I’m back and the same as ever.

I would say I’m better than ever but that’s probably a lie.

Hello internet people I have returned from my blog-free era and now, I have to make a humanities blog. This specific blog was about our project called.

RISE OF THE FRANKENSTUFFIES.

The driving question of this project was “How can sci-fi/fantasy fiction help us imagine a different future?” 

This is a big question to answer without any knowledge of sci-fi, so let’s take a look at the steps we took to answer it.

First of all we needed to know the end product of this project, so we found out that our goal was to create a movie trailer for a sci-fi film based around a character that we made. So  obviously the first thing we had to do was make this character. To do this we bought our own stuffies and sewed them together in order to create the amalgamation we would base our story of off. I decided to get a standard doll and remove the torso to create a spider-like creature. I named my protagonist DERRICK.

So now we have the character we have to make up who he is. Derrick is a weird looking creature so I wanted him to be from outer space. I wanted it to be somewhere that hasnt been greatly explored so I thought maybe mars, but I decided against that because martians are too cliche. The other planets are all to far away and are too different from earth so I went with the moon, but that has been explored so I went with the dark side of the moon. Now I knew where we was from I had to pick between hero and villain, so I went with villain because, well, look at his face. If you want to understand more about hike here is a resume for him as a… person… thing… I don’t really know what he is. 

Now we started to read a book called leviathan, and if you are wondering why it’s because we needed to figure out what makes a good sci-fi story. While reading leviathan we had to pay attention to the details and what made it a good sci fi book. To help us do this we had reading roles that we had to complete, and also in class activities to help us understand it further. Unfortunately there isn’t much else I can say about this but the book was very good.

Now we know who Derrick is, we needed to start thinking about what our story would be. I wanted this to be a dark and sadistic and what more dark that eating babies. Since I made Derrick out of a stuffie I wanted him to act like one to be able to hide in plain sight. Now we had the base of the story I needed a plot to focus it around. Now I usually don’t like when villains turn into good guys but I couldn’t come up with anything, so I asked for my teachers help and she suggested it. I had given Derrick a rough past and had the idea to include that in the story. My idea is incredibly cliche but it works out, I decided to have Derrick meet a child who doesn’t have loving parents and feel bad for him. So we learn more about him no Derrick decides not to kill him, but instead to befriend him. So that would be the base of my story.

Now I knew what my story would be about I had to write it but before that I made a sort of cheat sheet to help me write it. I had a table with opening, action and details on it, so I could write what I wanted to have in my story, and have the points I wanted to get across in that section written down. If you ant to read it you can but it’s quite long.

Transition        Action            Details

Now I was ready to write the real thing. I had a lot of prep before hand so surely I was ready. So I started writing and figuring derricks tale. I don’t have much to say about the writing of the story so here you can read it.

Out in space, a shuttle is headed toward earth containing an alien life-form that recently discovered a planet called earth. This creature is called Derrick, he is looking for a new home as he was excluded from his own planet. Derrick is a Derrickian life-form native to the dark side of the moon. This specific one has chosen to leave because it was exiled for being stupid by the standards of the species. He landed on earth and opened his door to the beauty of nature, he decides to explore. 

During his exploration Derrick finds out how humans live and decides to observe one specific family. This family consisted of two tall creatures, but suddenly one of the humans starting expanding, then over the course of 9 months they got bigger and bigger until one day they shrunk. A new small ugly creature had arrived. Derrick wonders why they pay attention to it. It is annoying, loud, stupid and tries to eat everything. WHY WERE THEY GIVING IT SO MUCH LOVE! Derrick thought to himself why do they love that thing, I deserve their love. Why don’t I get that love, I hate that thing, I want to kill that thing, I want to destroy all of those creatures. I WILL DESTROY THEM ALL! This set Derrick out on a quest. A journey with only one outcome, to kill all babies. 

First to deal with this one, the first baby he ever saw and the first he would ever kill. He planned for days and weeks crafting the most detailed and thought out plan ever known. He would put up an act as a stuffy and integrate itself into the family, and then make the move. Derrick weaved himself into their lives, first by mind controlling the baby and making it grab him so the parents just had to buy it. Then waiting until they left the baby all alone, carefully he snuck up behind the baby and… CHOMP! He devoured the child with one big bite. All these thoughts and emotions rushing through Derrick’s head the taste, the thrill, the joy, the fear. All these things, Derrick was thirsty for more. He needed more, he had developed a taste for it. A need, an addiction. And so began Derrick’s murder spree, he went around town hunting new families, one after the other, baby after baby, victim after victim, no child was safe, missing children, disappearances everywhere. 

People started to speculate that someone was behind this. A murderer with a sick mind, who could this mystery man be. Word had spread throughout the city. Children were being hidden away, this was a problem for Derrick he kept finding it more and move difficult to wiggle his way into their lives, but this just made him want more. Years passed and Derrick was still at it, nobody knew the cause they only knew the consequence. Everybody was learning and working from home. The whole city was in hiding. But one day Derrick found a new child. 

He did the usual routine of finding the family, learning all about them and getting into their life. But this family was different. There was only one big person, and they barely ever spoke. The small person was always locked in their room, and never did anything. He didn’t eat he didn’t play he didn’t have anything, not even the big pillow they sleep on. Derrick started to think this wasn’t a child. He was bigger and didn’t have much love, but he knew that it was a child when he got into his life. He adored Derrick treated him like the only friend he had. This was baffling to Derrick, he was receiving love. 

This caused Derrick to think back, Derrick remembered what his childhood was like. It was so similar, he never spoke to his family, he had no friends, if only he had someone to love. This caused Derrick to re-think his actions. What had he been doing. Why was he killing these innocent things just because of his lacking parents. Why had he caused all of this carnage. What had he done! He was so scared, he was regretting his actions. He didn’t want it to be real. He didn’t want to live this way anymore. He wanted to change. Derrick decided to be friends with this boy. He learned his name, Todrick, he hadn’t had a second parent his whole life. He never had friends, and never had toys. This made Derrick feel awful, he wanted to explain to todrick what he had done. He thought he deserved to know. 

He built a translation device to be able to explain to todrick what he was, where he was from, and what he had done. He explained to him that he was entirely immortal, but died in sunlight. Derrick was worried todrick would hate him and run away or kill him, but the complete opposite happened. Todrick was astonished he thought Derrick was so cool they played together and talked and cooked. They did everything together. After a few weeks of knowing each other, Derrick explained how to him the murder he had caused but explained that he had changed, todrick had made him realise what he had done. Todrick understood and really believed he changed but little did they know, Todrick’s parent was listening through the door. 

They informed the whole city about what he did who he was and where he was. Now Derrick was faced with a challenge that caused much panic. How would he address the matter, would he run away or face the actions of his past. Derrick chose impending doom, he would confront the angry parents and try to explain himself. To confront the mob he would have to prepare himself, he needs to get their attention, but how. He decided to go head to head with them and just try to talk it out. The time had come for Derrick to face his past, he needed to scream (well technically he couldn’t scream but the translator could) the loudest he could. Doom was approaching in the form of a riot. There they were, the families of all his victims morphed into a ball of rage. He was screaming STOOOP! WAAAIIT! I CAN EXPLAIN! Nothing. They were like a bull to a red flag. Charging, getting closer and closer. But suddenly, in the distance you could hear a voice. Noooooo! Stooooop! 

It was a race, the murderous mob of parents, or a small todrick. He tried his very best but he wasn’t fast enough. They grabbed Derrick by the legs and thrusted him up into the air. Everyone got a stab or a whack at the small creature, until finally the last two parents, the first of Derrick’s victims. They stared into Derrick’s eyes, face to face with the root of his murder but then. They ripped him in two. 

Derrick lay cold on the the floor lifeless. Todrick ran over to his lost friend and toppled over straight onto his knees and started bawling. The angry mob heard his sobbing, they all turned around to see the boy crying his eyes out. This meant he had to have changed, he couldn’t be the same ruthless killer that he once was. Full of remorse those two parents that started it all walked over to comfort Todrick. Their shadows looming over the spit body cast a big enough shadow for Derrick to regain his powers. His two halve started moving together like magnets, slowing drifting along the floor. They started melding back together, merging to create a reborn form of Derrick. 

Todrick had no idea his eyes still flooded with tears. Todrick felt a pat on his leg, he opened his eyes and still couldn’t see well. He wiped the tears from his face and burst with joy, still careful no to move as to take him out the shadow. Derrick picked up the translator and explained his whole story to the public. He told them everything about himself and helped them understand who he was. To this day Derrick still lives among those people, as if he is a citizen. He has a job to pay for Todrick’s food, he has friends that he spends time with and he even goes to book club on Wednesdays. He lives a normal human life on earth, living in a city in Ohio. At least for now……

So now the story was complete I had to make it into a movie because who reads books nowadays. So before I made the movie I had to hype it up with trailer. (By the way there isn’t actually going to be a movie but there will be a trailer). But first we had to find out what makes a good movie trailer, so I examined trailers carefully, and by that I mean I watched a couple videos, and noticed that it had to be exciting, but not too revealing. It had to be suspenseful but not confusing. And it needed to make people want to watch it and find out what happens. With all this information stored in my noggin I popped out this trailer for Derrick vs the world.

Finally I will return to the driving question. How can sci-fi/fantasy fiction help us imagine a different future? 

I think that we can learn from the mistakes that these fictional characters make and improve our lives to make sure that they never happen to us. We can use these made up stories as vessels to convey our thoughts and problems with the world. We can use our imaginations to create a world where we want to be. If we write about a future that we want to be in we can escape a sad or lonely life.

Thank you for reading my blog (but I don’t blame you if you skipped some parts) I appreciate it. I hope you’ll read some more and have a nice day : )

Bye bye

Waddup people of the World Wide Web.

I’m back with another BLOOOOG POOOSSSST!!!

We just finished another school project which mean I’m legally obligated to write this blog. The subject in question I science. If you didn’t know the semester change-over is coming up very soon so this will be my last PLP Science post ever. Tis oh so sad but alas we must push on and continue this post. Ok let’s get too it.

This project was named ‘Exciting Electricity’ which was all about electrical engineering. We learned all about wires and how to make circuits and it was really interesting. The driving question for this project was how does society rely on electricity and how can we generate in more sustainably. So let’s get too it. Again.

So I started off with pretty much no meaningful knowledge on the topic, fortunately in the lessons to come we would be educated on everything we needed to know. We first learnt about what sustainable energy is, to do this we first needed to know the different forms of energy generation. There are different ways to generate energy with some being sustainable, meaning non harmful to the environment, and some not. A few of the main ones are wind energy, solar energy, hydrothermal energy and fossil fuels. Fossil fuels being the most used but unfortunately it is not a sustainable source. We had the opportunity to chose our favourite energy generator and create an infographic on how it works and pros and cons of the method. I went with wind energy. I’m very proud of it.

There weren’t really any other keystones or things to be graded on specifically as this was a short project but we built up our knowledge circuits (the system of wires that gives something power) and currents in order to do the final project. We learned about different terms and measurements of electricity. If you have a circuit it’s either a parallel or a series circuit which means the is a flow (the movement of the electricity) that is only going in one direction and powers the whole circuit, or its a parallel circuit that sends a current (the flow of the electricity) to different sections of circuit so each part has its own power. I’m not just going to waffle on about all the different forms and measurement of electricity and circuits. But if you want to learn more you can research things online. All the details aren’t really necessary for the final project hitch was. 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁 A DIY operation board game! Now if that sounds crazy to you your not alone I was so confused when that happened. How the heck am I gonna make an entire board game. Well it’s more simple than it might seem. We just need a box, some wire, a light, something to take out, tweezers, copper tape and a human to operate on. Ok it’s not a real human but I could be with the power of imagination. The guide to the (semi) perfect operation game is at this link, if you wanna give it a shot visit the website.

https://learn.adafruit.com/low-tech-operation-game

I tried really hard but the wire wasn’t cooperating and kept falling out. So I couldn’t get a great video but from the spit second you can see it works. I wish I had more time to work on it but you get what you get and you don’t get upset. That said here is my creation.

To answer the driving question which was ‘How does society rely on electricity and how can we generate in more sustainably.’ Society as a whole relys way too much on electricity and power, to the point where if we lost it our brains would shut down and we wouldn’t be able to function. At the rate we are going with fossil fuels as our primary energy source we won’t be able to have this luxury forever, and either the planet will die or our sources will run out. We need to switch to a more sustainable provider of energy like wind or solar before our time runs out. Thank you for reading my final blog post of semester one and my last ever science blog post, this is a random kid on the internet signing off for the last time in science.

Byeeeeee!

People of the internet!

Tis time for another mini blog post. This one isn’t as mini as the last but still smaller than usual.

This mini project was called finding fun with videos and as you can infer it’s about making fun videos. We learned a bunch of cool editing techniques and had a lot of fun making cool little movies, now onto the blog post. (By the way there was no driving question for this project).

Ok so the first thing we did was learn how to make a jump cut. A jump cut is when you cut off a video at a specific time and then overlay a new video on top. To make it seem like someone disappeared or teleported. Me and my friends attempted to make a ‘ha ha funny video’ where we were doing a YouTube intro but then got sent to the back rooms by our camera man. Here it is. (Don’t forget to like and subscribe 👍)

Next we made a video with an AR (augmented reality) snow globe that had something inside, and a lil extra. AR is something that allows you to overlay pictures and object from a screen into the real world. Like is you wanted to see how a room would look with a picture in it before you put it up you could. Unfortunately I can’t show the video as it has my classroom in it (and I don’t want any creepy online strangers hunting me down) so I’m unable to show it.

Then we learned how to use a green screen. Now unless you’ve been living under a rock, or your really old, a green screen is a, well green backdrop that you can stand in front of to edit your background so you can edit a video or photo to seem like your not where you really are or add things to your room that aren’t there. Our group decided to continue the story of being trapped in the back rooms. Unfortunately the back rooms storyline end here because, well you’ll see why.

After that scary video I took a turn turn and went for more of a comedy vibe with another AR video. This time we needed to use emojis to tell a story in a short video. There isn’t much to explain here so here’s the video.

And finally the climax of this project. We had to mimic a viral/ popular video and create it as a. Drumroll please! 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁. STOP MOTION VIDEO! We only needed to make a 30 second video but I went above and beyond with a FULL. ONE MINUTE. VIDEO. I know I know how does he do it but I simply had a lot of time on my hands so I decided too because why not. I decided to use my Pokémon Lego and copy a realistic Pokémon battle. After a bit of searching and found the video I wanted. This is it.

Now if you watched it you might be thinking two thing. One there’s no Pokémon in that video. And two that video is 3 minutes long. Well the answers are, I’m going to add the Pokémon fighting, and, I cut down the video so I could keep my sanity intact. After much effort and around 5 hours I had finished my video. Here is my masterpiece.

I know I know you love it. It’s your most favourite thing ever (wait is that even correct grammar).  Well that’s all I have for today so I’ll see you next blog internet person. GOODBYE!

People of the internet.

I am back with a mini blog post about a mini project. When I say mini I mean mini, because this project only took a week, so I’ll keep this short.

We were summoned by the CEO’s of screamorama (*cough* *cough* our teachers) to build the new best rollercoaster for their park. We had to stay within a budget and account for speed through kinetic and potential energy. 

We learned what those were with the help of a simulation which allowed questionable things.

But it teach us the concept quite well. 

Then I teamed up with my new partners Charlie and Luca to start planning the coaster. There were questions we had to answer like how would we build it, are we building a real rollercoaster and can we add a jump. The answers are no no and we’ll build it with plastic cups. 

Now our concept was to ride down a chair, into a loop into another on the ground but we abandoned that after we realised the budget was too small so we went with a fast short drop of death that we called the rock slide. After great panic and stress we made something that we weren’t intending in but still turned out semi-good. Here it is

There was no driving question for this project and not much else at all so that’s it.

Bye.

It is once again the time of year that I must do my mpol.

“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.”

If you are new here that stands for mid year year presentation of learning, in short I have to do a presentation to one of my teachers and my parents where I look back at what work I have done so far this semester. There is no driving question to be answered this blog so let’s get started.

SCIENCE

First subject I’ll review is science as I feel it has been my best class.

I have really liked science this year and it’s because our teacher miss kadi try’s her hardest to make us enjoy lessons and gives us fun tasks to do, some examples of this that I’m proud of are my bio accumulation gif

And my sexual reproduction puppet show.

Those are some things I’m proud of now for something I’m not proud of.

I don’t think my acting was very good in the mock news report my group made (this isn’t at all my group members fault I just didn’t learn my lines and kept looking at my script. If I could go back I would try to learn my lines and make it look more real. Here it is

HUMANITIES

Next class I’ll discuss is humanities. I feel this has been my worst class and it’s probably because I don’t really like English as a subject or really writing in general, I don’t think I had and outstanding work this year but I’m proud of my revolution on trial video. I didn’t have much of an acting job in this but I think I edited it all together quite well and I directed it as a good leader. The video shows a court case to decide if the French Revolution was effective or ineffective our side was ineffective here’s the video.

Now for the thing I’m not proud of this is a no-brainer for me, my book creator on the geography of the west. I didn’t enjoy this project probably because I didn’t go on the big trip to Alberta at the start of the year, people say this is what made the trip worth it and I think I agree because I didn’t understand most of the project. I was sick for one week and came back understanding nothing. The people who stayed home didn’t really get the help we needed and we just got put in the back of a science classroom. I don’t think I did well because I handed it in about a month late and didn’t do well in answering all the question. If you want to see it here it is.

MAKER

Next subject is maker. I mostly had fun in this class because we made lots of videos and films and all my favourite teachers were in this class. This semester it was almost all related to films which I love making. I’m proud of my “what inspires me video”, it’s shows who I am and you can basically get an understanding of what I’m like as a person from this video. I spent a lot of time on it and I think it turned out great. Here’s the video

I’m not really proud the goals section of the first maker project. I’m not much of a goal setting guy so I don’t really see the point. I would make a goal then forget about it. There’s nothing I can show to help you understand this part because we didn’t really make much but I doubt it would be interesting anyway. I just didn’t really understand this part and therefore didn’t enjoy it much.

Now all of the subjects are complete I would like to discuss my core competencies. For those of you who don’t know what these are in plp we have certain categories that you need to master to be the ultimate competency master. Just kidding these are things you need to be to be a successful person. They are communicating, collaborating, creative thinking, critical and reflective thinking, personal awareness and responsibility, positive personal and cultural identity and finally social awareness and responsibility. We have numbers for all of these to rank you understanding of them. I’ll go through them on by one.

COMMUNICATING

Personally I’m quite a quiet person when on my own, if I don’t know the people around me I won’t really speak up and spread my points and ideas unless I’m asked or need to take charge. If I’m with people I’m comfortable around I can speak up well but in unfamiliar setting in the shy kid. I don’t want to seem like “that guy” so I keep to myself and just go with what I’m told to do. I could definitely improve on this.

COLLABORATING 

This is kinda like communication. I’m good when I know the people but terrible with people I don’t know. This makes me a good listener though and I’ll try to help out as much as I can. I try to not be a nuisance and just keep quiet but I know I shouldn’t do that. In the future I will try to be a better group member and participate more.

CREATIVE THINKING

I’m a thinker. I have the wildest and craziest ideas and thought and questions but I don’t have the confidence to share them. I come up with things I don’t even know where I got from but it’s part of what makes me me. I do a lot in my head and think about so much and I think it’s because of my ADHD. I’m quite a good creative thinker and I value that property.

CRITICAL AND REFLECTIVE THINKING

I’m pretty good at reflecting and criticizing my work, I’m able to look at things and give helpful ways to improve it to others and myself. Reflecting on work is a bit harder for me as I don’t quite understand it, I can re-think about what I’ve done but I don’t think that changes much. It just feels like looking at my work again. It’s probably just to see what can make things better and if that’s so I think I’m pretty good at that.

PERSONAL AWARENESS AND RESPONSIBILITY 

I’m not very aware of myself in the sense that I don’t really plan ahead or think about the consequences if something goes wrong, for example I rely on my mum to wake me up and get me to school, if this doesn’t happen I would wake up late and not be able to get to school as I don’t know my way there. That also shows I don’t take much responsibility for myself and rely on others to help me do things. I can definitely Improve on this as a person which would make me a lot more well-rounded and independent. I don’t think very far ahead and I hope I can get better at this in the future.

POSITIVE PERSONAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

I quite like myself and although that can be a bad thing I don’t think that much of myself. I’m happy with who I am as a person and I’m proud of where I’m from. As one of the few English people I know in Canada I feel very unique and special. I’m aware of my background and where I come from but I’m still able to improve my knowledge around this subject.

SOCIAL AWARENESS AND RESPONSIBILITY 

When it comes to other people relying on me it doesn’t happen often but I mostly manage to do what I’ve been asked. I’m socially aware and can understand what’s right and wrong or acceptable or unacceptable but not much further than that. I’m able to be around other people and interact with them respectfully without fail and I can assist others in most environments which I think makes me a socially acceptable and semi-responsible person.

Thanks you for reading my MPOL blog post (if you made it this far) and for doing so here is a cookie. 

                 🍪 

It’s only a cookie emoji but I hope it finds you well.

Bubye!👋

Hello and welcome to Jurassic park

I wish

Today I’ll be talking about my science project called handle with care. This project was about everything that goes into and ecosystem, like biotic and abiotic factors the earths different spheres food webs and so much more.

I hope you liked it.

It’s fabulous isn’t it. I drew all of those.

I know my acting isn’t the best but we got it done.

Ok so its the time of the year for another

pole!!!

However there are no M’s only T’s

welcome to my

TPOL!!!

(that was supposed to be all dramatic) anywho let’s get started

The big question is.

“Why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level?”

To be honest I really don’t think I am ready to advance to grade 9 but I’m willing to embrace any challenge that comes my way, although homework could be a difficult one because I’m struggling with it right now. But I’m hopeful that with the support of LAC again and my teachers I will be able to achieve a better mind set and more independence.

Ok so in the idea of moving forward, I first want to reflect on what I think I have done Well this year.

After a year of using my iPad for all my learning I have learnt the ropes of showbie, Basecamp and a great deal of other apps. The apps I enjoy the most are sketches pro and super impose x

From my mpol I identified several projects that I feel I worked well on. I will review these again and then add in areas that I feel I have improved in since then.

I was proud of my Laser light show in scimatics

(you can read more about this here https://www.blog44.ca/cadeno/2022/01/30/lllllaaaaaaaassssseeeeerrrrrssss/..) 

I was proud of the fact that I fixed my groups project when it wasn’t working properly. I redid the calculations while my group looked at other projects and fixed it. I was proud that I kept preserving to get a good result and make it work. Here is a picture of the fixed laser show. 

In addition since February in Scimatics I am proud of the scratch game I made. Although it wasn’t a very fun game I am still proud of the skills I learned while developing it. These include, learning how to make a clicker game with coding and importing graphics that I had drawn into the game. 

Here is my scratch game and you can try it if you want.

I also feel I have written a good story for my comic book on viruses. It reflects the true story of when I had meningitis when I was 8. Having researched this topic I feel that I have gained a new understanding of the disease. Once I read up on it I started to think that I may have some of the long term side effects of this illness including difficulty concentrating, anxiety and sleep issues. 

We haven’t done maker since February but I really enjoyed this class. I was proud of this a picture I produced during the constructive creative communication project. It captured the mood I was given and showed good editing skills as well as colour, texture and use of light. I got a rainbow for it.

This was how it turned out.

I like the dark edges that are blurred in contrast with the bright colours and the comedy of the emoji. Also my teacher said I did an exemplary blog post on this project. You can read it here. 

https://www.blog44.ca/cadeno/2021/12/02/make-not-take/

I miss the maker photography work 

Humanities

In the first part of the year I really enjoyed studying the book “the Outsiders”. I think it was an intriguing story with great characters and many plots twists and turned. The element of this project that I am most proud of was the tableau performances that my group produced for the winter exhibition.

Since my mpol the humanities project I think I have done best in is new beginnings. Although I haven’t handed my work in on time I feel I have gained a better understanding of settlement in Canada and the impact it had on the indigenous population. I do however feel I did better in the first half of the year in humanities than in the second because I feel I have lost focus.

I will now talk about where I could have improved my learning this year

Areas of my learning I could have improved in schematics since the mpol is the ultimate design challenge. Although I enjoyed using Tinkercad to design my lunchbox and I think I did a good presentation ( you can watch it on my blog here https://www.blog44.ca/cadeno/2022/05/26/trangles-and-squares-and-cylinders-and-cubes-and-cuboids-and-prisms-and-tinkercad-and-oh-my-god-i-am-kinda-just-rambling-because-i-cant-really-think-of-a-good-name-so-here-we-are-and-i-should/) and understood all the math, I had already learnt it in England. I did not a make a good blog. I found that part uninteresting. I didn’t feel I learnt a great deal in this project as all the math involved I already knew from grades 5,6 and 7 in England. I didn’t really understand why we had to find a large surface area, it’s seemed pointless, therefore I didn’t engage in reflecting on this work.

In humanities I feel I have worked relatively well in class but have not handed my work in on time very well, usually it was late and somethings I did not complete it. I feel currently I have issues with concentration. I can’t seem to focus on what I’m supposed to be working on and I don’t really know why. 

At the end of the last mpol I stated -Going forward I think I need to get better at making my ideas heard, focusing my time more, doing my homework on time.

Having written this blog I feel I have not completed my homework on time as much as I should. The focusing my time has not really changed however, I do feel I am now more able to get my ideas across and heard within a group and class.

I am hoping that maybe in grade 9 I improve my learning capabilities 

Thanks for being here

Sighing off is caden bubye 

In February me and my besties (class) went on a learning advance to a place called Loon Lake near Maple Ridge in BC. We travelled by bus and spent 4 days learning both in and outside. The trip had its ups and downs but I leant a lot along the way. 

Here is an ebook I made about the trip. One of the hardest things to do in this book was to add pictures because I was having fun on the trip and forgot to take many! So I got some from my friends. 

The 4 day trip was tough for me as I find being away from home difficult but after a wobble on the first night I changed to a quiet room with my friend and managed to stay for the full 4 days which I’m proud of. 

On the trip we did nature walks, worked in a large classroom doing DI with everyone together – this was challenging. We also learnt new skills like archery when we played battle archery – working as a team was important for this activity but also the whole trip. I got to know some more people from Seycove and enjoyed the evening entertainment. Most of the food was also pretty good. 

What was different from school I hear you ask? Well, not much accept we got to have LOTS OF FUUUUNNNNN!!! And we had to stay up until 10pm, pass out, then wake up for 7am. 

I’m guessing you’re wandering What did I learn? NOFINK! Just kidding – I learnt about my class mates, the wondrous outdoors and the renaissance but most importantly I learned about myself. I miss my family while I’m away but I can still have fun.

What did you achieve random kid on the internet, I hear you say? My team won battle archery against the grade nines! I told my team some good strategies for keeping in cover and we shot with good accuracy. 

What would I do differently next time, was that your question? Next time I would have been clearer with the teachers how important being in a quiet room with Judah was to me with all my difficulties being away from home and I would take more pictures so writing my blog will not be so hard!!!!

Ok so there’s this thing called the Mpol at my school and dude I am soooooo nervous. But hopefully I do well. You might be thinking

”why are you tellingme this random child I found on the internet”

and that reason I don’t really know but i’m required to do this by my school soooooo here it is.

At the start of my year at high school I was pretty chill as I’d been to high school back in England ( in England you start school in grade 7) but when i got there it was very different as I am in PLP which is very different to normal school.

There was an upset in the system so I did not get any of the apps required to have at the beginning so this was a problem for the first lesson but only the first lesson.

Now I had these very important apps.

Basecamp. 

This is the home base of all info , what we are learning, why we are learning things, different projects we are doing, and a lot more.

Showbie.

Showbie is where you hand in all of your work and assignments are posted.

So now we know about the start off the year let’s move a bit further.

The first exhibition was a presentation evening where the parents visited school, walked around listening to iPad presentations from their own child and others and then offered feedback on what they did well and what they could improve on. This went quite well even though everyone was expecting to flop. I made a post about it so go check it out at My maker experience also I have a video of the presentation I showed so here it is (warning it’s cringe) it was my first one!

Now onto our first humanities. We did a whole project on advertising which was surprisingly fun.        What we had to do was make an add in our groups for our assigned business. My group got Honey doughnuts. If you don’t know what Honeys is it’s a doughnut shop in Deep Cove in North Vancouver. Here’s a link to there website. https://honeydoughnuts.com/  

Now I feel like I didn’t do great in this project because I didn’t really feel able to express my ideas as it felt like one person in my group was taking over and squashing any ideas that they didn’t have or like but I think our poster turned out pretty good. Here it is …

From this project I took away the need to express myself more and ensure that the whole group works together to complete things – its still a work in progress for some people I’m trying more to have my ideas heard. I had a similar issue with my Scimatics board game where I listened to partner and what they wanted as they were my friend even though it wasn’t what I wanted and so our game ended up being very restricted as they wanted to basically do a version of snakes and ladders and not invent our own game. I would make my own choice next time.

Ok so I’m not going to go on about all the projects we have done this last 6 months I’m now going to share some more specific elements that were highs and lows of my learning.

SCIMATICS 

So what I am most proud of is my Laser light show. (you can read more about this here https://www.blog44.ca/cadeno/2022/01/30/lllllaaaaaaaassssseeeeerrrrrssss/..) I’m most proud of the fact that I fixed my groups project when it wasn’t working properly. Our group worked well on the whole but there were a few issues with the calculations that were made and the laser did not line up properly to make a triangle. I redid the calculations while my group looked at other projects and fixed it. I was proud that I kept preserving to get a good result and make it work. Here is a picture of the fixed laser show.

The element I’m least proud of in Scimatics, as I mentioned before, is my board game. I didn’t express my ideas or thoughts so I ended up making a game that I wasn’t engaged or interested in, that was boring and had no way of being creative. We should not have based our game on an exiting game and invented a new one. I had a lot of ideas for a game that could not be used and wish we had done it differently.

Humanities 

I really enjoyed studying the book “the Outsiders”. I think kit was an intriguing story with great characters and many plots twists and turned. The element of this project that I am most proud of was the tableau performances that my group produced for the winter exhibition. I think my group worked really well and we planned and delivered clearly our scene on the evening and I did well playing Marcia.

The element I think I could improve most for this project and (others) is my blog post – I need to not just say what we did but also explain better what I learnt.

Also for humanities I enjoyed our poetry project and think I produced an engaging ebook with some clever poems. Also I think I did very well well on the test. Here is my ebook

Maker 

The thing I’m most proud of is a picture I produced during the constructive creative communication project. It captured the mood I was given and showed good editing skills as well as colour, texture and use of light. I got a rainbow for it. Here it is.

https://www.blog44.ca/cadeno/2021/12/02/make-not-take/

I think what I could have improved the most was the first keynote presentation I did. I didnt really put much effort into making it fancy or imaginative although I think I presented reasonably well.

Going forward I think I need to get better at making my ideas heard, focusing my time more, doing my homework on time.