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.
Growth and Learning
I think I have grown a lot over my time with PLP, there are a bunch of things that as I go forward into mainstream I will take with me, for example I am aware that as I get into the later grades it will become more tech integrated. PLP has taught me some great things for the tech aspect of school, like good apps to use, techniques and ways to translate things into an online platform. It has also helped me with group projects, I understand that as I go on in later grades I will have group projects and the strategies PLP has taught me will hopefully help.
Reflection and Working
Through my time in PLP I have developed a fairly consistent work ethic, when I’m in class I try to complete as much work done as possible to try and work homework out of my life, when I get homework I do complete it on time to the best of my ability’s, this I believe has shown most in humanities and science. My weak side comes in maker class. It has even difficult on the later half of the year because we have seen so little of our teacher, the T.O.Cs we have gotten have not been well informed on what to teach and how to teach us. This has made me struggle because I haven’t been able to figure out what to do at times. But when I do I get it done to the best of my ability’s.
Examples
Some examples of my work can include the most recent science and humanities projects where we had an exhibition on pollination and we made a comic book on World War 1.
Other examples from maker can include my Unboxing Me video or my Managing Me video.
VMV Comparison
I have been able to achieve some of the things on my VMV, others I would like to work on but I believe I have worked up in band and am getting closer to be able to TA, and next year I would like to start building my service hours. And I do believe that I have been able to stick to my values on my VMV.
Answer to the Driving Question
Driving Question: Why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level?
I think that in and outside of PLP I have been able to demonstrate a proficient level of learning in most of my classes, some are extending and one is lower but I feel over all that I have been able to consistently create quality work that meets grade level on time.
Thank you for listening and if you have any questions feel free to ask!
Yeah, we’re back at it, again. I swear with each and every time I do DI the voices get louder.
Anyways for a recap if you don’t remember what DI is here’s a copy and pasted definition of it from my last blog post cause I really don’t feel like writing another one.
What is DI?
DI (Destination Imagination) is a world wide tournament where groups participate in different challenges, for us it comprises of two tournaments, regionals which is just the lower mainland and provincials which is all of B.C. The challenges for this year and last were technical (hardest), engineering, fine arts and science. With each challenge it incorporates a hero’s journey which must be morphed into what ever solution the group comes up with.
Don’t You… Remind me of DI
After the pretty good success of LTF (our group name, I’ll let you guess what that means.) at the regional tournament placing second in our challenge category my group was pretty happy to take a break from DI, and with spring break right around the corner it was perfect. When we got back it was business as usual, DI was scheduled for the second weekend after spring break. Now in what was probably an error in judgment by us, we put it off for the first week, which I was more then happy to do. Then my blissful ignorance was interrupted by one of my group members. So we started working on improvements to our contraptions.
Cool Change
We didn’t change a whole lot, for the crane only added one thing which actually improved its functionality a lot. Here are some crude drawings of it cause it uh… it’s been “retired”. If you got that reference your cool. If you didn’t, go watch Blade Runner.
This is what we started with…
This is what we used in the regional tournament…
And the thing highlighted in red is what we added, now what that is is a cardboard stick attached to the rope, which helped to reflect rotation of the string and hook and help the pilot guide the hook to where they wanted. For the destruction element it actually looked like the thing we wanted it to.
We added a fake weight and everything, don’t worry I won’t plague you with more of my terrible art work so I’ll keep going.
Working For The Weekend
So after the end of the week, the day of reckoning arrived. I woke up, got to school and began preparing, our challenge presentation was at 11:40 and I got there at 8:00 so we had some time. As time went by we rehearsed and refamiliarized our self with the script. Then the time rolled around, we checked in, presented and it went really well, we had gotten more our stack items in the zone successfully without help and our destruction element worked like a charm. We then had some time to chill, and in that time I made my prediction. Normally I jinx myself constantly but this time I was certain we would win so I got myself a pin from this years DI. We then did our instant challenge and I think it went amazi-CLASSIFIED. I then chilled for the rest of the day and then the awards ceremony rolled around. All but me and one other person from my group hadn’t left yet so we filed into the gym and waited with time going by. They started by awarding the technical group awards first which was nice, that way I wouldn’t have to wait a while to see if we won. They announced third, they announced second, they announced who won the instant challenge and then “first place for the 2025 technical challenge, LTF!”. I was ecstatic, I had finally won first place for a DI challenge, everyone else in my DI group had won first place except me, I had won third last year and second at regionals this year. It was great, we celebrated, oh it was glorious. After that we packed up, cleaned up and went home.
My Way
“And now… the end is near.” You know DI was pretty fun, the competition that is, not everything before, but I’m very happy with how we did, I think our group was great, working together as a team and being able to get things done to a very good quality. I give my congratulations to everyone who participated and won at DI Provincials “and I did it MMMYYYYYYYY WWWAAAAAYYYY!”
PS. If you haven’t figured out by now what LTF stands for, I’ll give you a hint, It’s massive.
… Is the question of the ages, am I going to talk about it? No, just… no. What I am going to talk about however is our latest completed science project! So sit down, grad a snack and listen to a high school student put on a masterclass of yapping about his projects! What the heck am I doing with my life, what are you! You’re the one listening to a kid, weirdo.
More Infographics!
This project was all about electricity! It started with sustainable energy, we spent a couple weeks covering different types of energy, they’re good, bad and how much they produce. We were then tasked with making another infographic. If you want to know what that is go check out my Viva La Revolution blog post, Im to lazy. We were given the choice of 3-5 different sustainable energy sources to do our own personal study’s on, for this I chose nuclear energy.
This is the infographic I researched and compiled. Anywho after that began the main assignment of the project, we were to create a board game! Now if you don’t know the game Operation, I don’t blame you, I’d never played before but I had a general concept of the make and rules. How it works is you play as a surgeon and try to pull things out a guy body with out touching the sides of his body, if you do it lights up a light and buzzer and you lose. Ours was similar but all you had to do was stick your tweezers into different holes in the body, one of them will light up the light which I’ll get to, but it’s basically Russian roulette.
The Construction
The first step was to acquire a shoe box, this proved difficult for some people which I understand because I was not so inclined to go and spend like 80 bucks on new shoes I didn’t need for a school project. However fortune for once went my way, the day I found out what I needed my mom happened to buy some new boots and wasn’t using the box. In the mean time we worked on some of the wiring systems that we would later use for our game. We learned about current flow and conductors and we learned how to connect the schools material to make a light light up. It was pretty simple, connect on wire to one end of the battery, connect it to a light, connect another wire to the other ends of both and it should light up. We then got more technical and instead of both wires connecting to either end of the light one end connected to some metal tweezers. When the tweezers made contact with the light it acted as a switch and the light would illuminate. This is what we would use for our game. Once most of my peers had a box we began our construction, I actually almost finished on the first day, what I did was I flipped the box over and that was going to be my board surface, I drew my character and poked the holes in him. For the conductor I lined the inside of the game surface in tin foil which would be my conductor. I then connected one end of the light to the tin foil and a wire leading to the battery on the other. I played the battery on the inside of what once was the lid and was now the bottom of my game so that I wasn’t hanging and didn’t needed to be taped. I then connected a wire on the other end of the battery and fed it out of the box, I attached the tweezers to the wire and I was pretty much done. All I had to do was add some extra paper into all but one of the holes so that only one of them would light up the light.
This is what it looked like in the end, except the tweezers aren’t attached. I must say I was very happy with myself, I was the first one done and it worked every time. Then my troubles began. See we were using the schools materials, and one of the things my teacher wanted is for us to be able to take them home and shown it to family or whoever. Obviously we couldn’t take the schools property so my teacher very generously went out and bought us enough materials to be able to make our game and take it home. Unfortunately unlike the schools, some of the wire wasn’t built for what we were doing sure we improvised and it worked every time, just took more time and at least in my experience they didn’t work a hundred times out of a hundred but if they work they work. The thing that annoyed me the most was despite the fact that I re-built the game the exact same with the new materials it didn’t seem to work. I tried for a week to get this ruddy thing to work and to my great surprise it was more stubborn than me! I did talk to my teacher and explained what was going on, she gave me some suggestions and I tried but no cigar. Thankfully she saw before that I had gotten it to work so I was given proficient understanding.
The Driving Question
How does electricity shape our society and how can we generate it more sustainably?
I think electricity is something that since its discovery has worked its way into our way of life so radically that I think most people depend on it just as much as food and water, and electricity is even now crucial in the filtration of water and the growing of food. It has shaped us for better and for worse, I don’t think we should depend as much as we do on electricity however it has lead to some of the most world changing discovery’s and innovations of our modern society. I think they’re are a lot of ways to generate it more sustainably, most have their pros and cons but I think its a question of which works for us best. Nuclear has many advantages over the rest however it produces waste that we are not yet sure how to get rid of and we definitely have to be more careful when using it. Hydro and wind are also great options however it boils down to the affordability of it, the mass production of it and the change in grid. But I think the key thing is the impact of environment it has because that’s the whole point of sustainability. In short I would go with the form that impacts the environment least.
Outro
Thanks for listening to this extra long yap session by yours truly, hope you have a great week and I’ll see you next time!
I, the student, thank you for coming to my presentation on 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 offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.
Intro
Hello everyone and welcome to my MPOL ( Mid-term Presentation Of Learning), in this I will be discussing how I have progressed on my learning and strategies I have developed over the course of the school year to keep me on track for the remainder.
Pros.
So at the beginning of the year we had our Pre-Pol and we created our VMV (Vision, Mission, Values) where we listed our goals and examples to help us keep on track through out the year. Some of the things from my VMV I think I have succeeded with so far this year is as follows.
1) (Contributing)concert/jazz band
2) Attends all classes
3) Identifies sources of stress
4) Ownership and responsibility
So number 1 has to do with contributing to the community/school. I did specify that in later years I would volunteer for school events to get hours but as of right now I am involved in two of the school bands, jazz and concert. For 2 I make it my utmost to attend all classes, I always try to be on time and often I am one of the first people in the room. For 3, in the past and fairly recently I have had sources of stress or anxiety and I think while things can get bad and behind I think I have been able to find strategies and ways to either get work done or get old stuff in while working on new stuff. And finally for 4, when ever I make a mistake or if I don’t get something in on time, I do admit when I make a fault. If I don’t put the right amount of work in, I do take accountability.
My Schedule
Now I have discussed in the past getting a homework/school schedule. I was going to use a small calendar that I had to log everything so that I could keep track of everything. Now with this most recent project in Maker talked about “Managing Me” where we learned about different apps and ways to log our assignments and manage our school lives.
These are the two main sources for managing my school work, we found in maker that you could download the school calendar for the entire year and that has helped me keep on top of which classes I have and when events are happening. From the advice of my teachers I have also started using Things, while I am not a huge fan of it it is very advantageous for managing my work, with the ability to add due dates and when notifications it will let you know in advance when something is due.
Answering the Driving Question
DQ: How might I use my skills in communication to help me succeed in my learning?
Through out this year I have used several skills taught, and developed by me and my parents in quality and time of work completion and communication with both my teachers and parents in school related topics.
Outro
Thank you all for your time and listening and I hope you all
Yes you read that title right, this time I’m playing with stuffies. That came out wrong, anywho what this one was all about was the Industrial Revolution. Now I bet you just broke your neck out of confusion but bare with me.
Studying
As I stated above we had started learning about the Industrial Revolution, my teacher first started with a simulation game, we were sorted into groups and after we did some preliminary studies we went through stages where we drew a plot of land and had to over different stages add, subtract, and move new buildings, factories, and housing based on the progression of the Industrial Revolution. And we sure learned how crowded things got.
The different symbols on the plan signify different types of buildings/ establishments.
That right there is the map we created, told you it was crowded. Anyways we then moved on and we watched a fairly long documentary that talked about some of the key advancements in engineering and trade. Basically the key things that happened in the Industrial Revolution. We were asked to take doodle notes which are about what they sound like.
Here are my doodle notes for the documentary.
Now that we had a base of understanding our next task was to create our character.
Templeton Furgle Brünnhilde
Yes that is my character, see the idea behind this project was to learn about the Industrial Revolution then create a character and story with historical points from the real thing. For example one of my classmates made theirs about a toy maker and one made theirs include details about the steam engine and another with pottery. Mine specifically was about a coal miner. My character is mining one day and an accident happens where he has to get surgery. Since he’s missing body parts they have to replace them with what ever they have, giving him the mix matched appearance. After this he meets an old man who also works at the mine he does, he helps him realize the risk and conditions are not worth the pay. He then reads Uncle Tom’s Cabin and he is fed up. He goes on a crusade petitioning for better pay and conditions, gets a petitions signed and lives happily ever after. Now of course this was an assignment and I went into more detail but for now this works.
This is my “Hero’s Journey” (plot of story)
It was then on to creating my beautiful monstrosity!
Time To Play Doctor!
This is Templeton.
That right there is what I landed on. Now at the time I had forgotten my stuffies so I had to use the left overs from other people. Mine is comprised of a pugs tail, the wings (pink things) are the feet off and owl, the main (rainbow thing) is also the tail from the same owl, the main body I have no clue what it is.
Me when I completed sewing Templeton.
When that was complete I then moved on to the film process.
Time To Play Director!
For this we were supposed to use green screen, I say supposed because I didn’t really use it. Actually a lot of people didn’t. We used fishing wire to puppeteer the stuffies and it did not work, they would just twist around and look ridiculous so what a good few people did was take photos on the green screen, put them in keynote and animate it. It honestly made our lives a lot easier, however because it was a requirement I did add some green screen shots.
That link there is the final video link, do please check it out, it would be pretty weird if you listened to me rant for like an hour and didn’t watch what I was talking about. Please watch it, I need views.
Outro
Thanks for reading and hopefully watching me yap for a while, stay posted on new posts coming out soon for World War 1, a new maker project where you’ll get to learn all about me and, get ready for it… DI!
“Now that the war is through with me, I’m waking up I can not see, that there’s not much left of me, nothing is real but pain now…” wise words written by James Hetfield.
I think most would agree that some up DI pretty well, at least it does for me. Now for people who aren’t my teachers this will be the first time you have heard about DI because I was to behind due to my horrible procrastination last year that I didn’t finish my post.
What is DI?
DI is a world wide tournament where groups participate in different challenges, for us it comprises of two tournaments, regionals which is just the lower mainland and provincials which is all of B.C. The challenges for this year and last were technical (hardest), engineering, fine arts and science. Last year I got technical where we had to build a pinball machine and tie it into a hero’s journey. We had some great success last year placing third in regionals and provincials, and winning the instant challenge in provincials.
Foreclosure of team and challenge choices
So last year we didn’t really have a choice of what we could do, they were randomly generated groups, this year however we were able to pick two people we wanted to work with and we were most likely guaranteed to at least get one of them. We were also allowed to list our choices of challenges that our school was doing from 1 being our first choice to 4 being our last. Now for context as I mentioned before I got technical, now while we had great results it was so horribly tedious and frustrating and stressful I did not entirely enjoy this process. So naturally I put technical 4 on my list, to my great dismay when the groups were generated I didn’t even got one person I asked for and low and behold I got technical again.
Me saying good bye to my mental stability.
Challenge debrief
So the technical challenge this year is we have to figure out how to stack different items into a tower and knock it down. And of course we had to include a hero’s journey. We were spit balling around ideas for a couple of days then one of us made the suggestion to do Rocky. We were all like heck yeah, after we had made a preliminary plot and script which went along the lines of this. The story is between Rocky 1 and 2. So he gets out the hospital after his first bit with Apollo, but he didn’t win and because the U.S is to cheap to be nice like Canada, Rocky didn’t get the prize and he cant pay his hospital bills so the bank takes his house and possessions. He sees a poster for an Australian fighter named Colin Hay. Yes that’s the name of the guy that wrote Land Down Under. Anywho he wants to fight him, just before the match Colin comes out with a crane and stacks Rocky’s possessions right outside of the ring, they fight, Rocky wins and out of adrenaline he throws a training device at the stack and knocks it down, everything goes well, he lives happily ever after. Then it was on to the building process.
Fifty Ways To Build A Crane
So we divided up the roles, I was on destruction with one other group member, the other three were on assembly, to create the crane they landed on this…
I kid you not and you know what, it worked really well. What they did was took off the roof, added two pillars on either side and a middle beam with an arm stretching out with a rope running through it. The rope had a hook at the end and that’s how we were able to stack the items.
Symphony of Destruction
Now for the destruction element. We planned for it to be a piece of training equipment and landed on one of these.
It was now a task of seeking out the materials to build the destruction element. What the final product looked like kind of resembled it, we just found some wood planks, slapped wheels on them and a cardboard cover and it worked just fine.
Mr. Saxobeat
So the last step was our team choice elements, a team choice element is something that can’t be part of the assembly, stack or destruction that counts for points. It can be a whole range of things however we landed on costumes and because it’s Rocky, we had to have the music. Now me being a saxophone player I offered to play and record 20-30 second clips of the music for the presentation. So I found some copyright free music of Gonna Fly Now, played it and recorded it. Now we planed on having that and one more, The Final Bell. Gonna Fly Now was going to be played during Rockys training scene and The Final Bell when he wins. So once I got the first song done I then looked for music for The Final Bell (bear in mind this is the night before the tournament) and I couldn’t find it. I was looking everywhere and it got to the point where I sat down and thought “what the heck am I going to do?” when I remembered back when I was starting out I would listen to music and transpose my own music. So pulled up the actual song and I listened to the first 30 seconds of the song and wrote my own music to how I thought it would sound. Once I got to a point where I was satisfied I recorded me playing that as well.
Welcome to the Show
It started at 8:45 where we had the opening ceremony then it was all building, thankfully unlike last year we didn’t go first, in fact we didn’t have to go until one o’clock so we had like four hours to proof our machines, rehearse our script and prepare for our inevitable trial. I swear this day reminded me of the lyric from Come As You Were with all the breaks and events we had to remember: “Take your time, hurry up, Choice is yours, don’t be late,Take a rest”… anyways, we completed our instant challenged which in my opinion went wel-CLASSIFIED. After that we kept on working away at our presentation and then the clock struck 1 and our time came.
Sweating Bullets
I swear to God I was really stressed, when we walked out what made it worse was my teacher said “you’re my only hope” like Princess Leia and believe me, my hat may are me look old but I ain’t no Obi-Wab Kenobi.
Click the link to see a clip of our performance, in it I play Paulie and the narrator.
As you can see from that video, things did not go according to plan, but my dad was saying the crowd loved the music and the story and acting was great, I’ve got to hand it to Jack (Colin) and Lucas (Rocky) for the really good accents they put on, Matteo (Mickey) did a great job with his acting and his portrayal of a motivator. But I think the best had to have been Cole (Adrian) his portrayal of the character was amazing and I think he should have won an Oscar.
Peace of Mind
In total I think it went great, my group won second place of our efforts and I think we definitely earned it. Sure there are things to change before provincials but I think we will be able to get there, keep an eye out for future posts about a video project where you’ll be able to learn all about me and World War 1. Thank you for listening to yet another yap session and have a great day or night or what ever time it is!
Do check out all of my group members blogs to here their perspective!
Declaration of the TPOL
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.
My Learning Story
My learning story was a little all over the place, sometimes it was good and sometimes it was bad, here are some strengths and weaknesses that I have to work on through the summer to better myself as a learner.
Ownership and Responsibility
Ownership has always been one of my great strengths, and I think I have grown in it by always taking account for my work, never using any means of plagiarism or cheating. When I have used sites I have always sourced the links to give credit where it’s due. I have also taken accountability for my actions, when or if I do something wrong or against the rules I have always taken responsibility. If anyone else also breaks the set rules or code of conduct I try to report it to the right people to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. A great example of this is in this most recent project, where I took the responsibility to keep my group on task and work while also at home effectively building the project.
Here is my partner Marcus and I at the spring exhibition.
Enthusiasm
I have also grown by everyday when I come to school I am always ready to learn, the classes I have been participating in have been very fun and engaging. The way that the program works suites me best, and the level of learning is more engaging because it is the higher level learning, specifically in history that interests me most. I also always try to come to school with a growth mindset. Another good example of this was in the first exhibition in December. It was a project based in the crusades history and I was highly interested. So when the project was introduced I was very enthusiastic about working on it.
Self Regulation
Another strength of mine is my balance, I try to balance out my life by signing my self up for extra curricular activities such as school band and several sports such as climbing, ball hockey and sailing. I also try to set my own boundaries for what I do so I stay comfortable doing the activities and make schedules to keep track of my work and my other activities. An example from when this played a role was when I had sailing every Wednesday, it always helped clear my mind so I would come to school with a much better mindset.
Areas of Improvement
I definitely need to improve on my work ethic and due date management. My work ethic is not what it should be for a few reasons, one, my mental health how ever I have now been able to get over that. Another reason is that when I seen something I think that it’s going to be a really long haul and is going to take a really long time and just don’t feel like doing it, in other words I have a hard time starting things. Once I do I can get it done in an acceptable amount of time. Then my due date management needs work. It often ties into my work ethic but if I get behind I find it very challenging to get back up to speed. I tend to get overwhelmed easily and need extra help to get me back on track.
Summery/Driving Question
driving question:
How can you showcase evidence to demonstrate that PLP Success Behaviours have prepared you to advance to the next grade?
In short I think that my answer to the driving question would be this, I think that I have areas to improve which I plan to create strategies over the summer that will help me improve for next year but I think that I have demonstrated evidence that I can advance to the next year.
I, the student, thank you for coming to my presentation on 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 offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.
Projects I’ve Succeeded On:
One of the projects that I believe I have done well on was “The Power Play”, which was the project that involved the winter exhibition and our learning about The Crusades and the Renaissance. I think that our group worked well together and were able to cooperate and get things done in a timely fashion. I believe that I personally was able to work well and did my best to be as dedicated as possible to the efforts of the group. During this period, I had been going through some mental challenges and this had effected my work; however, I was able to build up enough resilience to conquer those struggles and get my marks up to where they should have been at the start.
Here is our medieval tableau on presentation day!
The other project that I believe that I have succeeded on was destination imagination. I again was able to work well with that group of people, I attended meetings with the group and contributed as much as I could. I tried to be as dedicated to the project as possible, helping to build, paint, and contribute ideas to our team challenges. I believe that we, as a group, worked well together and I am very proud of our accomplishments and our teamwork as a whole.
Here is the group photo of all the Seycove teams after DI.
What I need to improve on
The two areas of improvement are time management and handing homework with good quality.
I need to improve my timeliness of when I hand things in. One of the things that causes this to happen is I have a hard time starting an assignment; however, when I do start the assignment I tend to get it done. My parents and I have discussed this and we are creating a schedule of my assignments and their due dates to keep me on track.
Another area of improvement that I can work on, is the quality of my work that I submit. For example, I can improve on my spelling and work towards meeting the assignment’s criteria. The way I am planning on improving this is by spell checking my work more often and making sure that I can spell things properly. Another strategy that I am going to use is to re-read through the criteria and requirements, that way I can go through my work so that it is what my teachers would have asked.
Habits and Strategies
One of the habits that I can work on is t0 be engaged, For example, if the assignment isn’t appealing to my interests, I may spend less time focused on the project and that impacts the quality of the work. I can improve on this habit is by staying optimistic and also trying to engage in the work and or discussion.
Reflections
Humanities
I have enjoyed this class very much. The lessons and teachers have been great and the projects have been quite fun to work on. History is the topic that I am most interested in as part of the humanities block. I especially enjoyed learning about the Crusades because it was a new area of history that I wanted to learn more about.
Maker
I enjoyed maker as well. One project that I particularly liked was the first maker project with Mr. Harris. The WordPack and Memoji were very fun to create.
Here is my WordPack.
Here is my completed Memoji.
I wanted to learn more technology so that information came with open arms.
Science
I have enjoyed science so far greatly, the teachers are very kind and I have especially enjoyed the labs. Also getting to study specimens under the microscopes in the classroom. I have had difficulty’s with the final assignment but I was able to adapt and get it done with what as required of me. I have always liked science, my dad being a teacher of several “sciences” I have been somewhat surrounded by them, so I was very happy to start science.
Thank you so much for listening to my presentation of learning, I hope you all have a great day and to many more successful projects. Frank, cue the curtains!
GOOD MORNING VIETNAM OR WHERE EVER YOU ARE! For any of you that have lived through the 80s you will get that reference. I know, I’ve been gone for a long time, but I’m back, and I have a new topic I’ve been required to tell you about, mysterious things like coding and the Kinetic Molecular Theory! I know, big words right, well that’s why I’m here! Your own personal dictionary just longer and more mind numbingly boring.
The Kinetic Molecular Theory
So, what is the Kinetic Molecular Theory? Well to give it to you in short, the kinetic molecular theory states that all particles are in constant motion, and that can depend based on how much kinetic energy the particles have, that can determine what kind of state of matter the material is in, for example if the material was a solid the particles would have only so much energy to vibrate in a certain amount of space. Now you might be thinking, why would that have anything to do with coding? Good question! PLP as you know has its ways of integrating technology into the learning, and what my teachers came up with was… A GAME! And to make it with… I give you Scratch! The buggiest thing I’ve ever used!
Coding… AHHHHHHHH!
See, to give you some context I had no knowledge of coding so I was confused from the get go. I had also made the mistake of getting rid of the tutorial before I knew that it was a tutorial and it didn’t come back so… yeah, I was off to a great start. And to keep PLP to its core it needed a story so I began by making characters, I had settled on the quiz type of game. In short you would answer questions and then if you got a certain amount right you would move on to the next level and repeat until you won the game. The story was that all of the oxygen molecules had disappeared and a nitrogen molecule had to save them and the world, a.k.a your average Disney movie plot. Anyways, after I had settled on a theme and characters I could then move on to the coding, and as I stated before, that did not start well. The hilarious thing is that in all that time, a guy pretty much glued to YouTube in my free time never thought to look up a tutorial! Anywho, I started to code and after a while I had a good start and then my nemesis arrived, THE BUGS! Dun dun dunnnnn!!! One day I get to class and open up my project and just like Heath Ledger as the Joker says, “its, its gone”, it had disappeared! Worse Scratch wouldn’t let me back into the website, I tried opening a new tab, nothing! With that option done I had to improvise. I went to the teacher and asked if I could turn it into a board game and it was approved.
The Board Game
Now, in terms of construction it was fairly easy to make. I had found a relatively large piece of paper and had draw a course out, kind of like a CandyLand path. Then, I set about making the questions, that if answered correctly would help you move forward a space. Answer wrong, and you would lose your turn. There were also bonus questions, for example, who created the Saturn model of the atom? We also learned about atoms to an extent. I got my pieces together and scrapped the idea of the nitrogen molecule because I wanted to have a multi-player game. I settled on a proton, a neutron, and an electron. And with that, to put it in the words of Shackleton, “I’ve done it, dammed the admiralty!”
Exittro… I don’t know I lost the word!
The way our attention spans are waning, if you have made it through this Catholic wedding ceremony, I’m proud. I thank you for reading my post. I hope that you have a very good day. Frank, cue the curtains!
That’s right! You’re finally getting it! This project actually was easier then I thought, now don’t get me wrong, the preparation for the Winter Exhibition was long and it was a lot of work but the actual presentation was quite easy.
We Prepare… A LOT!
It all started with preparation, we as a group spent hours on it, our first job as a group was to go through all of our art charts (which was an assignment from the last project that was sadly resurrected) picking the best images for each category. The categories were as follows geography, values, belief, knowledge, society, economy and time. After a while we planned out our first tableau for our triptych. See, the way that the triptych was going to work was that we were going to take all of the learning that we had gathered over the corse of the semester and put it all into this so we were going to have three sections, medieval for The Book of The Lion and the Crusades, Renaissance, for the learning we had done most recently, and finally the modern or contemporary section as we liked to call it.We had on the first day about planned the medieval section and was going to start to build some of the elements we were going to need.
The next day we continued to plan, and over the corse of the next couple of day were just about done planning everything out, now we just had to build it. Now I would like to give a huge thanks and shout out to some of my group members who while we were planning, at home were spending hours working on the props that we were going to use, thank you, we would have not been able to do it without you guys!
After we had planned out everything now it was a race against time to build everything!
Here is the total triptych image all put together.
Here are all three of our tableau’s making our triptych.
The first photo (medieval) shows a peasant paying taxes to a tax collector in the form of a goat which we resolved by the finding a straw goat. Then we see a master teaching his apprentice how to use a sundial which was made out of cardboard to show how they learned back then. We have a church which was also made out of cardboard showing values. Then we have me, the king holding a spear (also cardboard) which i used an old costume for. Lastly we have a river which represents geography and how they got around… ALSO MADE OUT OF CARDBOARD! Look if you see a prop that were not wearing its made out of cardboard.
Here is our medieval tableau on presentation day!
Then the second photo (Renaissance) shows a peasant buying an indulgence which was a way you could erase your sin. Then we have the same river with a boat also representing geography (also cardboard). Then we have me representing the Catholic Church to show the value and power of the time. We also have a clock representing the invention of the time and a way that society lived. Finally we have a peasant praying to the church and a person reading a book because it shows how they passed on knowledge during that period.
Here is our renaissance tableau on presentation day!
Now finally we have the modern tableau, it has me as an Apple Store which we tackled by making the back side do the church look like an Apple Store so that all I had to do was flip the church around during changes. Then we have a pedestrian purchasing some food from a grocery till and we have a person studying on Wikipedia which shows how knowledge is passed down and attained. Then we have the river, which on the backside we painted a road to make it easier during changes with a car on it representing geography. Finally we have a scientist showing values and how we have grown to value science more then in the past. Unfortunately i do not have a photo of this on presentation day but you get the picture!
The Explaining!
So, you may start to remember something’s from the previous post, such as the art chart and several of the subjects that we used for this and you would be right, this was the total and final presentation of our learning! As I said before over the past semester we were to put all of our learning into this. So I have been instructed, COUGH, excuse me, I have decided to add in both of the paragraphs that I wrote on what I had learned about both subjects, enjoy!
Medieval
This book taught me that many things today are very similar to back then and things from back then in medieval times have carried over to modern times in force. For example the. Way we run the economic has barely changed from what it was back then, except for some minor modernizations. This has changed how I understood how the medieval world view was back then and how it worked, it also changed how I saw the way that things have changed since then and what has stayed the same, this was a great and eye opening experience and would love to do it or something similar again!
Renaissance
Learning about the Renaissance worldview helped me to understand how they thought and what they knew, also it showed me how lucky I am not to live in a society like they did then. The Renaissance was a “golden age” of invention and thinking, while it was a golden age, many horrible things happened, such as the witch hunts and the schism of the Catholic Church. It makes me feel lucky not only live in a society that tears itself apart multiple times, not to mention the sickness at the time, with the plague. On the bright side it also showed me how much we owe to them in the creation of modern society. Such as laws, medical care, and the inventions to help us navigate the world, such as the telescope, and the clock. This showed me that the Renaissance was crucial to us today and I am thankful that there are still people out in the world that are like the great innovator and inventors of that time that are changing our world!
Conclusion
I know, I know, your probably board of herring some guy talk about his school project so I’ll spare you. Despite all of my complaining I really enjoyed this project and i was with a great group! I own them so much so I would like to give them a huge shout out! Thank you to Danny, Eloise, Isaac, Elsa and Robin! You all did such a great job and i am so thankful for it, now I don’t have there blog links on hand but I will like a website where you can find them all, just look under the PLP 8 section and you’ll find them… until next time everyone!
Links And Resources
here is a link to my previous post that were involved in this! Have fun reading them!
here is the link to the website, again just click on learner profiles, go to the PLP 8 section and you’ll find them all, have fun reading about there experiences!
