“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

The last year of high school and my last mPOL, a year to one-up all of my previous projects. I have challenged myself in these four projects to go above and beyond.

Like always, I am bombarded with the countless activities I put myself through. I participated in three sports, volunteering, working and applying to scholarships and universities. Is it too much? It has sometimes felt so, but by working on my habits and systems, I have gotten everything under control and have made strides this year. So let me show off some of my work:

1984:

Our goal was to create a 5-minute film by connecting a dystopian novel to a real-life scenario. In all my years of PLP, I have not included myself in a video. This year would be different. I took inspiration from the many educational YouTube video and how they edit to enhance their storytelling. I would break up each section to deliver important lines and add more impact. Setting up my living room for my shoot, I used a 50mm lens to get a soft blurred background.

To maximize my efficiency, I made a formula for this process. After creating my script, I first did a dry run-through, simply talking through it. This helped cement how long my video was going to be and what I needed to record. Next, I looked through my recording and chose parts where I would talk in front of the camera and where I would do a voice-over. Putting the dry recording into Premiere, I got a pretty good idea of where everything went and what I needed to do. Then, recording myself, I would slowly exchange the dry recording with the proper clips. Using this method helped me immensely as I could see my work come together, allowing me to plan how much I had to do accurately.

We only had a little time, so, unfortunately, the latter half of the video was rushed. As a result, I couldn’t concisely convey the information to go beyond primitive knowledge. This video helped show my editing skills and ability to work under pressure in tight timelines.

“Cancelled” A PLP Horror Movie:

Another movie, another chance to improve our previous work. This was the biggest project of the year involving multiple field studies, Socratic seminars, blog posts, and creating a film. It shows my ability to complete a project while having other work. I spent some, if not the most, time on this project while having one of the busiest schedules, which is often how my life goes—constantly walking on a fine line between burning out and trying to achieve my goals. I have always done too much having little free time, but that makes me feel like I am doing more with my time. In this project, I could have done more flex work to display my learning, but I was so hampered by everything that I couldn’t fully devote my time to that.

I have put in some, if not the most, hours into this project, combining all of my roles. In editing, Angelo and I had difficulty sorting through 600+ clips and putting together a comprehensible movie. We had to fill plot holes creatively by rearranging, splicing and cherrypicking audio and clips. As the cinematography assistant, I planned shots and filmed most of the character scenes. And finally, as the drone operator, I orchestrated my all-time favourite shot.

And despite many mistakes and our predecessor’s failure, our movie was not cancelled.

Eat That Frog:

I chose to read Eat That Frog! By Brian Tracy, a book entirely on stopping procrastination. This book lists 21 ways to be more productive with your time. Procrastination, for me, has become one of my biggest enemies for success. It’s what stops me from taking action on my goals, and it’s what keeps me stuck in a loop of bad habits. Spending a lot of extra time on assignments will often end up cutting my sleep schedule or free time. Designing an app to fix this problem, I loved the challenge of problem-solving and learning skills that will help me in my future ventures. I will continue to eat that frog daily and improve my ability to stay on task.

Our most recent project, creating a children’s book, tested our collaboration and delegation of tasks. The challenge of trying to fit a complex topic in such a simple medium was fun to figure out.

I am proud of the time I have put into PLP while completing scholarships, university applications, and doing three other sports. I constantly try to beat my past work. In the second semester, I will continue putting in work, but I will work on showing all of my work is done, as often my work goes unnoticed. I will have to continue to Eat that Frog as I have three other demanding courses and still have to do scholarships. I will set meetings weekly to discuss if I am on track for my target grade.