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A transformational practice that is in the second year in my own classroom. This is as transformational and essential as adding global collaboration to your classroom.

Here are some genius hour topics from Joy Kirr and her students. She's one of the 4 authors of the genius manifesto and I'm talking to them today. I love the simple genius plans of these students Joy contemplated about on this day. One is investigating the quesiton "what makes us human?" and the other wants to perform random acts of kindness after surveying others and finding the types of random acts of kindness they had enjoyed in their lives, if any.

There are many who don't understand this one point. I used to have someone who required me to have beautiful lesson plans. They were detailed. I spent more than an hour a day on them. So much time so that sometimes I felt unprepared when the kids actually walked in the door. When those detailed plans were removed and I was allowed to focus on the content created for the students to use and then keep a grid (I keep links, etc. to what I'm doing) - THAT Was when real innovation happened in my classroom. Things like wikis, blogs, etc. happened after those super-restrictive requirements were taken off my shoulders. I had the wrong audience when I had those detailed lesson plans - my audience was the principal at the time. Now, I still have plans but I keep it in a grid in a book and then keep copies of what I use with students in dropbox and other places. I do far more now than then because my focus is the students. Lesson plans aren't bad. However, if you spend your time making the LESSON PLAN itself pretty and perfect then likely you're not spending your actual time PLANNING, printing, collecting, and creating what you'll be doing with your students. Also, when you do things like #geniushour and 20% time projects, you no longer have a lesson plan but a project plan which is an entirely different thing altogether. Don't fault teachers for this.  Teaching is the hardest job everybody thinks they can do and few really can.

All students and educators participating in the challeng will have their name flown on the Exploration Flight Test-I mission as a member of the virtual crew. This mission will be unmanned and will launch in late 2014. So, kids can be a "virtual explorer." There are 4 challenges, age appropriate, to help design protective radiation protection for astronauts. We need to get students interest in space travel for a variety of reasons. This is a lovely real world project for students to join or could be a project for one of your #geniushour teams. "The goal of the Exploration Design Challenge is for students to research and design ways to protect astronauts from space radiation. NASA and Lockheed Martin are developing the Orion spacecraft that will carry astronauts beyond low Earth orbit and on to an asteroid or Mars. Protecting astronauts from radiation on these distant travels is an important -- and very real -- problem that needs solving. NASA would like your help!"

One of my students, Z, brought this application desktop customizer to me for his geniushour project. A very cool way to customize a Windows Computer XP-8. Interesting.

Dead drops.com has a list of dead drops around the world. Some of my students brought this in as a maker project that they want to do in Friday's #geniushour . Honestly, I'd never heard of this and I'm not sure what I think about this. It could easily be used for great things - sharing photos or making a time capsule of sorts, but it could also be use to pirate files. It is interesting what happens when students bring in ideas.

I love this project created by one of my students to help children be unafraid to go to the doctor. She has a youtube channel called Pediatric Videos with one video having more than 50,000 views (the one on CT scanning.) Her dad is a pediatrician and filmed everything while supervising her and helping her write the script. Her little brother was the patient. This is a fantastic example of a passion based project.

This efolio is by far one of the best. I love on the homepage. She says "Hello my name is madison and I'm an artist." yes, you are, my dear.

One of my students is the daughter of a local pediatrician and wants to go into the field herself. She created her channel last year and is continuing to add videos this year. She has a video What is the CAT/CT Scan machine that has over 53,000 views! She scans her little brother while her Dad (a pediatrician) runs the video camera. Her desire was to create videos that will help children be less afraid of the doctor and the equipment used. I think it is kind of funny the expressions her little brother has. ;-)

I'm interviewing Gallit Zvi from British Columbia, Canada today on Every Classroom matters (should post in about a week) about genius hour and I was intrigued by this post on her blog about how her school "looks." While some of these points have inspired questions (they can cook for their family in lieu of copying spelling sentences, for example) others have me wishing we could do the same thing (entrepreneur fair where students have a sales idea, craft a business plan and make and sell products.) It is worth a peek inside this fascinating classroom and school which uses genius hour among other things.

Do you want to know what a student thinks about genius learning? Read Melina's thoughts about this practice in 12th grad english. ""What are the projects on?"-you might ask. The topic and the project is completely up to us to decide. If we are interested in how to make a good documentary or how to play an instrument, teaching ourselves and researching that topic can be our project. This new way of learning is very peculiar to me, but also very intriguing. For so long I have been told what to know and taught how to know it, but never once did I really felt in control of my learning. It felt like the knowledge went into my brain, stayed their until after my exams, and then was thrown away like a smooth stone into a lake, out of my reach forever. But when you are passionate about something and can lear"

Another 20% project. These students are talking about the apps to encourage and help those with disabilities.

As my classes pursue inventions during our genius hour each week, I keep coming back to the makezine website for fantastic ideas. Here is something inexpensive that beginners can do using coffee cans and the Aurdino - it does require some soldering so you might want to reserve that part for an adult unless you have older kids capable of it.

From my friend AJ Juliani - if you want to do 20% time - perhaps you should join in this MOOC right now - it isn't too late. "In the past year we have seen a boom in 20% projects and Genius Hour projects happening in the K-12 classroom. Amazing educators have pushed this movement forward, and Angela Maiers Choose2Matter campaign is another way for students to find their passions and learn with purpose. This July we are running a "20% Time MOOC". The course offers two outcomes. Teachers will learn about the research behind Google's 20% policy and how it can be applied in K-12 education; and, learners will also participate in their own 20% project throughout the course and present as a final product. I want to encourage you to join this MOOC and connect with so many teachers who are giving their students the power to choose (Access Code for the course is ZXQ2B-8CWMV). We'll be using the #20timeacademy hashtag throughout the course to share with each other!"

Retired teacher looking for advise on a model to change primary and secondary education. E-MAIL ME THROUGH THE SITE WITH SUGGESTIONS http://www.textbooksfree.org/Educating%20the%20Class%20of%202030.htm

Tons of free footage, audio, images and 3D models that you can download and use in your projects.