Genius Hour: Day 5 - "In Their Words"

For week 5, I wanted to give everyone a glimpse at the state of a few random projects. Who better to give an update on projects that have been created and run by students, than the students themselves. So, without further delay, take a look at the following videos and let the students tell you how things are going.

In Their Own Words

The Music Group

Take a look at this first group of students, who are writing and recording their own original music. They're learning about Garage Band, rhythm, everything it takes to produce a music album, and even a little bit about each other.

A&A Design

This dynamic duo of design students are creating an interior design company, complete with their own logo. I think the website and company identity they've created are better than a lot of "professional" companies I've seen.

Cheese

Keep and eye on this guy. I predict he'll be the chef of his own restaurant before he's 30. From his viewpoint, he states that Genius Hour "gives him a Friday off", but if you watch his clip, I think you'll find there's a lot he's been working on.

Play Ball!

What do you do when you love baseball, I mean REALLY love baseball? Research everything you can possibly learn about it and create a website. This student discovered there was much more to baseball than homeruns and multi-million dollar contracts.

Just the Tip of the Iceberg

These are just a handful of the projects in development. There are only three more weeks for these students to finish up their tasks, whether it's learning to play piano, or designing their own line of shoes. They also have to prepare their presentation or performance that will take place on the Thursday and Friday of the last week of the nine weeks.

A couple of students working together writing and designing a poetry book.

Missing a Week

I'm afraid I will miss next week's Genius Hour because I'll be giving a talk at the LLI Southwest conference, but I have no question the student will make plenty of progress without me. This is, after all "their time".

The juniors also begin their professional internships in a couple of weeks, which means they will also have one less week to work with than everyone else. We'll see just how much one week effects the overall process and outcome.

In any case, it's been pretty inspiring to watch students manage their own learning. I can't wait to see what develops in these final three weeks.

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