It is the middle of another crazy year, even more, intense than last year. I have tried many new things, going out of my comfort zone and spending A LOT OF TIME on projects. Reflecting back on the first 1.5 terms, almost 20 weeks, around 100 days and it was definitely a journey. Reflecting on every project since September would be impossible in one post (which is what my blog is supposed to show) so I have chosen a project from every subject to show opportunities for improvement, work ethic and work habits. Considering my demonstration of revision, teamwork, responsibility and production of high quality will be especially apparent throughout the first half of the year. As the work level and expectations have gone up, I still spend too much time on my work. In this mPOL we were supposed to focus on opportunities of improvement.

Scimatics: Chemistry Stories

I chose to reflect on the chemistry stories project where we had to create an animation using explain everything to show bonding by Bohr models. We learnt all about atoms, charges, mass,  multivalent metals and different types of bonding to build our knowledge for the final product. I am interested in the topic and though I am not going to be a chemist it was really interesting to learn. We used 3 curricular competencies (communicate, processing & analyzing and questioning & predicting) to guide our learning and initiative to take steps towards the final animation.

The animation needed to be done to explain everything and from past experiences, I was skeptical of the result of the animations. With the limitations and challenges from the app, there were points of the production where I had to keep a growth mindset to create what I wanted. Explain Everything has a tendency to delete saved versions so to deal with this, I had continue driving and get it finished.

My animated video was carefully planned and created with lots of forethought. The animations clearly showed bonding and I did extra by showing the traits of the atoms. I wrote all of my voice overs to fit with my animations. From class discussions, textbooks and a lot of Kahoots, I completed the animations with a detailed competency of the project and a cool product that I am proud of. The animation shows the exchange and sharing of electrons in presented in covalent and ionic bonding. I animated atoms/ions including multivalent metals and polyatomic ions. In most projects, I do extra work outside of the ordinary so in this project, I researched and explained a different set of prefixes for organic materials.

My thoughts on Explain Everything have changed and looking back it has useful tools to present and animate. I have leant not to have a set opinion and face the problems head-on. I tried to use new tools but at the end of the day, I reinforced success by using what I knew worked. I am interested in this topic and I did more than I needed, taking the time to learn about organic material prefixes. Despite spending all my time effectively I was not able to complete it only using class time.

Humanities: Revolutions Project

Ideas drive revolutions and my ideas drive my knowledge and learning. The Revolutions project was constructed of four mini-projects almost, where we created videos using different techniques. Each video taught us more for the upcoming video, on what to change, keep and learn from the latter. Building on our mistakes, we eventually came to create four videos answering how ideas drive change and the importance of cause and consequence. Throughout the project, we created assets for every video but I am most proud of the fourth video where I created an animation with lip-syncing to show important events. I spent my time completing the insignificant animation and drove to create something with my own skills in technology and fast learning. With this to mind, I used a new program I had never heard before called Adobe Character Animator.

With this strenuous set of videos, not everything comes easy so there were things/traits we needed to keep in mind to be successful. The very first step we needed to do well was research because without proper incite on the topic, it would be a disaster. I have come to use the CRAAP test to find the justification for the history which may seem dumb from its name but for this project, every fact counts. My competency on this topic keeps expanding and as I learn more about cause and consequence I will have a deeper understanding of the world and its events.

The next big part of the project was teamwork and collaboration. In these videos, no one person can do it by themselves in one week so we had prioritized this when creating the videos. There was an unbalanced level of work between the boys and girls where they would fool around while we doing the work and leading.  

The final video had a deadline of two weeks and we were creating an informative animation. I had big plans for the animation and I had always wanted to make an actual good animation but not spend months. I found a program called Adobe Character Animator which allowed me to make a puppet that lip syncs to my talking. You might think that Adobe is really difficult to learn and you would be 100% correct. Even with an in-depth video showing the steps, I somehow managed to mess up and to experiment with why the tools were not working. I could have just started blank again and not have the trouble of finding the problem but to understand the program better I decided to fix it.

I spent 10s of hours completing it and once I finished it I was happy with the result. I learnt so much during the creation of my animation and doing it again would be much faster. Despite spending a lot of time and effort on the animation it was barely used in the final video which was a little disappointing. It wasn’t a big part of the project but then again, I made the character so you could just speak into it and use the camera for movement.

Maker: Winter Exhibition

The winter exhibition happens on the second last day before spring break every year and shows the ever so hard-working students’ project. This year had the same Blue Sky aspect as previous exhibitions but this had a twist of the hero’s journey incorporated. We used the hero’s journey to make a story (I was the supreme ordeal; part 5) on a character from a certain planet (my group got the Death Star), which we made artifact for our part of the story. I chose to create a VR video using 3Ds Max and V-Ray of his office with 3D models around the room.

  • Every Layer Together
  • Objects and arrangements
  • Light
  • Camera path

In the process towards the final product, we used the Launch phase but that doesn’t stop the problems happening. In PLP we have an acronym in place for failing; F.A.I.L. stands for first attempt in learning but in my scenario, it went to the 50th attempt in learning. Tutorials can’t tell you everything and I had to experiment and learn independently at points of the creation. Even though the Internet has almost all the info in the world, there are some tools/aspects to the project that need to be explored, experienced or done from trail and error.

A big problem in all the instances I used new softwares was time. If it was the time constraints, my schedule or at least 5 hours of sleep needed I always rushed the final product near the last week. Don’t get me wrong, the time constraints were helpful for motivating me and getting it done quickly but it is hard when I have such ambitious goals. I completed the VR room just a day before (as usual in big projects) but I was not aware of how long the rendering would take. It was a mix between unawareness and not planning for the time afterwards. I spent so much time trying to make the room that all the things I added would make the final render even longer. Every software I have used for PLP has a learning curve but once I pick up on the knowledge then it would take a thousand times shorter.

I enjoy learning new programs/softwares, not for the grades but because it is what I am passionate about and would do in my free time. It doesn’t really feel like homework to me because I’m interested in technology and creating things with my skills. Technology has almost become usual in big projects and I love doing despite getting stressed near the end. When finishing, it is very rewarding to be done and show off your work/learning. There are always up and down, times where I want to quit there and then, but I am always motivated to finish despite the challenges.

PGP: Take Your Kid To Work Day

One special day, we were privileged with going to our parents’ work and witness the work field which was supposed to teach us what our parents do day-to-day. However, in PLP, we had to extend our learning by questioning to self and others. We had to answer the driving questions about society, personal beliefs and identity.

In the office I didn’t just sit around and take videos but rather my parents took advantage of me being and since they just renovated, I was building cabinets. Working for a medical office I wasn’t allowed to see patients but I was able to interview the employees and ask them about their jobs and impact on the society. I learnt so much during the interviews about the society and how every job plays a role in the local and global community.

One massive problem, I learnt prior, (from the Albert. Field study) and applied it in this project was to take a lot of videos. Not having enough b-roll in video can leave you with doing more work for editing and being less entertaining. In the work field, I took lots of creative shots like time lapses, office tours and photos with the employees. I could have been more prepared for the interviews because I later found out that the mic was broken so there was a bunch of background noise. The camera was very wobbly trying to hold it with one hand while using my other hand to hold my iPad to read my questions so I could have brought a tripod to stabilize it, make the process easier recording and editing.

This was the start of the year and the end of the mid-year. I have learnt so much during this time and I have put a lot of effort into every project. However, that is one of my biggest challenges to spend too much time on a project. For every project too, I have spent way too much time writing this post and it is way too long. I want to try shortening my work while still producing quality work so my question for the mPOL is:

What is the balance between work quality and hours spent completing it?