Genius Hour Goals and Motivation

My goals for my Genius Hour include:

 -Make a paper airplane that can stay aloft for 20 seconds
 -Make a paper airplane that can travel a distance of 30 metres
-Make a paper airplane that can complete 3 aerial tricks before landing

 While these may sound like arbitrary goals, they relate back to a childhood interest in designing and testing things that I create with my own hands. I sent many a paper airplane over the neighbour's fence when I was a kid. This Genius Hour passion project just helps me to build further now that I have the tools and comprehension strategies to enhance the classic design of the airplane.

Well paper airplanes are fun, part of my motivation stems from an educational perspective. Aerodynamics are an interesting topic for students and paper airplanes provides a concrete, tangible way for students to explore what would otherwise be an abstract concept.

In order to measure my progress, I will be conducting routine tests related to my goals and research questions in order to determine the designs I want to move forward with and then conducting final tests on my favourite designs.

Genius Hour Reflection

After starting on my Genius Hour today, I'm excited to introduce my Genius Hour topic: What styles and designs make the best paper airplanes for time of flight, distance and aerial tricks? My goals for this Genius Hour project are to make a paper airplane that can stay aloft for 20 seconds, make a paper airplane that can travel a distance of 30 metres and to make a paper airplane that can complete 3 aerial tricks before landing. My experiences thus far with my Genius Hour topic would be a casual interest in paper airplanes, no different from a typical kid growing up. My rationale for coming up with this topic is to be the teacher who can make the coolest paper airplanes. This motivation stems from my Grade 9 science teacher, who was known as the teacher who could "make a metre stick fly!". It would be awesome to have my students remember me years later as a fun, interesting teacher (although it would be amazing if they also remember me for my teaching!), as well as serving as an excellent tool for teaching about and starting discussions around the concept of planes and aerodynamics.

This Post is Copyrighted!

As part of working towards being a digital citizen, as well as being incorporated into a digital world, it is vital to understand how copyright works with respect to digital sources. Everything online requires a copyright access, from YouTube to Flicker to NHL.com articles. Seems frustrating right? However, many resources can be used by properly obtaining the licence or permission to use the resource.

You may be thinking, okay Mr. Litt, but why is this important as a student? Well, whenever you want to use a video, image, song, GIF, or any other digitally sourced media, you must first acquire the copyright permission to use it. As a teacher, I think it most important to teach students about ways to find resources that can be used with the appropriate copyright. One method of doing so is to search through the Creative Commons website to locate a properly copyrighted and sourced image, followed by a correct citation.

Below are two examples of images located using responsible copyright and citations.

Ribeiro, Lucélia. (June 30, 2008). Children at School. (Photograph). Retrieved from [https://www.flickr.com/photos/lupuca/8720604364/]

LeanForward. (June 26, 2014). E-learning Tablet. (Online image). Retrieved from [https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2921/14380476210_4a66ee14a2_b.jpg]

Welcome to Mr. Litt's Genius Hour Blog

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog!

My name is Braden Litt and this blog will be used throughout my Technology in the Classroom course as I explore the concepts related to integrating technology into the classroom. I am currently a pre-service educator at Brock University. I have been working for the past 4 years on my Undergraduate Bachelor's Degree in English and Literature. Some other experiences that I have had include working at several youth summer camps, as well as maintaining an instructional and leadership role within Brock Recreation Services.

Outside of education, I enjoy cooking, reading, geocaching, and playing sports, my favourites being volleyball, hockey, baseball and curling. Other hobbies of mine include listening to music, with a newfound interest in records, and taking care of my pets at home, which are a cat named Oliver, a dog named Milo and my personal favourite, a betta fish named Bo.

I am looking forward to learning using tech and exploring my Genius Hour topic through this blog and hope you will join me on this journey.