I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the Genius Hour Project. Seventh and eighth grade students will complete two projects this year, one in the Fall and one in the Spring. These are student driven projects.
Genius Hour originated with GOOGLE, they allowed their employees to use a percentage of the work week to work on a project of their choosing. some of the things that were created as a result of this are gmail, Adsense, Google Glass, and Google News. Other items to come out of Genius hours are a carbon fiber drone, a pillow remote for the T.V. and AMPHY a device that uses kinetic energy to charge a cell phone or other personal electronics.
I have students create a wide range of projects from video games to an in depth look at the history of hats. Some have compared similar food items from different fast food chains while another looked at how music changed over the last century and found a connection between what was happening socially and politically at the time to impact music.
I have found students to be very excited to participate in these projects because the students are choosing topics and ideas that they are passionate about.
Genius Hour originated with GOOGLE, they allowed their employees to use a percentage of the work week to work on a project of their choosing. some of the things that were created as a result of this are gmail, Adsense, Google Glass, and Google News. Other items to come out of Genius hours are a carbon fiber drone, a pillow remote for the T.V. and AMPHY a device that uses kinetic energy to charge a cell phone or other personal electronics.
I have students create a wide range of projects from video games to an in depth look at the history of hats. Some have compared similar food items from different fast food chains while another looked at how music changed over the last century and found a connection between what was happening socially and politically at the time to impact music.
I have found students to be very excited to participate in these projects because the students are choosing topics and ideas that they are passionate about.