A couple of weeks ago, Adobe released a new iPad app called, “Adobe Voice.” It reminds me a bit of Microsoft’s Photo Story – a free piece of software that allows you to create a video out of images. Like Photo Story, Adobe Voice allows you to add photos, text, narration, and music. However, it … Read more
I’ve had many failures this year (which I will be outlining in some near future posts, I promise), but one message I definitely seemed to get across to my students was that I am done with ho-hum slide presentations that make everyone yawn. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the awesome presentation that some … Read more
(If you are unfamiliar with Genius Hour, be sure to visit my Genius Hour Resources Page.) One of my many goals for rebooting Genius Hour this year was to help the students to create more engaging presentations. Their passion just wasn’t coming through when it came time for them to share it with their peers. … Read more
When I introduced Genius Hour to my 3rd graders this year, they were really excited about creating “missions” about anything that interested them. The week after they set their goals for their projects, they came into class and I announced that we were going to switch gears. We have been working on a unit on … Read more
In his TCEA 2014 presentation, “Failure to Innovate,” Randy Rodgers stated the above quote, and I realized that it really says a lot about the problems in education today. Our students are far too reliant on following directions, and so many are afraid to deviate in order to do some creative thinking. I remember my … Read more
Last summer, I was playing around with ways to spice up my Genius Hour time, and decided to add some of the elements of gamification to the mix. One of these was to create Challenge Cards. At the beginning of each Genius Hour, students have the option to choose a Challenge Card. The higher the … Read more