I am so excited to announce that I have just launched a new website: geniushour.ca.

After talking with Hugh McDonald the other day, we decided it would be great to have a place online where Genius Hour (or 20% time, innovation week, etc) teachers could cross-blog their stories and share in one space!

Hugh McDonald and I were having a conversation the other day.  After two school years of doing Genius Hour with our students, we realized that the positive affects of this type of learning reached far beyond that one hour each week that we devoted to it.

Earlier this year I blogged about the power of visiting other classrooms and schools.  Well, since then I have had the opportunity to go on even more classroom visits and I just have to blog about it again!

On the first Wednesday of each month a bunch of fantastic educators get together on twitter for a chat about Genius Hour. The past two chats have been amazing!  We had a lot of experienced #geniushour teachers and a lot of newbies too!

A few days ago I attended a district dinner for teacher-bloggers and those interested in blogging.  Let me start with a thank you to the school district for putting on events like this.  I feel so fortunate to work in SD36, a place where innovation and sharing is encouraged!

The question that The Openspokes Fellowship is tackling this week is: How do you learn best?

I loved watching everyone’s videos.  It was a wonderful reminder of the fact that everyone learns differently and we have to honour that, and be mindful of the diverse ways in which we all learn when we plan for our students.

Last week, Lindsey Own (Seattle teacher) spent the day visiting my classroom.  You can read about her experience on her very thoughtfully written blog here.  Lindsey was very impressed with the overall feeling at our school and asked me how we got this way?

A few weeks ago, Ben Wilkoff, fellow #ETMOOCer had an idea for a collaborative vlogging group.  He called it the Fellowship of Open Spokes and he envisioned a group of educators from around the world coming together on one youtube channel to discuss education.