Day 4: The Pitch Presentation

Today, we will be presenting our Pitch, to the class.  We must include the following information in our Pitch:

1. What is/are the NEEDS, OPPORTUNITIES or PROBLEM?
2. Who will be interested in learning more about this topic?
3. What materials are needed in order to complete this project?
4. What do I need to do in order to complete the project and when do I need to do each step by?
5. What will your final product be?
6. Why are you excited about this topic and what inspired you to pursue this topic?

Day 3: The Pitch

     In order to be officially approved for this project, you must prepare a presentation that will help the class understand your topic, as well as give classmates an opportunity to give suggestions on how to tackle your project. 

In your presentation, you must outline the following:

1. NEEDS and OPPORTUNITIES:  Explanation of the problem you want to solve OR what are the driving questions.  This part is the attention grabber, which means you need to be constructive in order to hook the audience
2. AUDIENCE / CLIENTS / USERS:  Explanation of who will benefit form your project.  You will need to interview someone to get a better idea of the needs of your audience. 
1. Set up an interview with a person who you think will benefit from your project
2. Prepare questions for them, that will allow you to gain a better understanding of the WANTS and NEEDS of the audience, clients and/or users.
3. Video this interview and remember that you can always cut out any portion that is not applicable to your project.
4. Add your interview to your Pitch Presentation.
3. MATERIALS NEEDED:  What items do you need to complete this project.
4. TIMELINE:  Explain to the audience what you think your time line will be by answering the following:
1. How much time will you spend on this project?  The minimum amount of time is the 2 days we spend on it in class.
2. Outline what steps you need to take in order to create your project.  This should include amount of time spent on the following:
1. Research
2. Preparing the final presentation
3. Journaling about the process
5. FINAL PRODUCT:  What will the actual finished product be?  You need to have something that  you can teach us or show us.
6. CONCLUSION:  Why are you so excited about this project?  What inspired you to pursue this?  Why should the class approve your project?

The will begin presentations on Wednesday, June 13th.

Day 2: Generate an Idea

Using your hand out that was completed last day, generate an idea by coming up with questions you would like to answer.
Once you have generated at least 3 questions,

• Develop your website.
• Create a blog use Blogger
• Respond to the following questions
1. What are the 3 big questions you have?
2. What is the main topic your wish to investigate?
3. What is the process that you need to follow to answer these questions?

Day 1: Getting Inspired

The grade 6 class began their journey into Genius Hour by working through their sheet "Getting Ready for Genius Hour".  This document is a great resource in helping students come up with their ideas based on the following:

• Things I love to do
• Thinks I am good at
• Things I love to learn
• Things I wonder

I am very excited to work through this process with you!  There is nothing more exciting than learning something new, acquiring a new skill or developing something that you are in total control of.  This is where learning really happens.

As part of the Genius Hour process, it is very important that you journal or reflect on what you are doing.  This is how we make the connections in learning and help to further develop our brains so we are able to critically think.  This skill is desperately needed in the work place and is a skill you can take with you where ever you go.

Now that you are ready to blog, to prepare a few things.

1. Sign into  Blogger.com 
2. On the left side of the screen, click the DOWN ARROW
3. Select NEW BLOG
4. Enter a name for your blog.  This must be in a specific format "nameofblog.blogspot.com".  When selecting the "name of blog", make sure it is relevant to what you are working on.  In this case we are doing a Genius Hour project.  I STRONGLY suggest you using FirstName's Genius Hour Blog.
5. Select a theme.  This is not too important and you do not need to be fancy since you will be embedding it into your site.  You can go back and tweak it later.
6. Now you need to add it to your site.
1. Copy URL address for your blog
2. Paste the URL on your blog page to use in a minute
3. Copy this HTML code <iframe src ="URL of the website you want to embed" width="100%" height="600">
4. Click Next, and then save.  You will get an error message, but you can ignore this for now.  
5. Next go back to your blog URL, copy it and then click on your iframe of your blog that we just added to your website.  
6. Highlight the section that says URL of the website you want to embed.  DO NOT DELETE the quotes.  This is important coding.  
7. Paste your URL from your blog here.
8. Next click save.