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The 7 habits of highly effective teens part 3/3

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Categories: Maker, Tags: , ,

Intro

We have made it to part 3, the final part of this series! Sadly, for this final video everyone was put into different groups which meant we couldn’t continue the twilight themed short we had planned. However this gave me a chance to focus on more of an educational aspect rather than comedy. (Not to say our other shorts weren’t educational, but there was just quite a bit of humour) Now that thats out of the way, onto the post!

 

Part 4, renewal 

Part 4 of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens was all about renewal, which is Habit 7, Sharpen the Saw. It focused on how important it is to take care of yourself in four main areas, your body, brain, heart, and soul. 

Sharpen the saw

Habit 7, Sharpen the Saw, really stood out to me because it’s all about keeping myself balanced in every part of life, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I’ve started to take it more seriously, and honestly, I think I’ve gotten quite good at it. For example, I make sure to get enough sleep and go for walks or stay active to take care of my body. Mentally, I’ve been reading more and taking breaks when I feel overwhelmed with schoolwork. Emotionally, I spend time with people who support me, and I try to keep a positive mindset. Spiritually, I take time to reflect and just be still, even if it’s only for a few minutes. I’ve noticed that when I keep up with these things, I feel more energized and focused. It’s made a big difference in how I handle stress and stay motivated. Self-care isn’t selfish, it’s necessary!

My YouTube video 

The original plan was to do all the filming on a Thursday, when we were given class time, however one of our group members had the leave for a trip last minute which meant we didn’t have everyone to film! I was determined to make it work out, so the day before my friend and I filmed all of her scenes before she left, so we could add them in after. Then we only needed to film a few extra scenes and our short was finished. I’ll add the link below if you want to check it out!

YouTube short:
http://The 7 habits of highly effective teens, sharpen the saw! https://youtube.com/shorts/1HN8HXZ6uE4?feature=share
Conclusion

Looking at the book as a whole, I think Habit 7, Sharpen the Saw, ties everything together. The other habits focus on how to be proactive, set goals, manage time, build relationships, and work with others, but none of that works well if you’re burnt out or not taking care of yourself. Renewal supports all the other habits. By keeping myself balanced and refreshed, I’m in a better place to actually live out the rest of the habits every day. It’s what helps me maintain progress instead of burning out halfway through.

Even though this last part of the series didn’t go as originally planned, I’m glad I got the chance to take a different approach and focus more on the message behind Habit 7. It was a good reminder of how important it is to take care of all areas of my life and how much of a difference that can make. Overall, this project helped me reflect on the habits in a real way, and I’m proud of the final result. Thanks for following along!

 

My group members blogs:

https://www.blog44.ca/evelyns/

https://www.blog44.ca/isaacv/

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7 habits of highly effective teens part 2/3

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Categories: Maker, Tags: , ,

 

Intro

Since this is a three part post, I wont drag this one on too long. I’ve recently read the third section of “7 habits of highly effective teens, so I’m going to talk a bit about what I’ve learned from it.

Part 3 of the book

Part Three of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens is all about your Personal Bank Account (PBA) It’s not about money though, It’s how you feel about yourself. Every time you do something good for yourself, like keeping a promise, telling the truth, or standing up for what’s right, you make a “deposit” into your PBA. That makes you feel more confident and proud of who you are. But if you lie, break promises to yourself, or let yourself down, that’s a “withdrawal,” and it makes you feel worse over time. The whole point is to make more deposits than withdrawals so your self-esteem stays strong. The three habits for part three are, think win win, seek first to understand, then to be understood and synergize. 

Think win win

“It means believing that everyone can win. Life isn’t a competition. You don’t have to put others down to lift yourself up. Win-win is about finding solutions where everyone feels good and benefits.” The “win win” habit comes up a lot in my life, especially at home. For anyone who has sibling you’ll understand!  I like to think of it as compromising but better. For example, I wanted to watch a movie the other day and my brother wanted to play video games. Instead of giving up both our choices to do something else (compromising) we agreed to watch a short movie first, then play video games after, so we both got what we want, thinking win-win!

Seek first to understand, then to be understood

“This means listening to others with the intent to understand them, not just to reply. Really try to see things from their point of view before you share your own opinion.” Lately, I’ve been trying to implement this habit into my life. Sometimes when I’m set on my own opinion I struggle to listen to others. I don’t mean that I literally don’t listen, it’s more that I’ll listen WITHOUT the intent to understand. I think this habit plays a very important part in my life and I’m going to continue to work on it.

 

Synergize

“This is about working together to create better results than you could alone. It means valuing differences and combining strengths to create something great. Out of the three habits I’ve talked about so far, I’m definitely best at this one! wether its working in a group project or simply redecorating a room, I’m always open to asking for help and just as willing to lend a hand. By combining ideas and strengths with others, i’m able to create a positive, creative environment where great things can happen.

Our second YouTube short

 As you may already know ow, my group and I decided to add a creative twist to all the youtube short we would be creating. The original plan was to make all three Harry Potter themed (while staying on track with talking about the 7 habits of course) however we decided to pivot. Each YouTube short will be based on a different popular movie series, so for the second YouTube short we’ve decided to make it about Hunger Games! I’ll put our masterpiece below!

Youtube short: 
https://youtube.com/shorts/KWH-PemylqU?si=inbCaGyoXhvoQHmF

 

Conclusion

Yet again, I had lots of fun creating my video, and I learned more about the 7 habits. Stay tuned for the last post, and find out what our video will be on soon!🙀

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The 7 Habits part 1/3

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Categories: Maker, Tags: , , , ,

 

Intro

For this project were learning all about Sean Coveys book “the 7 habits of highly effective teens” as well as reading the book, we completed some workbooks to help us with applying the 7 habits into our daily life! However, my favourite part in this project is creating YouTube shorts about the 7 habits, because my group decided to add a little twist to it… without further ado, lets get into it!

 

Who is Sean Covey?

Sean Covey is an American author, speaker, and business leader. He’s best known for writing The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, a self-help book for young people, (like us) He also works at FranklinCovey, a company that helps people and organizations improve their leadership and performance! You might know of his father, Stephen R. Covey, who wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  

 

The seven habits are:

  1. Be Proactive: Take control of your actions and responses.
  2. Begin with the End in Mind: Set clear goals and plan ahead.
  3. Put First Things First : Prioritize important tasks over distractions.
  4. Think Win-Win: Seek mutually beneficial solutions.
  5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood: Practice empathetic listening.
  6. Synergize: Work together to achieve more than you could alone.
  7. Sharpen the Saw: Take care of yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally.

 

Part 2 of the book

Part 2 the “private victory” focuses on building personal strength and self-control. This section covers the first three habits, being productive, beginning with the end in mind and putting first things first. I’ll explain what each they mean below(what I learned from the book!) 

 

Be proactive

Sean Covey is saying that being proactive means you’re in control of your actions and choices. Even if things around you aren’t perfect,  like family problems, stress, or unfair situations, you don’t blame others. Instead, you take charge and say, “Okay, I can’t control everything, but I can control how I react.”

Being proactive means I don’t let other people or problems decide how I feel or what I do. If something goes wrong, I don’t just complain, I think of what I can do to fix it or make the best of it since I’m the one in charge of my choices.

 

Beginning with the end in mind

if you know what kind of person you want to be or what you want to achieve, it’s easier to make smart choices. For example, if you know where you want to go on a hike, it’s easier to bring a map, staying on the right path instead of getting lost.

Beginning with the end in mind means I think about what kind of person I want to become and what goals I care about. That way, I can make choices that actually help me get there instead of just doing things randomly. It helps me stay focused and not get distracted.

 

Putting first things first 

putting first things first means you handle your most important tasks  like school, family, or personal goals  before distractions like video games, scrolling, or drama. It’s about doing what matters, not just what’s easy. I know there are a lot of distractions around me, like social media, friends texting, or just wanting to relax, but this habit is a good reminder thats it’s important get the important stuff done first!

 

Our YouTube short!

Now, the part on this project I’ve had the most fun with is the YouTube short! We were given the opportunity to choose our partners which I’m very grateful about… because my group and I have found a way to incorporate Harry Potter into our school project!! 🦁🦡🦅🐍 for this YouTube short we needed to talk about the first three habits of Sean Coveys book, so I came up with the idea to make it about the Triwizard Tournament, which has three tasks! Only downside is that my British accent vanishes into a very POOR attempt at a British accent when being filmed so… its kind of hard to watch.💀 Nonetheless it’s quite funny and I’m proud of how we did! I’ll add the video down below.

Video:

 

My group members blogs

Blog44.ca/elsaw@seycove.ca

Blog44.ca/ellah@seycove.ca

 

Conclusion

This isn’t  a complete conclusion since this is only part 1/3 of this “series” however goodbye for now! I learned lots from this book so far, and I can’t wait to share what I learn next!

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📦Unpacking Who I Am!📦

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Categories: Maker, Tags: , , ,

Intro

Throughout this project I’ve a lot about myself. I’ve never sat down and consecutively wrote and talked about my goals like I’ve done in this project. It’s guided me so much with learning about who I am now, who I want to be, and how I’m going to get there. Without further ado, let get into it!🙀

WDYRW  Activities

WDYRW or “what do you really want” is a book by Beverly K. Bachel. This book showed me how I can set goals for myself in a easy and manageable way. Throughout this project we went through this book, reading what it had to say and completed activities from it. Overall I completed 6 activities. Below I’ll explain my top 2 favourite ones. 

My top 5 goals

One activity I enjoyed was “my top 5 goals.” For this activity you choose 5 goals your passionate in completing, and then for each, be specific on the goal, talk about how you can achieve it, how it can help, and a timeline in which it can be completed. 

 

 

 

20 by 20

20 by 20 is writing down 20 things you want to do by the age of 20. This was probably my favourite activity. For 20 by 20 it doesn’t need to be CRAZY things, just anything you want to get done. For example, I want to get a job, get a driver licence and grow my nails out!

 

 

 

My Unboxing me Storyboard

The unboxing me video was the main/final part of our project. The driving question for our unblocking me video was “how might I tell a story about who I am and where I’m going?” However, before we jumped straight into filming we needed to create a concept idea. I created an animation in keynote of a general idea I was going for. I’ll put that down below!

 

Link: https://youtu.be/IrU8BGr2MzQ?feature=shared

 

My final Unboxing Me video

Finally after lots of hard work, filming and animation, I finished my video! I’m very proud of how it turned out. If your interested in watching it, click the link below to my YouTube channel.🫶

Link:

https://youtu.be/KTcxCRq-9B4?si=ACPW0OaFF7KykNX9

How I used technology to conceive, create and a tell a story

Of course, since this is PLP I used technology throughout all of this project. I used it to prepare for my Unboxing Me video, I used it film my video and learn all about how I can set manageable goals for myself.

How did I use questioning to reflect on myself and my goals?

I used questioning to reflect on myself and my goals by asking things like What’s working for me?, What’s holding me back?, and how can I achieve this? Thinking about these helped me see my progress and figure out what I need to change or improve. It also kept me motivated and made my goals feel more achievable.

My response to the driving question

The driving question for this project was “how did you tell a story about who you are, are where you are going? All throughout this project I talked about goals I wanted to set for myself, whether they were big or small. In my Unboxing me video I reflected on my biggest goal, who I want to be, and where I’m at right now. I showed helpful visuals throughout the video, evidence of my worth thus far, and I just talked about myself! I’m exited to see where this journey takes me next!

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, I’ve realized that this project has helped me understand who I am and who I want to become. From participated in activities like “My Top 5 Goals” and “20 by 20,” to creating my Unboxing Me video, each step helped me explore my dreams. I’m excited about the future and all the opportunities to keep growing, learning, and chasing my dreams. Thanks for coming along on this journey of unboxing me!

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2025 Destination Imagintion!

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Categories: D.I, Tags: , , , , ,

 

Disclaimer

This blog post will consisted of reflections on both the regional tournament and the provincial tournament. However the sections on my provincial tournament will come later on, since it hasn’t happened yet. Now back to the post!

Intro/explanation

Destination Imagination (D.I) is a creative challenge where teams develop solutions to present at a tournament. Challenges inspire students to explore passions, develop talents, and gain new skills. The categories include Technical, Scientific, Fine Arts, Improvisational, Engineering, Service Learning, and Early Learning. While each challenge has a specific educational focus, they are all designed to be diverse, incorporating elements from other fields, for example, the Fine Arts Challenge includes a technical aspect, and the Engineering Challenge features an artistic or storytelling component. Over the course of around 1-2 months we prepare for the tournament inside and (mostly) outside of school. It’s a unique and exiting experience that we are given! Now that that’s out of the way, lets talk about MY challenge. 

My Category/Challenge 

I have the scientific challenge “worlds beyond” which was great since it was in my top 2 favourites! 

Rules/criteria 

The description of this category is as follows:

Your team will tell a story about a character who figures out they are not alone on a planet. Show off your science fiction skills with some out-of-this-world technobabble. What will happen when you go beyond the stars?

Criteria:

  • Include technobabble in the story.
  • Design and build a device and/or effect that demonstrates what the technobabble describes.
  • Include a scientific demonstration that shows the science behind why a specific phenomenon of the planet happens and/or exists.
  • Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.”

 

Evidence of learning and how I hope to improve

For the next tournament I hope to come more prepared. I can do this by collaborating and working further with my teammates, and making sure everyone is on the same track. I have some free time on spring break which I can utilize. Something that happened last year is no one (including me) worked on D.I over spring break. This made the week before provincials more stressful than it needed to be and I don’t want that to happen again!

 Now my evidence of learning section will be pretty vague since D.I isn’t over, but it is there!

Creating collaborative note and draft documents for D.I was a huge part of the process and something I found helpful. This included roles for people, things that needed to get done, the script, or general ideas for anything to do with D.I. 

Another thing my group and I worked really hard on is props. This is a tricky part to talk about since some of the props I’m really proud of, and some need some work. I think spring break is a good time to work on some props, as it can be done individually.

New skills I’ve built compared to grade 8 D.I

I feel I’ve grown a lot compared to last years D.I. Now that I’ve had more experience with it I know what to expect. I’ve become much more confident that everything is going to turn out okay, and not stressing out every 5 seconds, which has made my day to day life stress much better. Additionally, I’ve given a large effort to make sure everyone stays on task. Lastly, I’ve become better at problem solving. Before when something didn’t go as planned I didn’t have a plan b, and just freaked out. This year I’ve learned to problem solve and adapt to situations that aren’t always in our favour.

How we created the story

Getting a idea for the story was the easy part, but putting it all together was the harder part. Everyone in my group obviously has different schedules, so to get a time to collaborate and work at the same time was challenging. However, even though the circumstances were not in our favour we decided to be a (bit) more creative by FaceTiming late in the afternoon,therefore  problem solving and making it work even under the unfortunate circumstances.

Conclusion (for now)

This first D.I tournament was such an experience and I can’t wait to see what happens for provincials! Thanks for listening so far, stay tuned for the provincial post add-on!

 

Day of D.I

Okay, I’m back! A lot happened the day of D.I… thank god our presentation time was at 3:00pm, which gave my team the time to practice.

The first 2ish hours were spent fixing up props and looking over the script individually. Unfortunately, we had lost a second team member in our group so we were forced to change up the roles. One of our members had to learn a whole new set of lines because they took the place of the person who was unavailable. There wasn’t a crazy amount of things that needed to be done say of, but I think in the morning we were all a bit jittery.

Schedule

Once we started to practice for the life of me I couldn’t get my lines right, which sucked because my group members were counting on me. Thankfully, after lots of practice and a few snack breaks.. I got them down! We learned to adapt to lots of changes throughout D.I, wether it was not having 2 of our members, or our technobabble breaking. We all worked together to get it done, and that’s what happened. Communication was something we made sure to succeed in leading up to D.I. A huge part of working in a group is understanding what needs to be done, who will do it, and when. 

Changes we made

Some small props were enhanced or tweaked, and unlike last time, we had a technobabble to present which I’m very happy about! Additionally, the astronauts costumes were changed up (for the better.) Lastly, the script was changed slightly to incorporate the technobabble throughout our performance instead of just in once scene. 

I’ve grown so much since D.I grade 8, AND since regionals. The biggest thing I feel I’ve improved at is managing my stress. usually I would either overreact to things that came up. I’ve learned to pivot my way of executing the finals product while staying calm and collected. This might not sound like much, but for me it’s a huge step! 

 

 

The final Presentation!

I am proud to say my group was ready to present once the time came and we did great! Everyone remembered their lines and we got lots of laughs from the audience. 

My group members

 

Maggie: https://www.blog44.ca/maggiet/

Ella: https://www.blog44.ca/ellah/

Sebastian: https://www.blog44.ca/sebastianha/

Finn: https://www.blog44.ca/finnh/

Niko: https://www.blog44.ca/nekoh/

 

Conclusion

Final Thoughts (for real this time!)

Destination Imagination has pushed me to grow creatively, collaboratively, and personally. From learning how to manage stress better to adapting when things didn’t go as planned, this journey has been filled with lessons that go beyond just preparing for a tournament. I’m so proud of how far my team and I have come, especially after all the challenges we faced along the way. Whether it was late-night FaceTimes, fixing props last minute, or rewriting lines on the fly, we pulled through together. Until next time 🫶

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My 2025 M-pol

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Categories: m-pol/t-pol, Tags: , , ,

Intro

POL Declaration

“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.”

  How I am on track with my Vision Mission and Values?

 

 

 

Agency: Resilience & persistence 

 

Running a Remake

One of my vision mission and values this year was showing resilience and persistence when met with challenges and setbacks from the agency section. A good example of this is the “running a remake” project in maker. There was a bit of a mix up with the groups which made the project harder. To put it simply, we needed to recreate a scary short film! Once our first draft was done two of our group members were unavailable to be present in the making of the final draft. Therefore I had to complete the video with only one other group member. However I persisted, and made it work! There was another group filming nearby us, so I utilized this, and we decided to help each other film, problem solving!

This is my final video I made with my group member:

https://youtu.be/NeAOnONEWD4?si=CYPe1n0LmIr5H8dN

 

Self regulation: Managing distractions

In the humanities “Frankenstuffies” project my positive time management skills definitely paid off! When people talk about managing distractions the first thing that comes to my mind was staying focused in class. Of course, that is a big part of it, and is something I’m already pretty good at. However I’ve improved managing distractions at home now too. Sometimes I find it hard to do work once I get home, because all I want to do is chill out! I’ve learned that if I can get homework out of the way as soon as I get home, instead of getting distracted by my phone or some other thing I want to engage in, it makes school work a lot more manageable! Using my time wisely in class and using the tactic I just talked about outside of school has helped me finish my frankenstuffy video quicker, and with less stress! 

My frankenstuffy and his beautiful wife👇   

          

The final video               

https://youtu.be/-5RqGAumXZM?feature=shared

 

Something in my VMV I can work on

Okay, so I’ve talked a lot about things in my VMV that I’m improving at, but not what I can work on! Something I really want to start prioritizing is my sleep, which falls under the self regulation category. Some days I do really great and I’m asleep at 10:30, other days.. not so much💀 A bad habit I’ve noticed I do quite frequently is trying to finish or start random things RIGHT before bed. This varies from re-organizing my room, cleaning a fish tank or organizing random things. This might seem like reasonable things to be doing, however when your room is on the top floor and your loud… people may say otherwise (the fam) I’ve started to find ways to improve and have landed on a conclusion. Setting aside all screens 30 minuets before bed is insanely helpful and I’ve been getting great sleeps the past few days I’ve started doing this. These 30 minutes I set electronics aside I’ve started the habit of reading, to wind down.

 

 

 

 How have I shown growth as a learner this year?

 

Independence 

When I say independence is something I’ve grown on this year, I don’t mean getting work done on time or something. What I mean is, for pretty much all of my life, in general or academic wise, I wasn’t very confident. Overtime thats gotten a lot better, however I’ve grown to notice, (so have my teachers) that even when I know what I’m doing in certain assignments, I don’t have much confidence in myself. It’s like I wanted reassurance on what assignments I had completed, even though what I did was very much okay. This is something I’ve greatly improved on this year. Instead of constantly seeking approval, I’ve started trusting my own judgment much more, and If I did have questions, I would ask a peer before a teacher. I think there is still room for growth, but this is still something I’m really proud of myself for improving at.

Conclusion

“In conclusion, I am committed to building upon these strengths and addressing areas for improvement, ensuring that I remain proactive and continue to reflective on my educational journey. Thank you for being part of this process and for supporting my growth as a learner.”

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Frankenstuffies The Rise of Change!

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Categories: Humanities, Tags: , , , ,

 

Intro

Another blog post….😃 lots has happened, for example this frankenstuffy project! This Frankenstuffy project was so much fun, from making and designing a stuffy (abomination) of my choice, to creating a story and learning all about the Industrial Revolution. The final product of this project was a video about my stuffy, the time and area he lives in, and how he deals with it. However, even with all the fun aspects of sewing stuffies and whatnot, this project is based off of the Industrial Revolution, so of course we did some research!

 

Learning about the Industrial Revolution:

I don’t want this blog post to be a step by step of what we did, so these are in my opinion, some good key points of the research we did. 

 

Urbanization game

At the very start of this project we did an urbanization game. We started off with a grid background, (this is all digital of course) and for a few days straight we had 5-15 minutes to draw parts of a town. Even though this was done in groups, It was very stressful for me. The whole purpose of this exercise was to see how urbanization worked. So, if we added 50 houses, we took away some trees to account for this. My groups final product is down below! 

 

Note taking and collaboration with classmates

There was lots of great information I learned before creating my frankenstuffy. As a class, we watched informative videos while taking notes, or came together as a group to discuss what we learned.   

 

 

 

Creating my frankenstuffy

OKAY MY FAVOURITE PART!!!! I was able to use my creative, artistic wonderful, beautiful, gorgtastic skills to create none other than Peter Malarky! He is the main character of my story, with a well thought out background, history and lifestyle. He is a brave sole and I treasured the moments I had while making him.

 

This is a time lapse of me creating the one and ONLY Peter Malarky

For some darn reason it will only put a link in, not a video!!!   

IMG_0693

 

Character resume and Storyline

Before any filming could happen Peter needed a backstory and character traits! I created a large pamphlet about Peter, and any facts you may need to know about him. Additionally, after I few drafts I finished the storyline and chose a few important sections to include for the video. There was so much I didn’t include in the final draft, so I’ll show a bit of the ideas I had. 

 

Final video draft/overview

 

 

 

The final product of my video

I’me not sure why, but for some reason, the final video was really easy for me. We had so much class time to do it and i worked a few times after school, so it got done fairly quick! The idea for creating the video was, either get a photo of your frankenstuffy and animate it in certain backgrounds, OR attach string to your stuffy and move it around in front of a provided green screen. (There’s also the option to do both which is what I did) here is my final video!

 

  

 

 

 

 

My response to the driving question 

The driving question for this project was “How can we, as writers, weave historical details into our creative storytelling to convey a clear and impactful message?”

 Weaving historical details into creative storytelling in my opinion, is about making your work still have important relevant information, while also making it an engaging story so a clear message can be conveyed. For example, You do your research, look into what life was like in the Industrial Revolution and pick out relevant facts that help your characters and plot, not just random dates or events. By mixing genuine historical information whilst still making it an engaging story, you can make your message clear and impactful. For example, characters in my video open up an apothecary shop, using this opportunity I added information about time relevant things they would sell in their shop such as valerian root and Teatree.

 

 

Conclusion 

In conclusion, I learned a lot throughout this project, from learning about urbanization and the Industrial Revolution, to designing and bringing Peter Malarky to life. I showcased my time management skills and had loads of fun! Thanks for reading my blog and stay tuned for more.🫶

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Vive Les Machines À Métaphores❄️ Winter Exhibition ❄️

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Categories: Humanities, Uncategorized, Winter exhibition, Tags: , , , , ,

 

Intro

Welcome back! It’s been so long, but I’m here to talk about the Winter Exhibition, what led up to it and the “Vive Les Machines À Métaphores” project as a whole! In this project we learned that factors precipitate revolution and that  they have shaped the modern world view. There was so much that went into all of this, starting off with the book Animal Farm, by James Orwell. Let’s get into it!

Reading Animal Farm

Animal Farm is a representation of the Russian Revolution, and since later on we would be making metaphor machines BASED off of revolutions this was a very informative book to read and gave me a lot of perspective on revolutions.

Each character in the book has specific people they were based off of, for example, Old Major represents Karl Marx, Snowball represents Leon Trotsky, Napoleon represents Joseph Stalin, Squealer represents propaganda, and Boxer is a representation for all the Russian labourers and workers. This information isn’t 100% important to the blog since I know not everyone reading this has read the book, nonetheless it’s still good to have!

Note Taking

While reading Animal Farm I made sure to make many notes, whether that was general observations from the book, or if I was making connections to the actual Russian Revolution (which comes in handy later on…)

There was a LOT of not just note talking in this book. Every few days, we would do chapter overviews with the class, and everyone including myself, made discussion questions to ensure everyone knew what was happening in the book.

In addition to this, I made sort of character cards for all of the important characters in the book as well as the roles they played.

My animal farm note taking: https://s.craft.me/OaMYkzVwMyUtO4

Cranes theory

The largest and most important part of this note taking was learning about cranes theory. This consisted of his definition of a revolution and all of the stages in one. A revolution is made up of four stages, incubation, moderate, crisis, and recovery. Learning all of these stages helped quite a lot when I made the infographic, which was an explanation/run through of the book and which parts fit into which stages of a revolution. (It’s mentioned more in depth later)

 

Animal Farm infographic:

This is my infographic of Animal Farm after a few revisions, and I’m quite proud of it!

 

 

 

 

Russian revolution

 

Choosing My Revolution

Everything I did for note taking in the Animal Farm project, including the infographic I’m going to be doing AGAIN! However, this time I would be researching a revolution! I needed to choose my top three out of 5 revolutions, and then I would be sorted into a  revolution group. My top three choices were Russian, French, and American. In the end I got the Russian Revolution! I was sorted with a few other people who would be my group members for the rest of the project.

 

Researching the Russian Revolution

Everyone in the class, no matter what group, individually researched their revolution before coming together with their group. To have a full understanding of the Russian revolution I made a timeline, overview, researched important people, and made notes on each stage of the revolution. Most, but not all of what I did was necessary, however I know my learning style and doing the amount of research and the way I did it helps me understand the project.

All of my research on the Russian revolution, timeline, cranes theory etc is here!

Link to all my research:  https://s.craft.me/Rxpob0aRoDRv0o

 

Russian Revolution infographic:

After researching our revolution, we were tasked with creating an infographic, similar to the one we made for Animal Farm. Once each group member completed their individual infographic, we combined our knowledge and design skills to create one final, refined version. The layout closely resembles my original design, so I decided to showcase this final infographic instead.

 

What is a metaphor machine/Rube Goldberg machine?

A metaphor machine and a Rube Goldberg machine are very similar.

A Rube Goldberg machine is a complicated machine or contraption designed to do a very simple task. It uses a chain reaction, where one step leads to another, like dominos falling or a ball rolling, to complete the job. For example, instead of flipping a switch directly, the machine might use a ball, a pulley, or something along the lines of that to make it happen. It’s named after Rube Goldberg, a cartoonist who drew funny, overly complex machines.

Now, a metaphor machine is the same thing, however each or most actions represent something. For example, since my machine was based off of the Russian Revolution, the actions were based off of certain events in that revolution. It’s a creative way to show an idea using actions or objects!

Action Script (planning the exhibition)

This was pretty early in the planning process, so lots has changed! My group and I made a planning document, consisting of ideas for each stage. Here it is!

Document: https://s.craft.me/mYVZkujWXv6Tbj

 

Teamwork Problems

Okay so…. I think the contributions leading up to the exhibition were pretty uneven.🥲 Throughout the project I felt I was doing most of the work. This isn’t directed at the whole group, and even so, everyone I worked with was WILLING to help, however I felt like most of the time I had to tell them exactly what to do for it to be done. Again this isn’t true all the time or for everyone, however some group members weren’t very good at giving larger contributions without support. Because of this I guess I felt the need to take the leadership role, or be more bossy? Honestly this wasn’t something I enjoyed doing, and keeping people on task and being bossy isn’t much fun. Looking back, a lot of work was done at later dates rather than earlier ones, and it caused a lot of stress leading up to the exhibition.

Some of this was bad luck, like one of our group members calling in sick day of, or another group member that was gone the first week and a half, or that we had no backboard for the first week, unlike or fellow class mates.😅 USUALLY, I’m very organized, but since I couldn’t count on EVERYONE it was a lot harder. Moral of the story, you need everyone to put in a 100% for it to go smoothly. Yapping about what sucked isn’t helpful though… and this is a reflective blog post so I should.. well.. reflect!

This experience taught me a lot about teamwork and the importance of balanced contributions. While I stepped up as a leader when needed, I realized how stressful it can be to take on too much. Next time, I’ll work on setting clearer expectations with the group early on and assigning tasks more effectively to ensure everyone is equally involved. I also learned that starting earlier and having a backup plan for unexpected challenges, like absences or missing materials, can help prevent last-minute stress.

How the exhibition went

The 2-3 hours before the exhibition were VERY VERY VERY CAPITOL V, STRESSFUL. This ALSO includes the whole day leading up to it! It was stressful for all the reasons I said before of course, but 2 very important actions of our machine were left to the last second, and the mechanics for them were not planned to the best of our abilities. That day, every chance we got, including lunch, one group member and I as well as a wonderful friend, worked on it. The last 2-3 hours of prep time were very stressful. Thankfully, the machine worked in the end, but unexpected changes were being done last minute, and well, it wasn’t as perfect as I strived it to be. I’m really proud of myself for problem solving in the end though, despite everything. The actual exhibition was great to my surprise! Not because it was perfect, we didn’t always get good runs but we knew what we were talking about and were confident explaining our machine to the audience. In short, we had fun! We served root beer (representing beer) and pretzels, which represents the food Czar Nicolas 2nd served at his coronation. At the very end we all felt relieved, and happy after the stress, and now we had the night to rest! Here are videos and photos from the day of! (Some of these are preparation videos)

 

Trial run video:

IMG_1023

 

 

5 seconds after everyone finished presenting….

 

IMG_8506 IMG_8506 IMG_1047

 

My response to the driving question

The driving questions for this project was “What Factors Precipitate ‘Revolution’ and How Have They Shaped the Modern World?” Revolutions happen when people become discouraged by existing conditions, for example poor working conditions or food shortages. When their basic needs or rights aren’t met, people push for change!

For example, the Russian Revolution got rid of a strict monarchy that had been ruling forever, and replaced it with communism. This changed how politics and economies worked, not just in Russia, but all over the world.

Conclusion

The “Vive Les Machines À Métaphores” project was a challenging but rewarding experience that taught me so much about revolutions and their impact on the world. From reading Animal Farm to researching the Russian Revolution and building a metaphor machine, I learned so much! Despite the teamwork challenges and last-minute stress, I’m proud of what my group and I accomplished, and the Winter Exhibition itself turned out to be a success.

This project gave me valuable lessons in collaboration, leadership, and problem-solving under pressure. Looking back, I can see how much I’ve grown from this experience, and I’m excited to carry these lessons into future projects. Thank you for reading my blog you absolute diva💜 I hope you enjoyed it, and stay posted to see what happens next😨

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Run Short Scary Film!👻

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Categories: Maker, Tags: , , ,

 

Intro

For this project we were given access to a short film video that we needed to replicate. The film depicted a guy going on a jog when suddenly someone started following him! Keep on reading if you want to know more!

 

Planning

There were many steps to completing this project. First we rewatched our reference film about a dozen times to get a good understanding of what was going on and the different shots we needed to know. Since a large part of this project was learning how film and captivate an audience, a story board was necessary to know each exact scene, and how the video would play out. However even though to story board was only around 25 clips, (much less than many official movies) its a SILENT film, so the story board was only working off of angle shots, not what people were saying. Anyways, this is what I made! (It’s just a sketch to get a general idea, which is why it’s not perfect.)

 Story board: 

 

 

1st Draft Errors

Since everything were doing here is a group project it made things a bit easier. However, a big problem on the first draft was the scenery. Since my group chose a filming area too late, we got a bad location, making the scenery not match up with the original reference. Aside from this, the filming wasn’t as good as it good have been, and it was all very rushed since we were on a time limit. It’s good to note that this was the first time we did this though, (with not much notice) and overall we didn’t do too bad!

 

Final Draft & Problem Solving

Let me just say that the second, and final draft turned out much much better! Not only did the filming line up very well with the original reference, but the scenery was great! This is not to say that it went perfect though… 

Problem Solving 

Group members:

My group consists of four people, but only two of us were present for the final draft. This meant my friend and I had to problem-solve on our own. In our “Run” film, there are three different characters, not including the cameraman. To make it work, we took on all the roles ourselves. However, things got tricky when a scene required both of us to be in the same shot—there was no one to operate the camera! Luckily, since we had helped out another group earlier, they returned the favour by stepping in as our cameraman, saving the day!🤳

 

Audio:

The only significant challenge we encountered was the audio. I assumed we could use the sound from our reference video, so I didn’t put much effort into making our clips sound clean, thinking I could just overlay the other audio later. That assumption turned out to be wrong…😬 Since I misinterpreted the criteria, we had to fix the audio. Fortunately, my teacher was understanding and gave us time to make adjustments. Instead of redoing everything, we created external audio, like running noises, to match the scenes.

 

Final product

Why would I tell you this if you can’t even see the video you might ask? Well you can! If your interested in seeing my video, click this link to my YouTube channel!

 https://youtu.be/NeAOnONEWD4?si=CYPe1n0LmIr5H8dN

 

Answer to the driving question

The driving question for this project was, “how might we learn video skills by recreating a short film?

When we recreating the short film it taught us many things! For example, it gave us a good opportunity to improve our video skills by giving hands-on experience with every step of the filmmaking process.  From analyzing the original film to breaking down its shots, (like the storyboard) you learn about camera angles, and storytelling techniques. Depending on how  “professional” your film is, (if it’s for a school project like us, or your aiming to make money off of it) filming scenes helps you practice using equipment like cameras, tripods, and lighting. while editing teaches you how to piece everything together to match the original. Working in a group also builds teamwork and problem-solving skills, making the process both educational and collaborative.

 

 

Group members blogs:

Carmynk@seycove.ca

 finnleyl@seycove.ca

Keiral@seycove.ca

Conclusion 

After all the challenges and fixes, I’m really happy with how our short film turned out! From handling missing group members to fixing unexpected audio issues, it was a great learning experience. It wasn’t perfect, but we made it work and learned so much along the way. Thank you for listening, and stay tuned for more blog posts!

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🌊My “Take Your Kid to Work Day” Experience!🌊

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Categories: Uncategorized, Tags: , , ,

 

Intro

Everyone in my grade had the day off to visit and learn about their parents work, for “Take Your Kid to Work Day” or TYKTWD! However, my two friends and I aren’t interested in what our parents do (they work from home) so we decided to do something else! Read more to find out…

Where I Went

Like I mentioned before, I didn’t watch my mom work from home because that’s low key boring.. I went to the Seymour Salmon Hatchery, and worked as a volunteer, shadowing one of the workers! This was especially interesting for me, since I love marine biology. Therefore, this experience gave me an opportunity to see AND try a different areas of marine biology, that I haven’t thought about before! 🐟

My Favourite Parts

Honestly, every part of my day was interesting, new, and fun! I really enjoyed population counting which was when we put on waiters and did a salmon check throughout the creeks and rivers. I was in change of note taking, and checking off the different sections. For example, I would take certain notes if the salmon was wild or hatchery, (we could tell by the clipped fins) or the gender. In addition to this, I LOVED getting the salmon from out of the tubs with nets, to see if they were ready to spawn. I was pretty bomb at this. 

   

   

  

 

 

 

Something I learned!

I’m passionate about fish and marine biology, but I knew almost nothing about salmon hatcheries before this experience… so everything was a learning experience! I got to see the entire process of fertilizing salmon eggs firsthand. We began by selecting adult salmon ready to spawn, then gave them a hard knock on the head to stun them. One of the workers the cut the main artery and we let it sit in a bin too bleed out. Later, I had the role of holding them head-up over a clean bin, while my friend Emilia carefully made a large cut to release the eggs. After that, we mixed in the male’s milt for fertilization, soaked the eggs in a safe cleaning solution, and finally placed them into incubation. Working and learning at this salmon hatchery had so many fascinating aspects that made it very unique and engaging. My day was packed with new interesting things, hands-on learning, and overall I thoroughly enjoyed every moment!

  Retrieving the Salmon From the Bleeding Process:

 

 

 

Extracting the Eggs:

 

Mixing the Milt with the Eggs:

 

Using the Cleaning Solution:

How This Helped

The purpose of “Take Your Kid to Work Day” (TYKTWD) was to help us see if a certain workplace matched our interests and to get a sense of how different work environments operate. Visiting the salmon hatchery did exactly that! I was already excited about it because I’m interested in exploring various areas of marine biology. Having several fish at home, I’ve always been fascinated by aquatic life, and this experience deepened that interest even more.🌊 

 

 

Youtube Video:

By the end of my experience I made a short video sharing my experience with the public! If your interested in checking it out, click on the link below.

Link: https://youtu.be/9eoiar9mKKQ

 

 

 

Email

Later on, I sent a thank you email to Megan, the person I was shadowing on TYKTWD. This is the Email I sent.

 

Conclusion 

Overall, my “Take Your Kid to Work Day” at the salmon hatchery was an unforgettable experience! Not only did I get to learn more about marine biology and see a different side of it, but I also got to experience hands-on work. Each part of the day was exciting, and gave me a real glimpse into the world of marine biology and the important work done at hatcheries. Thank you for reading about my experience, and stay tuned for future posts!

 

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