Genius Hour

Today is a proud teacher-mama moment. My students are presenting their Genius Hour projects. All semester they have had one class period per week to work on a technology connected project of their choosing. I asked them to pick something related to technology that they would like to learn. Sure, I gave some suggestions for those who didn't know what to do, but some really embraced the idea. I have had kids choose a coding language to learn, working on creating 3D drawings, learning to make websites, program an ozobot, as well as some other truly fun projects.

Yesterday, one student taught the rest of the class how to create music online and played his song for us (which he has also used as background music in his final project). This morning, I'm looking at the computer two of them teamed up to build from scratch that they will be showing this morning. Others have created video games in various platforms. Imagine if we turned all that pent up creativity loose on all their subjects...

Presentation Day

I think one of the most important lessons learned from this is that it is OK to fail. They are not penalized for trying something and changing their mind. (They just have to record their efforts in their journal and explain what was hard or not to their liking.) They can pick up and try something else as long as they are working on something during that class period. If you haven't tried Genius Hour, I think it may be one of the best uses of time I've done with my students.

Stop motion video         
of the boys building
their computer.