Author: matthewt

For this weekly recap we are going to be talking about what I did last week which was mostly preparation for our new project about WW2 by making a need to know list, learning more about nationalism and starting our search for an interviewee.

For our need to know list it was a little different than usual because instead of adding to one big list we would send our individual need to knows into Showbie. Other than that it was the same as usual.

For nationalism we had to read about it and listen to interviews with multiple veterans who served in different wars. After that we had to write a short one paragraph essay about nationalism what it means and how you can relate to it. My essay had lots of issues because I didn’t pay close enough attention to the rubric. Even though it has lots of issues I plan on fixing them all.

Finally for finding an interviewee what I ended up doing was contacting one of my moms friends dad who is a WW2 veteran and was one of the kids who was evacuated from London during the blitz bombings. After contacting him I gave him a briefing on what the project was about and he agreed to do an interview.

Overall this was a very productive week and really helped me get into the vibe of this project.

Why hello glad to see your back. So your wondering what this post is about? Ok this post is my sixth weekly recap. The two biggest things I did last week was the story research milestone and the story connections milestone.

For the story research milestone which was milestone 2 we had to research about WW2 but more specifically research that would help us with the story we wanted to tell for our podcast. For me since I was interviewing a man who as a kid during the London blitz was evacuated to Canada so I decided to focus my research on that topic. I did that so I would be more prepared for my interview Instead of just researching random stuff about WW2.

For milestone 3 story connections we had to read a short story about a WW2 veteran named John Ivan Anderson and then fill out this sheet.

The sheet is pretty comprehensive asking you to fill in a three act story structure and connect the story to yourself. Where I feel I could have improved on this one is I didn’t add enough detail for the three act structure and I could have overall just detail for everything.

In conclusion this week was very productive and we did do some other things but I thought I would highlight what I thought were the most important things we did the week. Overall there are ways I could and will improve the milestones from this week.

Hi, how’s it going for this month’s blog post I’m going to be talking about our latest project The Greatest Canadian. Now just a quick recap of what we did in this project.

First off the goal of this project was to answer the driving question which was who is the greatest Canadian using a podcast we made.

The first milestone we had to do for this project was a need to know list which we have to do for all projects. The next milestone we had to do was a story mountain for the person we picked as our greatest Canadian. The third milestone we did was research and notes where we had to as per the title research the person we chose finding their biggest accomplishments and contributions to Canada. For the fourth milestone, we had to create a script for our podcast first making a rough draft then our final draft. The second last milestone we had to do was record and edit our podcast. The final milestone was the final podcast draft and interviewee presentation. What we had to do for that was revise our podcast and construct an email for our interviewee.

Overall I felt that I made a good first podcast and I’m proud of it, that being said I feel there were many things I could have improved on. The biggest of those things is my audio because I screwed up my mic audio leading to me needing to do lots of revisions including re-recording all of my lines. One of the other revisions I had to do was fix my music since most of the music I used wasn’t original and the other music I used wasn’t that good so I had to fix that.

What I would do differently is I would double or even triple check my audio so I don’t have to go through the experience of having to re-record the majority of my podcast. Another thing I would like to do differently is more preparation for my interview. I say that because I felt during my interview there was a structure but I don’t feel like it was strong enough which led to some issues with transitions. Finally, I want to spend more time on my music preferably making different music for the intro middle and Outro. Along with making new music I want to decide on a tone for the music that will fit with my podcast.

Finally, I think overall this was a very interesting project and I really enjoyed making a podcast for the first time although as I just talked about there are many things I could have improved. If you want to listen to my podcast here’s the link also feel free to comment with any feedback you have

This week we mostly focused on lectures where we learned about important dates and people. During these lectures, we had to take notes to hand in later. What I learned from this was better note taking which is a very important skill to learn. Other than the lectures we also worked on researching our greatest Canadians. What I learned from researching my greatest Canadian was a lot of information for possible trivia plus I learned about better more efficient researching. Overall this was a very good and productive week.

This week we worked on scripting/planning our podcast. For scripting our podcasts we first did a rough draft then got our peers to review it. What I learned from the peer review was how to make my script more in detail and to the point. After our peer review, we had to make our final script which for me took a decent amount of work. What I learned from making my final script was how to tell a story without visuals effectively. Overall I think this was a very productive week and I learned a lot including effective storytelling.

Hi, how’s it going it’s been a while. So what have you been doing (now just say what you have been doing out loud) you know what I’ve been doing I’ve been doing a new project. What is that new project? Podcasts more specifically we had to come up with a podcast idea then create a trailer for our podcast.

The first thing we had to do for this project was research podcasts. I mean we also had to create a blog post about identity but that’s not important. Ok, maybe it’s a little important. Ok, fine I’ll talk about it. Basically, we had to talk about our understanding of identity and create a gif about our identity. I’m not going to into detail on all of this though because I already did the blog post so if you are interested in reading about it here’s a link.

Also here’s my gif

Now back to my first thought so we had to research podcasts. For me, researching podcasts wasn’t super hard since I already listen to a lot of podcasts. During my research, I found a few new interesting podcasts. Those podcasts were Bad Friends, Those Conspiracy Guys and Trash Taste. What I learned from researching podcasts is the different types of podcasts and the different strategies for transitions and openings.

After researching podcasts we had to create a podcast plan. My first idea for a podcast was the wsb cast which stands for wall street bets podcast. The wsb cast was meant to be about the subreddit wall street bets a place for putting your life saving into Tesla calls. It was going to be a comedic podcast with one host and an interview. Why didn’t that idea work? Well, to be honest, it wasn’t the most interesting idea also I didn’t really bring anything special to the subject. What idea did I end up doing? In the end, I ended up doing a podcast where each week I would have a guest on and we would talk about a random topic. 

After getting our pitch accepted we had to start creating our podcast trailer. That meant writing a script, making intro/transition music and actually recording our podcast trailer. For our music, we used garage band which is a pretty cool tool. More specifically I at least used the live loops which allows you to pick a genre of music then click these little buttons to add beats and stuff. Here’s an example

For the actual recording, I just used voice memos because for me that was easier than garage band. After recording on voice memos I would then export it into garage band for editing. Editing on garage band wasn’t that hard so it went pretty fast. One of the tricks I used for editing was automation which allows you to fade in music. Now that I have gone over the process I took to make my podcast trailer here it is.

Overall I like how my trailer turned out Although I think I could have made the audio better and made some different music for transitions.

So this is it the TPOLs once again well let’s see how this goes. For this post, I’m going to have it split into each class. For each of those classes, I’m going to talk about how I have improved and how I still need to improve to answer the driving question which is Why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level?

Humanities
I feel over this term in humanities it’s a bit harder to find improvement since it was entirely online although there was one very big thing I’m much less of a distraction now. Other than that I haven’t really improved. Some of the habits I still need to work on is better time management and higher quality work. A good example of both is my Gold project more specifically both of the videos I had to make for it. The first of those videos I’m going to be talking about is my Goldrush trailer. My trailer was a good example because even though it was a work of art that could’ve only been made by the best human on earth you could say it didn’t fit into the project requirements which is why it’s a good example of the quality of work. The second video was my final Gold Trails & Ghost Towns video where I had to take a story from an old show called Gold Trails & Ghost Towns and make a short video about it. So where did I go wrong? For this assignment, I had terrible time management which led to me finishing my video about a week late. How am I going to work on my time management and quality of work? For time management I’m going to start time blocking and using things again since I have more or less stopped doing those things. For the quality of work, I’m going to start doing my work at least two days before it’s due so I have more time to make sure my work is at the best quality it can be.

Science
Over this term in science just like in humanities I haven’t improved that much. Even though I didn’t improve that much I still feel that I have improved a little a good example of that is our most recent project (disclaimer as of writing I still haven’t handed in the final part of the project) meiosis models. The part of this project where I think I have shown improvement is our models what type of improvement? The improvement I made during this project was I have started doing revisions which is something that I have always struggled with. What I revised for this project was my models by adding arrows showing what things are/what they are doing. What I still need to work on is pretty much the same as humanities and since I already covered that in that the humanities part of this blog I’m just to do a quick recap. I need to work on time management and quality of work I’m going to do those by using things and giving myself more time to work on assignments.

Math
Over this term in Math, I haven’t seen much improvement although I did enjoy our last project. The reason why it’s hard for me to find ways I have improved in math during this term is because we have only done one project. How I still need to improve is I need to focus more in class. I need to do that because I find myself getting easily distracted during classes. That would normally leave me having no clue what’s going on but luckily we still have basecamp. That’s good because it gives me the ability to look at what assignments I have and how to do them. Although Even though I have those tools it’s still very important to focus in class. How am I going to make sure I stay focused during class the biggest thing that distracts me during class is my computer so instead of just turning it off by using the front button which is easy to reach I’m going to just unplug the computer. Other than that I need to work on the same things as in science and humanities.

 

Maker
Over this term in maker, I think I have improved a little bit when it comes to the time and enjoyment I put into my work especially videos although sometimes I can get too ambitious. A good example of me getting too ambitious was our maker project Witness to history. For Witness to history, we had to make a short video about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected our community. Where I went wrong with this project was I thought that I could make this masterpiece of a video but pretty soon I realized that it would be a lot harder than I had thought. Due to that, I ended up finishing late without what I had set out to make. Some ways I still need to improve are I need to be less ambitious and follow instructions better. The reason I need to follow instructions better is because sometimes when we have to use specific software like iMovie I don’t use it because I dislike iMovie. How I can work on these things is by using software whether or not I like it. For avoiding being too ambitious I’m going to talk to my friends and ask them if I’m being too ambitious before starting.

Conclusion
Alright, now it’s time for the conclusion where I will answer the driving question which is Why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level? to answer that I would say yes I think I am ready for the next grade although it will be a lot of work. I say that because even though I think I have improved a lot over this year I still have lots to work on when it comes to focusing and other things. The other big reason why next year is going to be hard is because assuming that at some point next school year we will be going back to in-person school it’s going to be a huge change. Finally, when going back to in-person school I will have to make sure that I don’t fall back into my old bad habits. Thanks for reading my TPOL post and have a nice day.