Hello everyone. Welcome to my mpol. Today I will take you through a journey of my learning throughout the year so far.

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am 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 weaknesses. Thank you in advance for listening and offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

Coming into the year my expectations of PLP were different then what the reality was. If i am being honest I thought I was going to be able to adjust into PLP for a while. But, in reality I was hit by a truck. I was treated like I was in PLP for as long as everyone else. And this surprised me. I was not ready. But in the long run and looking back on it now I realize that this benefitted me hugely. I was treated like an adult and I had to discover how to use all the apps and all the tools quickly and creatively because I would have to be using them in the upcoming trip to Alberta.

Let’s start with Humanities. Humanities was the first class I had in PLP. To start off with Humanities we worked on some Pre Prip planning and then moved on to some assignments During Alberta. After arriving back we started working on our Power of Place video. This was my favorite assignment and the assignment I believe to have helped me understand PLP the most so far. This is because it was the first project that I experienced what I call “The PLP method” We started off with planning. We planned what questions we were going to ask and in which location on our trip. We also planned what our question was going to be based off of depending on our location. I.e Ice sheets= Environment question. Then, we also planned WHO we were going to ask. Whether we were going to ask tourists themselves, or tourism experts, or tour bus drivers etc. After this we went on our trip and got our footage. This was a very crucial step, but in my opinion not the most crucial. After returning from the trip it was time to start making the video. This was where I got my first taste of PLP. We reviewed our footage with piers, then teachers. All while learning how to use IMovie to its fullest potential when making videos during maker class. After that we made our first draft. We got feedback from piers and teachers to help with our final copy. Because of all of this I was able to make a video I was and still am extremely proud of.

Assignments that I am not proud of or that I feel I could do better in Humanities is the Revolution reading and the novel study groups. I feel like this wasn’t my best work because I was not able to focus when reading. I would often read with music or listen to the audio book while doing other homework to conserve time and multitask. This was not good for me at all. This caused me to read the material but not actually know what I was reading and just go through the motions. I would read the material but it wouldnt actually stick in my head. This was because I was not allowing myself to focus with all the music or other work going on in my head. In the future I believe I can fix this by setting aside certain times only dedicated to reading so I dont put myself in a situation where I have to do two things at once. Another reason I believe I didnt do the best on this project was because I couldnt count on my group. We were not organized as a group. Members would often come to school unprepared with their homework not even started. This made it difficult because we would have nothing to talk about for their portion of the talking period and we would sit there in awkward silence. This is also partly my fault because I should have contacted my group reminding them or asking for progress reports so we could all be on the same page. I can do better by next time we have a group assignment and reading comprehension I can be more prepared with my work by time blocking and not procrastinating.

In Scimatics I had a particularly different experience than the other classes. In Scimatics Mr. Gross gives us more freedom. He trusts us to work hard and if we don’t get work done or are fooling around our mark for that project gets affected. And that is a different style of teaching. I would say my best project for scimatics was the first one. I was partnered with Kaden and we made a card game using exponent laws. This project was my best work in scimatics because I was able to use my time efficiently. Also, Kaden and I are very good friends and during the project we were able to put aside our friendship and be purely work partners. This helped a lot because we were able to sperate times when we could fool around like at break or lunch and times where we had to work. This helped with staying on task and being focused. I believe this was the main reason we were able to work so well together during that project.

A time where I felt i could have worked harder and better in scimatics was the chemistry unit. From the start I had a lot on my mind from other classes and was not in the right mindset. This lead me to thinking that I could always put my work off to the last minute or not do it because the other classes were more important. This was completely wrong. Every class is the same and should be treated equally. My procrastination cause me to not do work. Not doing work caused me to not learn the material. This caused me to not know what I was doing and flunking my video. My final video was all over the place because I had not learned the material properly. In the future I can fix this by treating Scimatics like every other class. A class where I need to put 100% into because I wont be able to learn without it.

Next is PGP. So Far we have only had to major assignments for PGP. Take your Kid to work day and the Alberta field school Reflection. I believe that I can confidently say that I completed both assignments to the best of my ability. For the Take your kid to work day I planned out my shots before filming. I knew I wanted the quantum computer to have a final reveal at the end. I planned that out and filmed scrolling shots to show that. I also knew I wanted to have my interview close to the middle after some B-roll but before revealing the computer. I planned this stuff out by writing it in a pages document with specialized questions for every person I was interviewing. In the end I only used one clip of me interviewing someone because it was the best overall. 

Also for PGP I worked on my Alberta Reflection. This blog post was a huge reflection on everything that happened in Alberta. Everything from our daily journals, to filing our videos, to getting content for our Power of Place video, and to just having fun and taking pictures for personal use. This blog post was a massive one. I feel like I completed this task to the fullest of my potential because I was honest. I admitted what I liked and what I didn’t like. I tried to give as accurate feedback as possible to help the teachers. Because, after all, this was an honest reflection not just a post about what we liked. When writing my post I also tried to organize it as neatly and as easy to read as possible. I have struggled with this in the past but I feel like I have gotten the grip of it and can format my paragraphs well. I also tried to include as many images and videos as possible to make the post less boring and non-stop reading. Pictures often help relax the eyes and take a break from just reading endless words.

So far this year Maker has been about learning how to do things. Whether we were learning how to use Explain Everything, or learning the steps to filming a movie or whatever. Maker has been an opportunity to learn how to do new things in groups and individually. An assignment I am extremely proud of is Making my “Run” carbon copy video. Noah, Owen, and I went to extremes to make the videos as exact as possible. Some examples of this is when we were editing we were literally playing the run video beside us so we could time our video perfectly. Or going out and MAKING our OWN SFX sounds. We would go beside a running stream of water and clipped the mic to a leaf so we could get realistic rushing water sounds. Or filming each seen over and over until we got it perfectly. This project showed our teamwork in very creative ways and we all worked to the best of our abilities. We also made sure our pre filming planning was exceptional so filming became easier.

An example of an assignment i am very not proud of is the Student Blogging challenge. I absolutely tanked this assignment. When it was going on I still mostly had no clue what I was supposed to do. Whether I needed to comment on someone’s blog EVERY week or just once. I was also not organized. I had no way to keep track of my homework and when it was due. This caused me to fall behind on all my homework. And when I remembered I had to finish the SBC for that week I would procrastinate to the biggest extreme. If I came home from soccer and I was tired I would make up an excuse to not do the challenge. I fell extremely behind. 

In the future i would like to plan my week out better and make time for the future SBC in the Spring. I believe during this upcoming SBC I can put into actions the new strategies I have learned to help me organize myself and my time.

So. By the end of the year I want to be able to achieve this learning goal… By the end of the school year I would like to be incredibly organized. I want to be on top of every assignment I receive and have multiple different methods of keeping track which assignment is due. Whether I use things and I can set up alarms to remind me. But, I dont want to only be organized in my school work. I want to be organized in every aspect of my life. This is my end goal.

I think my teachers can agree with me that Procrastination is my biggest downfall and what I need to work on the most to become the best version of myself. Do you guys have any methods to help me stay organized and not procrastinate?

Any project I mentioned in this post can be found on my blog Website!