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The Impromptu Writing Journal – 2019 Exhibition

The Impromptu Writing Journal – 2019 Exhibition

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So I’m sitting in my house writing this post and my dad comes over and says “isn’t school over?” Technically yes it is. But I haven’t told you about the recent exhibition we did!

The Trip

So as the year comes to an end we always have a year-end exhibition. This year our projects were centred around our most recent trip, Circle BC. My experience from the trip I chose to base my project was writing in my journal. On the trip, our teachers nicely forced us to keep a journal. When talking to some of my friends they were reluctant to start writing because it took to long or they felt they were doing it wrong. I wanted to find a way to make writing down your travel memories. So I came up with The Impromptu Travel Journal. A book filled with writing prompts designed to get your ideas flowing.

Survey

I had to do a lot of research for the book starting with a survey. The survey asked questions that helped me figure out what kinds of ideas the book should include and technical things like how long the book should be. One of the questions my survey asked was what type of book people would want and out of all the options, hardcover book was the winner. I had my work cut out for me seeing as I now had to write out every writing prompt and create a hardcover book.

The Process

This was probably one of my most ambitious individual projects. The research was pretty easy because I got over 40 responses to my survey. Finding out how to create a hardcover book was easy too; one google search and there was more than enough information.

Once I finished the research, I started making the writing prompts. That was pretty easy, I just used the information from the survey and all the five senses to come up with the prompts. With all the prompts written I went on to make the pages of the book. This was the most difficult part because I needed to format the pages so that they were in order when I put the book together. After I wrapped my mind around that, it was time for the fun part. Making the book! These are the two videos I used to learn.

Now knowing how to make a book I gathered the supplies and got to work. My first draft went surprisingly well, the only issues were the page order. Other than that I was super happy with the design. For the second draft, I fixed the page order and I kept the same design as the last.

Next, I created my display. The display was designed with 4 rotating panels. I wanted it to be interactive and more interesting than a poster.

Now my book and display weren’t the only works of mine at the exhibition. We also had our trip podcasts on a playlist for people to listen to.

The Podcast

My podcast was about how I came up with my exhibition idea. Of course, it was my idea during the trip. Once I got back my idea changed a lot.

Making this podcast was an interesting experience because we had to create it during the trip. This left not a lot of time and all of us ended up making our podcast on the 22-hour ferry boat. It all ended up ok though because I got it done. I thought my script was really strong and I recorded all my parts when the ferry was stopped so there wasn’t as much boat noise in the back.

The big night

Now that my project is done its time to prepare for the big night. This is when we get to work together as a class to decorate the room. To make a matter easier we separated the room into 4 quadrants. I was in charge of quadrant 4 along with Isy, Luca and Emily. Quadrants were divided based on our projects and ours was “experience BC”. We decided to go for a fairly simple theme of nature but our bigger project was making a Response Box to get feedback on the Exhibition.

I think our biggest strength was the lighting in the room and how clean the room was. We had a really nice flow and good decor.

Summer Time… Finally

So the exhibition is over and its time for summer. I think the exhibition this year went so well. I think we had a super strong room and everybody’s projects went very well. There isn’t too much I would change about my project, I’m so proud of the book and I think my display added a nice surrounding to my project. This year was by far my best exhibition. I felt like I really cared about the project I made and I that really showed in this project. Here’s to another good year! I’ll see all you guys next year!

Cheers,

Jessie

The course that caught me by surprise (in a good way)

The course that caught me by surprise (in a good way)

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It’s getting to the end of the year meaning things are starting to come to a close. One of those things is PGP. Personal Growth Plan or PGP is a course PLP forced us into halfway through the school year. Now I say forced because at the time, that’s how I felt. But now seeing it come to an end, I’m a bit sad.

The goal of this course was to teach us better work habits. To me, this just felt like it was going to be another goal writing course where you wrote SMART goals and I do not enjoy those. This course turned out to be so much more. We read books and did exercises that got us thinking not only about our school goals but our personal goals and that’s what I loved about it. I learned new skills to improve my school life and my personal life and with that, I’ve created a video that jumps back in time to look at some of the things I learned.

I explain in the video the habits I found to be the most useful. Where I learned these habits were from the two books we read during the course.

What Do You Really Want by Beverly K. Bachel teaches you how to set goals and go for them and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey teaches you, well as the title states, the seven habits of highly effective teens.

I mention goal setting and how I used to think it was silly. However, I learned that it is wondrously helpful for not only for school but also my personal life. I was fairly closed minded on the idea of goal setting until I read What Do You Really Want. I also mention two points from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens, like being a yes man and being proactive. Those two things really stuck out to me as I read because I could relate to them. These habits were the ones that really stuck and I wished I had known them sooner. That is why they are included in my video.

What would this post be without a good old reflection? At the beginning of this course, I questioned everything we were doing and I felt like I wasn’t going to be helpful. But I stepped outside of my comfort zone and tried something new and I did learn great things. I try my best to think about the 7 habits every day and goals have really helped me in ways I didn’t think they could. I’ve become so much better at time management and organization. I think I really have to thank the teachers for this one. All through this stressed me out a lot, in the end, it was very rewarding. I’ve seen a big change in myself and I hope others do too. So thanks to the teachers for making this course possible. I’m going to miss it.

As always, thanks for checking in, I’m still in school.

Jesse

2018 Exhibition

2018 Exhibition

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This years exhibition was a very new experience for me. We moved away from creating our own project or product or driving question. Instead, we had to create a 7 minute Pecha Kucha presentation based on our driving question.

“Why does it take a crazy person to change the world?”

Here is the video from my presentation for those of you who didn’t have the pleasure of seeing me in all my glory, sorta.

So the goal of this unit was to answer the driving question. We have done a lot of research on this topic and by the end of the unit, we came to the decision we had an overstanding of the topic. One of the things we did during this unit, we went on a trip to Seattle. You may be thinking what does a trip to Seattle have to do with this question. Well lucky for you I wrote a blog post on it where you will find a lovely video.

Creating The Presentation

Creating the presentation was quite the experience. I had to write out what I was going to say and then memorize it, as well as create the seven-minute slide show. In terms of scriptwriting, it was pretty easy. We were told to not write a script but my mind works better that way. Writing scripts has always been my thing whether it’s for a video or a play I write, whether its line by line or a wall of text. Visually I like it much better and im glad my method wasn’t shut down. We did a lot of revision on our scripts until they were almost perfect and ready to perform.

Once I had the script, making the slide show was pretty simple as well. The only thing that was difficult was making sure each image meant something. Each image has to go with what I’m saying and enhance it.

Memorizing my script was the hardest part. I had written a lot of words because as I said before that is how my mind organizes things. But when it came to memorizing I didn’t want to read all the stuff I read over and over. What I would do next time is to write the script then highlight the important sections into bullet points for an easier read.

In Preparation Of The Evening

In preparation of the evening, we were tasked to find a theme for our presentation room and plan to bring snacks and drinks as a class. Working with the whole class and having to come up with one idea was a really new thing for us all I think. There were a good number of us, myself included who took the reins and made sure everyone was doing their part.

Our theme for our room was a coffee house. So we had a bar table with stools and coffee tables that sat 3 people each. We also had a couch in one corner along with a bunch armchairs around the back of the room.

  

For snacks and drinks, we decided to bring things like mini sandwiches, cookies and coffee. For our presentations, we made a menu with all our names on it as different items on the menu.

I think we did a really good job working together and I think the room turned out really well. In the future, I think doing more group work like this would be really fun.

The Evening Of

The evening of was very interesting. I volunteered to be the first presenter. So as soon as the doors opened I was very nervous. I’m very proud of myself for going first. It was out of my comfort zone but I was pretty confident. After that, I just had the evening to walk around and visit other peoples projects.

Reflection

This whole project was really a different experience for me. In PLP we usually have a different approach to projects but it always follows the same curriculum as the regular program. However, this whole unit was different from anything any other classes were doing. This project was a unique and overall impactful project. I really learned a lot. Im not going to reflect too much on the presentation itself mostly because I don’t want to watch the video. I’m very proud of how it went and I got a lot of positive feedback on it. I think its ok if I leave it in the past now. The night was amazing and I had a lot of fun. Can’t wait for the next one.

As always thanks for checking in, I’m still in school!

Jessie

 

 

Apple loops

Apple loops

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As you know we create a lot of videos in PLP, and what is a video without good music. Nothing, its nothing. But since we usually share our videos with the world we run into the troubles of copyright music. However, using garage band you can create your own music! Now I know that seems difficult but Apple makes it really simple with a new feature called Live Loops.

Check out the song I made!

Making this live loop was extremely easy. It’s not the most astounding thing ever, and it didn’t take me a lot of time. But you can imagine what great music you could use make if you spent a lot of time working on it.

As I said making this was super easy. I used the “House” Loop. I experimented with the different sounds and tempos and once I found something I liked I started to record.

I find its difficult to map out what you are going to record when using live loops because you can’t really write down the chords or notes you are going to play. But if you practice what you are going to record multiple times it works really well.

I think this is a really great tool for videos because you can make some great music in short amounts of time. This is super helpful because when creating a video, music is the last thing that goes into it. If you haven’t timed it out right then you can often run out of time for music. But live loops makes it super easy and I will certainly use it in the future.

As always thanks for checking in, I’m still in school!

Jessie

Documenting a live event

Documenting a live event

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With advancements in technology especially the camera we love to document all the cool activities we do. But have you ever tried to take a picture of something live and then missed the perfect shot? It’s pretty difficult. So that’s why we did it!

For maker class, we had to attend a live event and document it as best we could. It also had to include an interview with one of the participants. So my choice was to go out thrift shopping with my friend because we love thrifting. Here is my first draft of my live event video.

Before going out to film I made an action plan. An action plan is super helpful when filming a live event because it gives you a rough idea of the shots you want to get.

Filming a live event, in my opinion, is much easier than recreating a video like in our previous projects. I like that you have the freedom to find your own story instead of copying someone else’s video. After I got all the footage I needed I enjoyed the rest of my day out before going home to edit the video. Then when we showed them in class I got some good feedback from my classmates.

So with the feedback I received, I made a list of all the things I wanted to fix and then I re-edited the video.

That is my draft 2 that included all the stuff I said I was going to fix. Im very proud of the finished product and I enjoyed this mini-assignment.

As always thanks for checking in im still in school!

Jessie

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