#Geniushour Chat 5-Year Anniversary

Just follow the hashtag #geniushour on Twitter on Thursday, 2 March, 6 pm Pacific and 9 pm Eastern.

Gallit Zvi and I have enjoyed learning and sharing about Genius Hour for over five years now. When I first heard Angela Maiers mention in a tweet about a genius hour for teachers and students, I wanted to learn more. It was November 2011, and I did learn more about it by participating in my own genius hour, while planning GH for my students. I began sharing my work on Twitter with the hashtag #geniushour.

Gallit and I were connected on Twitter already, so the #geniushour hashtag soon became a mutual vehicle for sharing genius hour magic from our middle school classrooms. Dozens of teachers around the continent and beyond joined in, as well. Gallit shared her happenings in an early post called, “Collaboration, Communication and Community.”

Early in 2012, Gallit contacted me to see if I’d like to start a #geniushour chat with her, and a new chat began. Our first was held on 7 March 2012. Here are a few tweets from the beginning of the chat:

We didn’t know who, if anyone, would come to our first planned chat. However, it turned out there were ten of us who participated. You might be interested in our first and subsequent chats. The archives are found here on the Geniushour Wikispace: http://geniushour.wikispaces.com/ChatArchive

A Book about Genius Hour

As a result of meeting so many like-minded Genius Hour teachers, the next year we started writing a book about our and our students’ #geniushour experiences. In the fall of 2015, The Genius Hour Guidebook: Fostering Passion, Wonder and Inquiry in the Classroom was published in a partnership between Routledge Eye on Education and MiddleWeb.

Our tribe has grown exponentially over the last five years. Hundreds of teachers now share the work they and their students do for Genius Hour using the #geniushour hashtag.

Our 5th Anniversary Celebration!

We are anxious to celebrate our fifth anniversary chat this week. On Thursday, 2 March 2017, we will have our #geniushour chat, moderated by Angela Maiers, one of our early inspirations. Angela will be on hand to discuss her favorite topics of young geniuses contributing to the world and helping others know they matter.

Please join us in this special anniversary chat. We expect it will go a lot faster than our first chat, with scores of participants, but no worries. Just follow the hashtag #geniushour on Twitter on Thursday, 2 March, 6 pm Pacific and 9 pm Eastern. If you miss any tweets, as always, you can catch them in the archive. See you there!