Genius Hour is genius!

Finally I have found the time to write about my first Genius Hour experience- it was excellent! My students were totally engaged, so was I. It was so exciting to see them all absorbed by the work they had chosen and planned for themselves.

I’m glad I had made time for two planning sessions before our two hour genius hour. It helped my students be very clear on what they wanted to achieve in the time, whether it would be achievable and what they needed to have ready for the session. I had a note that went home, on it students could ask for help from home (The note is based on someone else’s who was running great Genius Hour sessions in their classrooms. For the life of me I can not find the source of where I got this from, if it was you let me know so I can acknowledge you!) Here is the note I used For my Genius Hour project I will be working with

I found the two hour session worked well with my students. It was long enough for the students to complete their projects. Oh, I tell a fib, the two students making a Pivot stick figure animation didn’t complete it in the two hours. At the end of the two hours the students had a criteria sheet to complete as a way to help them reflect on Genius Hour and how they used the time. It wasn’t a very successful way of reflecting, the conversations we had were far more useful as were the questions asked by the students of the other students during sharing time.

My students are still talking about Genius Hour and desperate for another. Many of them have already planned what they will work on next time. I am going to talk to the other teachers about Genius Hour with the hope that we can have a whole school Genius Hour. How cool would that be?

I’ve connected with lots of other Genius Hour teachers through Twitter #geniushour . My students and I love reading about what other grades are doing. You can check out our class blog to see some of our Genius Hour writing http://participate.global2.vic.edu.au/

I’d love to hear about your Genius Hour experiences and what you plan to do next if you are a Genius Hour regular. Have you used it in different ways? Have you had a Genius hour for your staff?

Is Genius Hour a way to get into Rhizomatic Learning?

Of all the many different ideas, skills and tech that the Etmooc course has introduced me to, rhizomatic learning is the one that I have been thinking about- often. I had no idea rhizomatic learning even existed until we started discussing it as part of Etmooc.

Before I watched the Blackboard Collaborate session with Dave Cormier (You can access the recorded Blackboard collaborate session with Dave Cormier here.) I googled ‘Rhizomatic learning’ and found Dave Cormier’s blog “Dave’s Educational Blog” and did some reading. The idea of rhizomatic learning was making my brain hurt. (The last time my brain hurt like this was when I learnt about Inquiry learning with Lane Clark. I mowed lots of new neuron pathways that year!)

What on earth was it all about? Watching the recording helped me make sense of what I had read and the idea fascinated me. What on earth does it look like? How do you manage that style of learning/teaching in your classroom?

At the same time my brain was trying to process rhizomatic learning and find how it ‘fit’ with other ways of learning I knew about, I was reading lots about teachers who were using Genius Hour with their students. Last year I read Daniel Pink’s book “Drive” and loved the idea of giving staff members time to work on something they were passionate about. Now I was finding out that there were teachers out there using the idea with their students.

There are great blog entries out there about Genius Hour with lots of information to help get you started. I visited- Joy Kirr’s blog,  Denise Krebs Class blog and personal blog, Genius Hour wiki space,  Mrs T’s class blog,  It’s all about learning and Integrating technology, my journey.

This week my Grade 5/6 and I will experience our first Genius Hour. We had two planning sessions last week during which students needed to plan who they would work with, if anyone, what materials they would need and if there was anything they had to do before Genius Hour to be ready on the day. To say the students are excited and cannot wait for Genius Hour to arrive would be a major understatement!

I am wondering if Genius Hour is like a mini version of rhizomatic learning. Is this a way to get used to the idea of students driving their learning? Of the students saying to their teachers “ I know a bit about this but I really want to learn more.” And if this excitement and engagement happens with rhizomatic learning too then how do we get more of it happening in our classrooms?

What do you think? Do you have Genius Hour in your classroom and/or school? Are you a rhizomatic learning ‘oldie’ who can help a ‘newbie’ learn more? I’d love to hear from you.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

I was very excited to sign up for etmooc and totally unprepared for how reluctant I was to post anything online. I set my blog up fully expecting that I would have my intro done in no time and being adding to it regularly. NOT!
Turns out I was completely overwhelmed by everything, as were many other etmooc-ers. I have been following along- participating in twitterchats, Blackboard Collaborate sessions and am slowly getting around to watching the sessions I have missed but just could not bring myself to actually post anything on my blog.
Then today I gave myself a good talking to- “You signed up for etmooc knowing it was going to be challenging and you were going to be out of your comfort zone, so, what are you complaining about?!” You know what, I was right. I had known I was going to be learning lots of news things and that the most important part of all was to be part of the etmooc community conversations.
So, here I am, now getting active on my blog. I am feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

At last! I have uploaded my introduction.

My introduction from Carolyn on Vimeo.

I bet you were all wondering if I was ever going to do an introduction, actually, I was too! It is very short but not too shabby I think, for a first go. The music is the start of “Great Southern Land” by Icehouse.

#Etmooc here I come!

Having signed up for #etmooc I have been wondering if I will be able to actually do the tasks and here I am writing my first entry on the blog I just set up! I am very excited about being involved in the mooc, something I have never done before but I know I will learn heaps and connect with lots of other educators out there. It’s #etmooc-ly exciting!

Next job is to create my introduction.