I am sitting at Starbucks working with my pal and teaching partner, Hugh McDonald, on our two Professional Development Day presentations that we will be giving this August.  One is called "Introduction to the iPad as an Assessment and Learning Tool".  We thought it would be cool to use a linoit board to gather information from you, our wonderful PLN!  We would love to know what apps you love using with your class and how you use them.  For example, I love "showme" because students can draw, write and speak at the same time about a given topic.  

What do you love using?  Please take a moment to click on the link below and add a "stickie note" to my iPad board!  Thank you so much!  I will also be using this linoit to show my group the power of a PLN on twitter!  You guys rock!

Special thanks to Denise Krebs for first introducing me to linoit.com, I learn so much from you, Denise!
What a great web 2.0 tool!

The new school year starts on September 4th, and the week after that my new student teacher from SFU, Patrick (aka @runtboy) will begin his Long Practicum with me and my 6/7 class.  But thanks to the magic of Twitter, Patrick and I have been able to connect regularly since we were matched up. 

I had a really great conversation with Patrick the other day and wanted to share it with you all.  We started talking about our summer classes since he has PDP classes this summer and I am working on my Grad Diploma this summer.  Here is an excerpt:

We were discussing two different types of assignments: the first being a traditional essay/paper style assignment and the second being a hands-on project such as building a bird house.  Patrick was talking about how excited he was to build his bird house and this reminded me of our students! Most of them are also much more motivated by hands on projects than the traditional written worksheet/essay! Patrick and I had a great discussion about learning and we definitely see eye-to eye on this, and I am so excited to see what he comes up with for September (and in some cases to be learning right alongside with my students, as Patrick is a very creative person and is sure to be trying things I have never even heard about).

This is such a good time of year for us all to be reminded that we are just like the students that we teach.  Things we find more interesting and more meaningful to our learning are the same types of activities that will resonate with our students.  Now is the time to think about our pedagogy, as we are all (hopefully) reflecting on the past year and thinking about how to improve our practice for the upcoming school year! 

I know that I am going to use some of my time off to read books about motivation (Drive by Dan Pink), teaching non fiction (NonFiction Matters by Stephanie Harvey on advice from @mrsdkrebs) and whatever I can get my hands on regarding project and passion based learning.  I plan on integrating
What will you be adding/changing to the way you teach next year?

I started this blog weeks ago, and then I got busy…  I find this happens to me a lot and so my new goal for the next school year is to blog more regularly.  I have even put it as a weekly reminder on my phone.  Why? Because I think blogging (sharing with others, joining the conversation about education, reflecting on my practice, etc) is a really important part of who I am as a teacher and my professional growth.  So I pledge to do more of it over the summer and for the next school year. 

Side note: If you don’t have a professional blog yet, I highly recommend you start one.  It really is a wonderful way to reflect upon your teaching!

So, how does this tie into the blog I started earlier?  It does…I started writing about how I was lucky enough to have been invited to a professional development day called “Movers and Shakers” a little while back.  The guest speaker was George Couros and at one point during the day, he asked us a really great question:

“How do we foster innovation in our schools?”

He gave us a few minutes to chat at our table groups about this, and so I started asking everyone at my table, “Well, what is the most innovative/best thing you did in your classroom this year?”  I asked this because I believe that that is how we can foster and spread innovation of best teaching practice; share!    

This is nothing new, really.  We all know the benefit of and like to take a few minutes to chat in the hallway with our colleagues and share, but what has made my past year so amazing is that I no longer just share with people at my school, because I am on twitter.  Now, the world is my hallway!  It has made me a much better teacher!  I am trying things that I would not have even heard of before, if it weren’t for twitter. 

Which brings me to my list of the best things I did this year (inspired by George Couros' question & what this blog is really supposed to be about):

1. Genius Hour (click here to read more about that)  Passion Based Learning has changed how I look at education and is LOVED by all of my students.

2. Blogging with my students (click here to read more about that) and also starting and maintaining my own blog.

3. Joining twitter, building my PLN and meeting amazing educators who inspire me everyday.

So, chances are if you are reading this than you are probably already on twitter (I am assuming that is how you found this) but if you aren’t you have to sign up.  And then sign up 2 other teachers at your school.  Share the learning…because it really is a wonderful place for us all to encourage each other to be more innovative and share best teaching practice. 

So, that is what I leave you with—a mission—to get two new people on twitter, help them get set up and following some great educators!

#sherpapower, right George?

I have a lot of people ask me (well, usually tweet me) this very question.  And I realized that I talk about it, blog about it, and tweet about it all the time, but I have not actually put out a definition anywhere.  So here it goes...

Genius Hour is a precious time, loved by all my students.  It is when they are allowed to develop their own inquiry question about whatever it is that they want to explore.  They are then given about 3 one hour Genius Hour sessions and then they are usually ready to present their learning to the class.

Genius Hour is an amazing time.  All the kids are excited and this creates a buzz in the air!  Some students are huddled around a laptop doing research on countries they are interested in, others are creating websites, PowerPoints and slideshows on an area of interest, and some are out in the hallway filming movies.  Some aren't using technology at all, but rather are building and creating things with their hands. But no matter what they are working on, the common thread is that it is something they are interested in and/or passionate about.

I did not invent #geniushour.  I wish I had...but I didn't. I want to give credit for the idea of Genius Hour to the right people, but it is hard to tell who actually thought of it first.  I heard about it from twitter.  A colleague of mine, @HughTheTeacher retweeted @MrsDKrebs tweet with a link to her blog post on the idea of Genius Hour.  In it, she gives credit to Dan Pink, author of Drive and to Passion Based Learning expert, @AngelaMaiers.  Dan Pink gives credit to a credit union in Washington.  And that is as far back as I can track the term "Genius Hour" but of course, the idea that people should be able to learn about what they are passionate about and be given time to become geniuses has been around for a bit.  And I won't be able to track the origins of that.  So, let's just agree that I did not invent it but I sure do love it! 

In Pink’s aforementioned blog, he defines Genius Hour in the following way, “Each week, employees [students, in our case] can take a Genius Hour — 60 minutes to work on new ideas or master new skills.” He continues to describe it in one work place,  “They’ve used that precious sliver of autonomy well, coming up with a range of innovations including training tools for other branches”(Pink 2011).  My students were just as successful.  They loved Genius Hour and used their time wisely to learn about topics that they were passionate about (some examples are cooking, countries, Free the Children, iMovie, website design, etc.)

Denise Krebs came up with the idea of using a hashtag (#geniushour) and I, later, came up with the idea of a monthly chat and a wikispace (to read more about that click here).  So, as you can see this has really been a collaborative project between many of us (we are spread out across North America and yet still able to share our ideas because of twitter).

Right when I heard about Genius Hour, I knew it was something that I had to do with my class.  I always get excited about giving students authentic tasks that have meaning.  So Genius Hour spoke to me.  I started talking with the students about this idea and they were immediately excited and eager to start.

To those that are nervous about starting something new:  Don’t let my excitement mislead you…things did not go perfectly, but that is okay.  I have learned so much this year.  The students’ genius hour really became my own genius hour too.  We learned together, figuring out so much as we went along, and even so I would do much more modeling (of how to chose an inquiry question and share it) in future years, it was not necessarily a bad experience for all of us to have to stop, regroup, take a few steps back and continue. It showed them that I am a learner too.

Need another reason to dive in?  The BC Ed Plan encourages students to have the opportunity to “discover, embrace and fulfill their passion” (British Columbia Ministry of Education 2011).  Passion is so important!  In a typical elementary school classroom, students have to learn what we tell them when we tell them.  There is little choice in curriculum and so Genius Hour gives them a time to escape these confines and learn about what they want to learn about.  And that is when genius happens.

In summary, because of Genius Hour I am a changed teacher forever.  I no longer need to be in control of all of the learning.  I have learned that it is okay, and actually highly beneficial, to step back and allow the learning to happen.  I have also learned that inquiry projects are not only valuable to teacher-learners (which is the only way I had thought of them before) but that the students can also benefit from creating interesting inquiry projects themselves. 


For more information, check out our #geniushour wiki and follow the hashtag on twitter!