Genius Hour

A new classroom concept that I've heard of lately more and more is Genius Hour, a time to allow students to explore their own interests and be creative. According to the Genius Hour website, the precise origins of genius hour are unknown, however the website points to Google and the practices they employ with their staff. "The search-engine Google, allows it's engineers to spend 20% of their time to work on any project they want. Allow people to work on something that interests them, and productivity will go up. Google's policy has worked so well that it has been said that 50% of Google's projects have been created during this creative time period." With all this in mind, the question begs to be asked, what are best practices for facilitating genius hour? In looking for a good starting point with, the Genius Hour website references two books, The Passion-Driven Classroom: A Framework for Teaching & Learning by Angela Maiers and Amy Sandoval and Genius Hour and 20% Time in Education by A.J. Juliani. Another question floating around now is, how can technology in the classroom be used to benefit learning during Genius Hour?