Caine's Arcade
Shannon Deegan: How Google's 20 Percent Time Fosters Innovation
An example of a 20% project that took off was Google Sky. Google Sky is an app that allows the user to hold their phone to the sky and the phone will tell you what you’re looking at. How totally neat is that?!
I would absolutely love to incorporate some sort of 20% project in my future classroom. I would want to figure out a discussion forum so students can share ideas, get feedback, and collaborate on potential projects. I think this would be a great way to get students collaborating, researching, and learning something new! I believe that this would get students more interested in their learning, because they will be in total control of what they are learning and how they are learning it.
I have to say that this is such a heartwarming video! Watching made my heart so happy...
Caine, a 9 year old boy, decided to dedicate his time to creating his own cardboard box arcade. In doing so, he was using math for his fun passes and money collecting, engineering for the creation of his games, and business for pulling in customers. I started watching the follow up video (Caine's Arcade 2: From a Movie to a Movement), and it shows how much attention Caine’s Arcade has gotten (enough to get him on the news and to get him a scholarship fund). I truly believe that this kid is going to get somewhere, just by being passionate about something and following through with it!
I believe that this video ties in well with the idea for a 20% project. If students are able to dedicate their time to doing something that they are passionate about, I think that it can be truly rewarding. As you can see with Caine, he found his purpose and pursued it with passion! Although he had very few customers at the beginning, he continued to run his little cardboard arcade, and it paid off in the end! `
I would love to incorporate activities that involve the passions of my students and that encompass creativity. I think that students feel that school has no place for their ideas, passions, and creativity. As a new teacher, I would like to prove that idea wrong, and encourage my students to bring in their minds into the classroom.