Destination Imagination!

In this term as a challenge, we did something that PLP has done for more than five years! It is a challenge that is completely done by students, and consists of an instant challenge and a team challenge. I cannot tell you guys about the instant challenge because it could give other teams an advantage. But, since I can still talk about the team challenge, talk about it I will do.

If you don’t already know what DI is, they are an organization that hosts global project-based learning competitions for students to compete in. If you want more information, click here. As PLP students, we compete in these challenges, and for me and my group, we got the technical challenge: The Next Level. In short, there are four different categories; technical, scientific, fine arts, and engineering. The technical challenge was about making a specific storyline in a video-game style.

To start it out, we made sheets of each team members strengths and weaknesses, and decided on general roles for the project.

We also completed interference contracts, which are forms that state that we will not cheat, tell others about the contract, or use other people’s ideas. We completed other worksheets to decide on the storyline and specify things that must be completed.

Team choice element inventory #1

All throughout this project, our team hub for communication was constantly being updated with what has to be done, what has been done, and certain events to prepare for. Once our group decided on what storyline to use, we wrote the first version of our script. This script would be revised later to check certain boxes, but the general idea was always the same.

Then, it was time for the instant challenge to be released. I cannot talk about the instant challenge, so I will skip over it. But, I can say that it was quite a hustle to get done, but we did do it in the end.

We also had to complete tournament data forms, which include an expense report and questionnaire, as well as safety forms.

We also completed meeting notes every time our group met, resulting in thirteen individual notes.

Meeting notes

After we finished writing our final script we moved on to filming. The script had three other revisions before we used the final one. In collaboration with Noah, we made the tool (I made the lower body, he made the upper body) and worked together to refine it. Here is a small worksheet reflecting on my D.I. Experience:

I used to think/Now I think

We finally started filming on the last week before we put in our team challenge video. Our editor had a very small amount of time to edit this, so shout out to him! We also filmed and scripted a Q&A video to go along with our main one. We finished the final challenge video, and you can check it here.

Go check my group member’s blogs as well:

Sabrina’s blog

Noah’s blog

Patrick’s blog

Xander’s blog

Ariane’s blog

Also, here is the full tournament award stream. Anyways, thanks for reading my post. See you next time!

Argh, Matey!

For our second project this quarter, we did a project about the Age Of Exploration, and this is a summative post About my learning throughout this project.

To kick off this project, we watched a pirate movie based off of a real hijacking. We talked about pirates a bit, and then learned what cause and consequence are. Cause and consequence is how all events happen; they have a cause, and then more events because of it. We made webs of cause and consequence to practice this skill:

Chess web of cause and consequence

The whole project was about teaching us about the causes and consequences of European exploration. The driving question was: “What Was The Impact Of Global Exploration?”. To answer this question we first, you guessed it, learn what global exploration is.

Every day, we got a lecture on exploration, from the invention of new inventions like the caraval or astrolabe, to people who completely changed history like Christopher Columbus, or prince Henry the navigator. We did different reflection activities to help absorb the knowledge, like these below:

Sketch and Tell

Then, we did milestone 2, which was a large web of cause and consequence about the European exploration.

Large Web

We finally used our device skills to create a augmented reality presentation. This presentation was of a story written by me about the age of exploration.

And the answer to the driving question: the impact of global exploration is in the language we speak, the food we eat, and the things we do. The merging of cultures from global exploration caused many, many new things, and predicting the world without global exploration is nearly impossible, considering how much it changed the world.

Now, this project was a great journey, and I learned tons about our history. I also had tons of fun writing this post as well. You might want to check out some of my classmates views on this project too!

Sepaus

Colton

Thanks for reading my post! See you in my next one.

Student blogging challenge: the ACTUAL last day

Today, I am writing about the blogging challenge I have been doing for this whole quarter. So without further ado, here is the post!

When we started this project I will admit it: I really did not like the sound of making one blog post every day until the end of the quarter. But, as time went on, writing the blog posts quickly grew on me, and by the end, I really enjoyed writing the posts.

The first post in the challenge was an: “embedding content” post, and I wrote it about snowboard bindings. This post was pretty cool, but it was not my favourite post I have done. Honestly, my favourite post of all time is my blogging challenge day ten post, i am just really proud of all my photoshops, and had a ton of fun writing it.

I learned tons about embedding content, writing, and creating digital content in general. If you look at my first post in the challenge to the lat post, my growth is obvious. I will keep updating my blog and some previous posts, so stay tuned!

This has been an amazing challenge, and I appreciate you for reading along with me. See you in the next post!

Worldview Summative Post

Hello, and welcome to the summative post for the how it started/ how it is going project. The driving question for this project was: what can we learn from the past, and why does it matter to us today? To answer this question, we journeyed back through some of the most influential times history, travelled (virtually) to great museums, and finally, made a virtual museum all about worldview and historical events.

The project started with a mind map about museums and their specific features

Then we did milestone 1, which was a small museum exhibit representing your growth since the start of the year. I learned how to use many cool photo editing techniques like perspective shifting, light wraps, and more to do this. Our job in this milestone was to transform the idea of how it started/how it is going into a museum exhibit and provide evidence on my opinion. I believe I did this quite well, but if I did it again I would probably add a before/after comparison of my work as evidence. Click here for the PDF.

The second milestone was a collage of the important events in your life that shaped your worldview. To do this, we created a timeline of the important events in our lives, found or made pictures to represent those events, and created a collage of the images. This collage would later be revised and changed, and eventually become our “about me” at the start of the museum.

Then, we started milestone three: the history test. This was just one extremely hard question that made me (and some others) realize how little we knew (yet). This milestone made me realize the historical significance of the events I talked about, and decide which ones were the most significant.

We also did many, many other things to prepare for the museum launch, like an artist statement, script for the guided tour, the whole virtual museum, the final meme, a recorded artist statement, and a script for the zoom presentation. After all of that, we finally were ready to present the virtual museum to the world. In this virtual museum, we created modern artworks to represent our modern views of the themes in the older artwork, to show how much we have changed since then.

And with that, the driving question is answered: we can learn a lot front the past, and it matters today so we can learn and improve humanity by looking to the past.

Thank you for reading all the way down here! Of you want to see some of my group members veiw on the project (see what I did there?), click on one of the links below

Carter Aaron Noah

Emoji Story!

Hello, and welcome. Today is the 7th day of the Student Blogging Challenge 2021, and the last day isn’t even based on words. No, it is based on a random emoji generator! So here is the story:

🚉 Everyday, the train would do what it has done for 46 years; go between two stations.

😵 but one day, a passenger boards the train illegally to escape the police.

🚦 because of that, the train locked all of its doors and stopped moving.

🐨 because of that, the koala onboard was actually helping the crook!

🏁 because of that, the train goes as fast as he can to the next station

🍔 until finally, the police arrest the koala and criminal.

The End

I hope you enjoyed my story, and until then, see you next time!

Final learning post of Fractions Of Your Time.

Here are some of the charts from my presentation.

In the project, Fractions Of Your Time, the driving question was: how much of my time is spent on screens? The answer to this question was far less complicated than that of the last project, the answer, simply, was: a lot. But, as with any PLP project, it wasn’t just about making one thing, there were many steps. (Less steps than I expected though).

The first step was a small survey that were completed in class (or a bit later).

Then we did some homework, (not to hard, as these were just refining our skills).

We also did a fractions quiz, which were actually pretty fun. Each day, we would fill out a chart containing screen time and other categories from the previos day.

We later presented these charts and made a fraction about how much of our time was screen time. That takes us to right now, were I am writing final blog post, to finish the project. I was surprised by the numbers on the chart, and making the chart was fun too.

These are the fractions and decimals of my time.

Curicular Competencies:

These are the things that we are graded on and strived to do. The first one; applying and innovating, was were we tried to use our time wisely and collaborate with others around us, to further learning and cooperation. I did this well, but not extending, as I used my class time productively, but didn’t go much beyond that.

The second competency is about visualizing mathematical concepts, which was rated by how well you can comprehend using fraction, percents, and decimals to show how you spend your time. We learned how to create spreadsheets and tables with mathematical rules built in to record our time, and as a plus, how much time we spend on screens.

The third competency, communicating and representing, is based on being able to represent ideas in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic forms. You proved this skill by using pie charts and tables to display an interesting proportion the variables of the chart display, and also show how much of an average day is spent on screens.

Reflection time!

Hello, and welcome to a BIG reflection. Hope you enjoy the long ride ahead!

 

In the project the medium is the message, the driving question was how does what we see, read and hear influence us? To answer this question, we had to complete a multitude of milestones, stepping stones and other exercises. But, let’s start at the beginning.

Milestone #1: where it all begins.

In this milestone, we were tasked to analyze a commercial created by Apple, called Welcome Home. This is an ad about the Apple HomePod. We had to find the message of the ad, who the target audience is, and how Apple reaches the target audience. at the time, the project seemed quite challenging, but if I did it now, with all that I’ve learned, I would’ve had a much easier time. This milestone was the first, and though I’ve learned a lot since then, the final destination couldn’t be reached without it.

Milestone #2: putting yourself back in time.

In this milestone, we found a piece of historical media, and find the message, who the message is targeted at, how it sends that message and the five key questions of media literacy. This milestone combined what we had learned from previous activities. Overall, this milestone really helped me refine my skills of analyzing message.

Stepping stone: an advertising survey.

this stepping stone was all about perspective. Putting into perspective how people older than us have different views than us and learning how to put yourself in their shoes. We had a sheet of questions, and we had to answer them by ourselves, and then get someone older than you to answer them too. Doing so revealed the difference between different generations and demographics.

Stepping stone: the commercial dig.

this activity had us watching 30 minutes of YouTube or television, and record the techniques and appeals of all the commercials we saw. After this, we reflected on what we had learned from completing the sheet.

Stepping stone: persuasion in advertising.

in this stepping stone, we had a chart to fill with two magazine ads, two commercials, and two internet pop ups. We then had to fill out the pathos, ethos, logos, and other strategies the advertisers used to deliver the message. 

Stepping stone: individual ad drafts

our task was to make an advertisement for our company, get feedback, revise, and repeat. This happened three times, before submitting our team draft. This was a fun way of learning design principles and more.

Stepping stone: team ads!

Team up with your north group! Discuss your ads! Merge them together to make three drafts to send to your business. Then, say the appeals you used in your ad, the techniques you used, and what you contributed to the advertisements.

Milestone #3: old ad time!

in this milestone, we took an old advertisement and found the message, why the message was sent, how the message reaches the target audience, the techniques and appeals used in the ad, who the target audience is and who sent the message. This activity helped refine our skills even more than before.

The gospel according to Larry: the end-all of stepping stones.

This stepping stone involved aspects of all the previous stepping stones, plus being a good book to read. We read a set amount of the book (or more), completed a discussion sheet about what we read, and did that until we finished the book. This book was very inspiring to me, and was a really good read too. Overall a very good stepping stone that was essential to the project.

stepping stone: individual advertisement drafts

this stepping stone helped us learn design principles and refine our drafting skills. We made multiple drafts of advertisements, and took feedback to make each one. This was a interesting activity to help us learn.

 

 

 

bye, sincerely, me.