Genius Hour

For Genius Hour, my topic was: “How to use HTML and CSS to help people?” I chose the topic because I’ve been wanting to learn HTML and CSS for a long time, and I had done a bit at home, but I really wanted to do it at school. This free topic choice was a great opportunity for me to try it out. The helping people part is because we had to chose a topic that can help people. I chose codeacademy to do this project, and their HTML & CSS course is very useful.

During Genius Hour, we had to research a topic of our choice, and then make a presentation about it for the whole class. The presentation had to be from 2 minutes 30 to 3 minutes. They had to contain a very small amount of text and have a lot of pictures. Another requirement was correct MLA citations for our pictures and sources. My research question was: “What are HTML and CSS, and how can we use it to help other people. I spent about two months researching my topic and making a presentation about it, and it taught me a lot. The fact that it had to be done under three minutes was the hardest part about it, because I had to practice my presentation, and I often times was too short on time or had a lot of time left. Getting rid of the text was also a challenge, because I have always done presentations with a lot of text, and having to learn my speech by heart was really hard for me.

This project helped me grow as a student because I can now handle making good presentations, and it has helped me get over my deadline problem, that is still occurring in 9th grade. I think that what I learned might have inspired other people to go on Codeacademy and try to learn about this. They can also teach other people about this, and share the knowledge around. I think this is helpful because HTML and CSS is the base of what makes a website what it is. HTML and CSS are the codes that make websites look like what they are, it is the code that makes it change colors, font and a lot of other features. This can help, because websites are a fundamental resource for sharing information around the world, and you can share anything you want by simply putting it online. It can be a blog, an article, or even just Facebook, they all use this type of coding.

My next Genius Hour will be about Video Game Development, and our way of learning will be completely different. For Genius Hour 2, we have to find experts on Twitter, get in contact with them, and finally get some information from them. It changes from our normal research format, and I think that it is very beneficial. It can help us get in contact with actual people, who can give us good advice and can answer specific questions. Did you ever notice how articles on Google don’t talk about what you’re searching for when your questions are very specific? That’s why we use actual people so we can get some good and thoughtful answers. What I will learn in my next Genius Hour project will be able to help people around me, because Video Games to me means creativity. I think that making video games enhances our creativity and can help grow a passion. I have always been passionated by Video Games, and have always wanted to learn how they are made. This might be the occasion.

Link to presentation

The picture above looks pretty complicated. And I won’t lie to you, it is. Memorizing all of the different tools is really hard, and I am not done learning about this. I do not think that two months is enough to learn the integrity of this.

Works Cited