Fairytale Future

So recently in the PLP classroom, we have been working on a Fairytale Future Imovie project, and it’s basically what we want to be when we have grown up, as well as what in the past has lead to this, and how we will get there in the future. I had two possible jobs for me, one was a music artist, and the other was working in the medical industry, most likely being a family doctor.

We also took career path tests to determine what occupation would suit us, and sadly I didn’t screen shot it, but one of the tests said that I would be good in the Medical Industry in general, and I personally agree with that because I love helping people, and I am very interested in sciences involving even us humans. So you must be wondering, where’s the video? Well here it is below!

 

Making Fantasy Real

So, a while ago the PLP class traveled all the way to sunny beautiful Orlando, Florida, and we came there to learn about a lot of things, but in this blog post I’m here to talk about learning about what brings fantasy to real life. So we vistited Disney World Orlando, and we all had a certain attraction we had to visit and make a video on, so I will happily show you my Making Fantasy Real IMovie, and you can see how I think the Seven Dwarves Mine Train, brings the Fantasy to real life.

Blue Sky Exhibition 2017

So here’s a rundown on the latest Blue Sky Project Exhibition!

So just recently the PLP classroom has had our Blue Sky Exhibition, and it was great! So the problem I was tackling for this project, was on Guitars going out of tune easily over time, or by accidentally bumping the tuners into something. So what I designed was the “TuneSave” which basically protected the headstock of the guitar and attempted to keep them in tune.

That’s one of the prototypes above, and basically the guitar is put in a mould, then taken out, and then you can put on the tune-save.

The Exhibition:

So I was put in the “Tween age group” and I set up my project in the library. I gotta say, lots of people came up to me and told me many great things about my project, such as “You should put this on the market” or “I like the prototype, you could do even better with a little more work”, and overall I really enjoyed the exhibition, as well as talking to people about a really cool opportunity = Blue Sky!

tPOL 2017! A whole new me!

Welcome to the new 2017 tPOLs! A.K.A the Transitional Presentation of Learning, these are similar to the SLCs, except that we are focusing more on why we should be in the next grade. The driving question for this end of the year tPOL is, Why do I feel I am ready to advance to the next grade? Well, here we go!

So it’s time to reflect on an example of my learning, which this year in general has had some great growth! An example of the work I’m most proud of was in the DI Provincials, I felt I had a lot of growth, I thought of the DI regionals as a first draft, which had time to be revised and perfected through the process of taking more time and precision, and processing better thoughts into DI, and then the Provincial performance, or in my mind the “Second Draft”, I felt my DI performance was even better after I got time to revise, and helped lead us to winning 1st place in our Performance and Instant challenge! That’s why I’m giving it a place on an example of my learning growth! I feel this definitely fits to a part of why I am ready to advance to the next grade.

 

You may read more about this Below.

DI Provincials Rundown

Alrighty, sooo, what else to reflect on? Oh, how about my growth as a learner. Well, just a while ago we were working on our Frankenstuffie Videos, which combine humanities, and science! Crazy, huh? I feel this shows my growth as a learner, and is one of the reasons to advance to the next grade, I feel that I got to take my time and put all my effort into this, we had a few drafts, so we could get critique and make them better, because there always is something that could be better! In the end I was content with this project, and it shows my growth from the start of the year for sure. Read more about it below.

Who’s in Control

Another great example of my learning this year was my Blue Sky Project, man, I actually really enjoyed this project. This project was different in a way than any other, and the Blue Sky Project in general, brings many cool concepts and ideas to the table, for the main audience of our parents, as well as other local Teachers, Adults, and Piers to view. My Blue Sky project was based on keeping a guitar in tune, as guitars tend to commonly go out of tune over time, or even through bumping them into something, my project really shined this year, and I’m very proud of it, I even had some people say that I should “Put it on the market”, or “I like the concept of this”. Read more below.

Blue Sky Exhibition 2017

The learning I have experienced his year has been tremendous, and this will forever be a great chapter of my life, I want to cherish these memories of PLP, and still apply the concept of the program even to mainstream school. Once again, my name is Quinn Helgason, and I hope you enjoyed, and learned a little bit about me.

The things I carry!

So recently in the PLP classroom we were starting a project on the things we carry, wether that be mentally or physically. One example for physical is my IPhone, I take it everywhere I go, and it helps me through my day. An example for a mental thing I carry would be my Laughter, it helps the day go to faster, and makes the overall day better. So I think now that you get the gist of it, here’s what involves: We used the popular presentation app “Keynote”, I’ve never used it for a presentation, but I found it quite easy to learn after looking on the web. Also we had a list of things to add to our keynotes, to kind of help us get a feel for the app, as well as add some detail to the presentation.

 


There’s the checklist above, and if you are a keynote fanatic, you might just understand what all of these are. Anyways the keynote was great, and you know what else is great about this post? You get to see the keynote in action. Look at my keynote below.

So there it is! I hope you enjoyed, as it really was my first keynote, I hope I get to use this app somehow in my work again, because it really is a great app, and is used all over the world for presentations.

Who’s in Control

Hi, I’m Quinn Helgason, and if you didn’t already know, this is the blog post for my Frankenstuffie Video, and if you don’t know what a frankenstuffie is, it’s the stuffie right above the qr code that you scanned to get here. So we made a whole video on this frankenstuffie and I would love to share it with you! So in the PLP classroom we have been using knowledge from science (ecology), and from PLP (literacy mainly), and we have been working to write a whole story for our frankenstuffies, then we made a video. Here’s a picture of the story.

And that’s only 2 episodes out of 8. These stories are about our animals, in a certain environment, and how it adapts, and then has a final battle with a monster, that we also created in math.

DI Provincials Rundown

In PLP all of the DI groups were adding their finishing touches to their creations before the big Provincial Tournament. Here’s how it went from my perspective, if you didn’t already know, I’m Quinn Helgason and I’m in the group H2.0, other members include: Tyler Newell, Makyla Slater, Will Buckingham, and Makyla Slater. Here’s a picture of the group in action at this tournament, (except for Makyla, she was unable to come)

Here’s a little overview of our groups story, World War III is upon us in 2056 and robots are attempting to take over the world, Tyler Newell acts as a double agent and is attempting to sabotage our mission to stop the robots, thankfully we catch him, and the world is saved!

I feel we did a good job on the Instant Challenge portion of this tournament, and really showed our groups work and effort as a team. In the end we got first place in the performance and the instant challenge! I hope all the rest of the groups enjoyed this aswell!

 

The Role Models of my Life

So everyone has a role model or many role models, and this blog post is about those role models we all have, we all gain inspiration from someone, or look up to them, or even want to follow in their footprints.

So in the PLP class, we were assigned to making an diagram of 5 different role models in our lives. And we had to write a paragraph for each of them, explaining how and why they were your ole models and what’s special in them that leads you to wanting to follow in their footsteps. So I made my diagram using photoshop, and I thought you the audience would like to see it. It’s not Pablo Picasso or anything so enjoy.

So my role models are: Rakim Mayers-(A$AP Rocky)-rapper, Atticus Mitchell-Actor, God, O’Shea Jackson- Ice Cube-Rapper, Jimi Hendrix-Guitarist, and the last picture is myself (I apologize, it’s a little cut off)

Ohhh Canada

So just recently I’ve made a great video about Canada’s great natural surroundings and it’s wonderful culture!

 

 

 

 

 

 

So with out further or due I’ll share the video with all of you.

IMG_4972-10acq23

So I used imovie to make it, and I filmed it outdoors, and what’s a better place than in the beautiful Deep Cove! I decided to tell the story with an up close shot of a beautiful mini-waterfall I found, and then a direct view shot of my face twice talking. The process of the creation of this video was interesting and challenging as I wanted it to be a perfect video, so I had many, many drafts, but that’s ok when the end outcome is looking good.

The reason I chose my story was because I really enjoy the outdoors, and in general it’s one of my favourite things. Since we live in such a beautiful place, I decided it would be a great idea to really get out there and film!

In the end I had lots of revision and learning and had fun doing it. I hope I get another opportunity to do an outdoor-based project again soon!

SLCs yay!

So it’s that time of the year, the Student Led Conferences and I’m going to talk about some great things throughout this start of the year, here are the reflections so far!

Work I am most proud of:

Very recently the whole class was working really hard putting together their DI projects and fine tuning them to make sure they were great for regionals! I am proud of my group because we had fun with it, rehearsed before time and had good acting. I felt this payed off when I found out we got first place and actually beat St. George’s team which was the team of the school we were competing at!

We completed the work together and by pushing hard in a short amount of time, I learnt that you always need to be prepared and keep your spirits up, even when you feel discouraged. I’m proud of this work because I feel that I put effort into this project and I my self planned my role and helped our team achieve DI goals. Here’s a link if you want to read more about that:

DI Regionals 2K17

 

An Example of my learning:

A few weeks ago the PLP class visited a beautiful warm sunny place called Orlando, Florida, to study about Walt Disney and the Imagineers special way to bring theme parks to life as well as studying what astronauts went through in training and in space at The Kennedy Space Centre and the ATX astronaut training experience, More about Florida here:

Florida was crazy! (In a good way)

I must say, it really entrigued me and made me think and research even on my own. I really feel it showed my learning because I spent more time and made way more effort to really let myself absorb all this information. I have compared my learning from the start of Seattle (our first field school) to Florida. In Seattle I felt I was learning but I could really apply myself way further and if I did that I could reach new and better things and goals. You can read more about Seattle here:

Throwback to Seattle!

My Growth Mindset

In PLP Humanities we had to read the book “Alice in Wonderland”, please tell me you’ve heard of it before, anyways after we read the book we had to write an Essay on our choice of two different topics, read about it here:

Alice and wonderland in an essay!

1) How does Carroll create a real imaginary world for his reader?
2) How are readers/viewers drawn to imaginary worlds?

I wrote my Essay on the first topic and it felt really bare, not because I didn’t fully finish it, it was because I didn’t support and reinforce my statement, which I have learned from both Ms Willemse and Mr Featherstone is very, very important, you need it to prove something and to conclude something. I felt I learned a lot more about that after I finished the Essay, that I need that, because it is a skill and I have a open growth mindset to do that because it applies to almost everything, University, Interviews, Etc. So now I have the mindset for the next time I have something like that, and I can use those skills precisely and properly! Here’s a picture of our “Good Copy” essays which I learned and expanded on. 

Three Goals:

Lastly I have three goals for the rest of the year that I will constantly be thinking about and applying to my work. One is to improve my open-ness, by that I mean I will be way more open to new suggestions and comments as well as feed back and expand my growth mindset, another goal is to keep working hard on my writing skills and to take all the critique and feedback I can, and my last goal is to ask lots and lots of questions to make sure I can exceed my learning.

I hope you really heard me out on my reflections of my work and I will keep striving to do my best work for the rest of the year!