Day: March 2, 2015

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The Genius Hour Design Cycle: A Process For Planning

The Genius Hour Design Cycle: A Process For Planning

By Terry Heick, January 19, 2015

Original Source 

Posted By Ian Jukes

by Nigel Coutts, thelearnersway.net

Ed note: Part 1 of this 2-part series can be seen here; note that some of the language has been slightly revised from the original post by Nigel. He uses the term passion projects, which is very close to Genius Hour and Passion-Based Learning. The differences across the three terms are often a matter of individual use and interpretation, a point we wanted to help clarify by using the three terms interchangeably even though they may not be exactly the same–passion projects needn’t use a Genius Hour format, nor does passion-based learning necessarily need to take the form of projects. In that way, the above model can be used for any of the three, but it felt most precise as a model for teachers to use to design Genius Hour projects. So, here we are. You can (and should!) read more from Nigel at thelearnersway.net.

In an ongoing effort towards polishing the edges, over the years we have continued to refine the processes we apply to the Personal Passion Project. We have gained insights into the sorts of projects that work well and which will cause difficulties. We have added a degree of structure while maintaining the required degree of freedom necessary for a personalised project.

The results of this learning are presented (in the model above and the text) below.

1. Be prepared to be amazed

The quality of the students projects will go beyond what you expect. This is particularly important when a student comes to you with a grand idea that seems too hard or overly complex. If the student has the right level of passion for the project and an idea for how they will get started they will more than likely complete the project and complete it well.

2. Don’t let your fears get in the way

The students are almost certainly going to select topics that you have no knowledge of and don’t have the skills to support. At this point it could be easy to let your fears and insecurities get in the way. The best way to move forward is to listen to the student; do they know what they are doing? do they know which questions they need to answer? what problems they need to solve? If the answers to all of this are positive, start looking for an expert to help when times get tough.

3. Some students need a push in the right direction

Some students will come up with projects that are too simple with answers that could be easily Googled. We introduced the students to ‘High Order Thinking Skills’ and built these into the planning forms students complete. Projects need to include elements of synthesis, evaluation and creativity with the minimum requirement adjusted for individuals. We provide students with a list of verbs appropriate for the top levels of Bloom’s taxonomy and help them use these in framing their topics.

4. Some students design a project that has nothing to do with their passion

A student might have a passion for surfing and decide they are going to write a book about the history of the sport. The problem is they have designed a project where they will need to be a historian, a researcher, a writer and you know they don’t enjoy doing any of this. Maybe with the right topic they will gain a wider interest in these things but most likely they will quickly dream of days at the beach.

5. Some projects are just not possible

It can be hard to say no to a project but some are just not feasible. A classic example is the student who wants to design a better tennis racquet by selecting the right mix of shape and materials. The problem is that the modern tennis racquet uses high tech composites and even with million dollar R&D budgets the differences between one design and the next is hard to prove.

6. Time and Scale

Some projects will clearly take longer than you have available, others are simply too large in scale or will rely on the involvement of too many people. Setting manageable goals and working to an achievable timeframe is important. At the same time you need to ensure that the concerns over time constraints are genuine.

Creating a detailed timeline with estimates of how long each phase will take is beneficial on many levels at this stage. For the students the conversations around how long the project will take can include some rewarding reflection on how they approach tasks and can assist in their development of an understanding of their learning style. Some students need time to talk about their project and unpack ideas socially, others need quiet time to think through the steps, some just dive in and fix mistakes and redirect their plans as they go.

7. Too many changes

One of the challenges for some students has been the ever changing project. They select one topic, discover they don’t like it or encounter a problem they can’t easily solve and change to another topic. A week later and the process repeats. Setting a definite deadline after which there can be no changes is important. In the end the students work out that they have to make their ideas work.

8. Just enough planning

Over the years we refined the level of planning the students were required to do before commencing on their projects in earnest. The initial version required great detail and length processes for developing focus questions and setting targets. For some students and some projects it worked well but for others it got in the way. Eventually we got to a point where the planning had just enough detail, so we know the students have an understanding of their project and that we can support them along the way. View our simplified planning template

9. Relying on experts and building a team

Many of the projects students have explored over the years fall outside of the expertise of their teachers. I have no idea how to sew for example and have been of equally little help to students who are basing their projects around dance or music. Across the school we have found amazing partners with the skills we needed and in most cases they are keen to spend time with a student who they share a passion with. Building a team of support around the project is key to its ultimate success. Being mindful of the workload within this team is also important. We have had some colleagues so keen to help that they become overloaded and although they never complained we

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Smartphones: Planet of the phones | The Economist

Original Source 

Posted By Ian Jukes

THE dawn of the planet of the smartphones came in January 2007, when Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, in front of a rapt audience of Apple acolytes, brandished a slab of plastic, metal and silicon not much bigger than a Kit Kat. “This will change everything,” he promised. For once there was no hyperbole. Just eight years later Apple’s iPhone exemplifies the early 21st century’s defining technology.

Smartphones matter partly because of their ubiquity. They have become the fastest-selling gadgets in history, outstripping the growth of the simple mobile phones that preceded them. They outsell personal computers four to one. Today about half the adult population owns a smartphone; by 2020, 80% will. Smartphones have also penetrated every aspect of daily life. The average American is buried in one for over two hours every day. Asked which media they would miss most, British teenagers pick mobile devices over TV sets, PCs and games consoles. Nearly 80% of smartphone-owners check messages, news or other services within 15 minutes of getting up. About 10% admit to having used the gadget during sex.

The bedroom is just the beginning. Smartphones are more than a convenient route online, rather as cars are more than engines on wheels and clocks are not merely a means to count the hours. Much as the car and the clock did in their time, so today the smartphone is poised to enrich lives, reshape entire industries and transform societies—and in ways that Snapchatting teenagers cannot begin to imagine.

Phono Sapiens

The transformative power of smartphones comes from their size and connectivity. Size makes them the first truly personal computers. The phone takes the processing power of yesterday’s supercomputers—even the most basic model has access to more number-crunching capacity than NASA had when it put men on the Moon in 1969—and applies it to ordinary human interactions (see article). Because transmitting data is cheap this power is available on the move. Since 2005 the cost of delivering one megabyte wirelessly has dropped from $8 to a few cents. It is still falling. The boring old PC sitting on your desk does not know much about you. But phones travel around with you—they know where you are, what websites you visit, whom you talk to, even how healthy you are.

The combination of size and connectivity means that this knowledge can be shared and aggregated, bridging the realms of bits and atoms in ways that are both professional and personal. Uber connects available drivers to nearby fares at cheaper prices; Tinder puts people in touch with potential dates. In future, your phone might recommend a career change or book a doctor’s appointment to treat your heart murmur before you know anything is amiss.

As with all technologies, this future conjures up a host of worries. Some, such as “text neck” (hunching over a smartphone stresses the spine) are surely transient. Others, such as dependency—smartphone users exhibit “nomophobia” when they happen to find themselves empty-handed—are a measure of utility as much as addiction. After all, people also hate to be without their wheels or their watch.

The greater fear is over privacy. The smartphone turns the person next to you into a potential publisher of your most private or embarrassing moments. Many app vendors, who know a great deal about you, sell data without proper disclosure; mobile-privacy policies routinely rival “Hamlet” for length. And if leaked documents are correct, GCHQ, Britain’s signals-intelligence agency, has managed to hack a big vendor of SIM cards in order to be able to listen in to people’s calls (see article). If spooks in democracies are doing this sort of thing, you can be sure that those in authoritarian regimes will, too. Smartphones will give dictators unprecedented scope to spy on and corral their unwilling subjects.

The Naked App

Yet three benefits weigh against these threats to privacy. For a start, the autocrats will not have it all their own way. Smartphones are the vehicle for bringing billions more people online. The cheapest of them now sell for less than $40, and prices are likely to fall even further. The same phones that allow governments to spy on their citizens also record the brutality of officials and spread information and dissenting opinions. They feed the demand for autonomy and help protest movements to coalesce. A device that hands so much power to the individual has the potential to challenge authoritarianism.

The second benefit is all those personal data which companies are so keen on. Conventional social sciences have been hampered by the limited data sets they could collect. Smartphones are digital census-takers, creating a more detailed view of society than has ever existed before and doing so in real time. Governed by suitable regulations, anonymised personal data can be used, among many other things, to optimise traffic flows, prevent crime and fight epidemics.

The third windfall is economic. Some studies find that in developing countries every ten extra mobile phones per 100 people increase the rate of growth of GDP-per-person by more than one percentage point—by, say, drawing people into the banking system. Smartphones will remake entire industries, at unheard-of speed. Uber is a household name, operating in 55 countries, but has yet to celebrate its fifth birthday. WhatsApp was founded in 2009, and already handles 10 billion more messages a day than the SMS global text-messaging system. The phone is a platform, so startups can cheaply create an app to test an idea—and then rapidly go global if people like it. That is why it will unleash creativity on a planetary scale.

By their nature, seminal technologies ask hard questions of society, especially as people adapt to them. Smartphones are no different. If citizens aren’t protected from prying eyes, some will suffer and others turn their backs. Societies will have to develop new norms and companies learn how to balance privacy and profit. Governments will have to define what is acceptable. But in eight short years smartphones have changed the world—and they have hardly begun.