I’m going to start this post off with the elephant in the room. I am not going to be in PLP next year because I have been offered a spot with an academy team. This is supposed to be my tPOL where I talk about everything I did well and what steps I need to take to continue growing as a learner next year, but there is no next year, so instead I am going to treat it like a tPOL where I’m transitioning from PLP into normal school.

First I am going to talk about some things that I have improved this year and projects that I am most proud of. This grade nine year has been focused lots on video production and making a video through the whole process with an engaging story. I really enjoy making videos and taking photos, so this year was amazing to enhance those skills through my projects. On this point I think I have improved immensely from my first few videos to the videos now. A couple of my favourite videos throughout the year are my take your kid to work day video, my Victoria video, and a recent video we just finished in Humanities, the WWI video. These all show different skills I have learnt. The take your kid to work day video I talked about in my mPOL and once again I feel like it was a very strong video. The only thing is I didn’t use angles or rule of thirds. The other two videos show everything I have learnt about setting, angles, rule of thirds, and videos in general.

One thing I talked about in my mPOL was getting better at talking on camera. I feel like this is one of the biggest things I have improved in through video making and I feel way more comfortable on camera. This makes it way easier to film with less takes and I will definitely take this into the future with further works. A great example of this is my video about the lesser known animals in WWI. I talk on camera through the whole thing. One last thing on video skills I have learnt is how to be more of a director of a film. For our short video the Stanley Cup in 60 seconds, I was the main director. I helped everyone go where they needed to and film the direction we needed. It was really fun and it was great because this is a real skill that I can use in the future if I decide to keep going the film route and maybe become a film director some day.

Some of my other goals I made during PGP and in the mPOL were to watch less YouTube. I have definitely cut down on YouTube probably to half and it’s actually making my life much better. I have more time to hangout with my family and do homework, and ultimately I procrastinate much less. I am going to continue to watch videos less and make videos more. Another goal I had was to be more confident when presenting and talking like I will be for this. I don’t want to get shy and I think I have gotten way better than this, although I still need to get more comfortable and confident with my own voice. Next year there will still be lots of presenting for projects and I will need to continue growing in this area.

Now I will talk about what I will need to improve on and some of my learning curves that came this year. The biggest thing I want to get better at for next year is being more of a leader in group projects. Some projects this year, like Destination Imagination, I didn’t lead the group, but rather stayed behind a bit. In my strongest group projects like the Stanley Cup in 60 I made sure to help everyone and was a leader. Towards the end of the year I have been more of a leader and I will bring this on and carry through my final years of highschool and further into the future. I can’t wait to try something new next year and I’m very curious to see what level I am at compared to other students in the normal curriculum. I hope I can take everything I’ve learned these past two years and apply it to my future years. It will be something new and change isn’t so bad. You will be missed Willemse, Maxwell, Gross, and of course Hughes. I hope to continue creating videos on my free time and thanks for an amazing year.

Until next time… Aedan Loughran