Genius Project Ideas

Today, in class, we started talking about our Genius Project. Once we finish introducing a few more literacy, numeracy and success strategies, we are going to start our Genius Projects. Students will practice, fine-tune and reflect on their use of a variety of learning strategies through a project of interest. There are very few restrictions on this project - students are encouraged to design a project that is of high-interest. It will be assessed through their demonstration and reflection on the specific learning strategies they choose to incorporate.

Here are some of the ideas students have chosen so far:

• Video Editing - using my GoPro, an old MacBook outfitted with Adobe Premiere and a microphone, Caleb will be learning how to create and edit video. 
• Cooking - Logan will be creating a digital cookbook of recipes he has tried and will then teach our class how to cook something of his choosing. 
• Game Design and Creation - Cole and Jacob both want to look at how to create video games. We will likely start with Scratch and see if they can create some basic video games to start and work from there. 
• Photography - Katherine is interested in photography and so will learn some new styles and techniques using both her phone and my dSLR. She will create a digital portfolio using Google Open Gallery. 

Other ideas we have include an interest in vet tech and/or animal training and an interest in building, auto mechanics and "taking things apart and putting back together". We will be doing some research and fleshing out these ideas into learning projects that are of interest. Any suggestions are welcome! Many of these topics are way out of my comfort zone and I cannot wait to learn with the students.