video entry has been accepted, “staff will work with the teacher involved to compress and refine the information. Once the educator records the lesson in its final form and uploads it to TED’s servers, it’s assigned an animator who gets to work on making an engaging yet informative clip. Each lesson includes captions for the hard of hearing and an Interactive Transcript that lets you click on text to jump to the relevant point in the video.”

TED-Ed is a valuable educational tool that can enhance many different courses and classroom environments.