mPOL

It’s the most wonderful time of the year again. It’s time for SLC’s. The name of these student lead conferences changes almost every time we do one and this time they are called mPOL’s which stands for mid-year presentation of learning. We have done quite a few projects so far this year and not all of them have turned out amazing. Although there is always room for growth, some projects need more growth than others.

In humanities at the beginning of the year we did a video project on how WWI started. It was a group project and I was working with Sydney and Alex. We worked really well together and made a very informative video. The problem was the the video was extremely boring. We didn’t have many camera angles and our visuals were uninspired. We had a good concept we just didn’t execute very well. The background music was also very slow and didn’t help make it more entertaining. For our second draft we completely re-filmed it and added costumes, more angles, better music, and made the characters more interesting. The second draft was definitely better but it still wasn’t very entertaining. I am pretty good at writing scripts and making informative videos but I feel like my visuals aren’t very entertaining. This has happened a few times and I need to start putting more creativity into my projects. I always come up with good ideas after I have finished the project and I feel this is because I am too worried about getting it done that I forget to be creative. From now on I have to take more time to plan my videos creatively and be able to have enough time to go back and change them if they aren’t entertaining. Canada’s Part in WWI

We haven’t done a lot of projects in maker and for the most part mine have been pretty good but there have been a couple that haven’t met my standards. We recently had to make a video about ourselves for the students at High Tech High. I really struggled with this video. I don’t like talking about my passions and hobbies to strangers because people often judge me on those before they get to know me. It took me a while to decide how to make this video because I wanted it to show who I am but I didn’t really know how to do that. I also tried to tell a story with this video and that didn’t really happen. I once again struggled to use my creativity to make this video entertaining and even though it wasn’t boring it could still be a lot more interesting. My video had a good shot of me with a nice background and lots of pictures showing what I like to do. It was visually pleasing but I needed to find a way to make it more interesting.

In science we’ve done two big projects this year. The first project was a video about Lab Safety. I was in a group with Sydney and Kate and our video didn’t turn out very well. We made a video that was strong with the information and authenticity. it was funny and personalized but it didn’t have any character development and only had one angle. We needed to spend more time developing a stronger story with better editing and our video would have been great. Science Lab Safety

The other project in science was a podcast about DNA of which I was very proud of how it turned out. It was a partner project, I worked with Izzy and we worked really well together. We had to answer a question so we decided to answer it in a fun way. We had characters and a story so it was interesting to listen to. We had all of the needed information and some extra, and we had good sound quality. We put a lot of creativity into that project and it turned out even better than I expected. Identical Cousins?

I have struggled in math a bit this year. I have never really done a math project before so when we were assigned one at the beginning of the year I didn’t really know what to do. The project was to make a solar panel using trigonometry. I completely understood the math and the math in my project was done perfectly. The area where I struggled was the creativity and execution of building the project. I had a plan to put the solar panel on the roof of an apartment building that I was going to build out of cardboard. I started to build it but I ran out of cardboard so I had to use paper for part of it and that made it look a little messy. I also didn’t have that much detail in my write up so I immediately revised it. Fun with Trigonometry . I had never gotten less than an A in math and normally they were very high A’s but because I was pretty much only graded on this project in the first term, my grade was a low B. For the next project I made sure to make my project look really aesthetically pleasing and add extra detail to make sure I wouldn’t get another low grade. Golden Ratio. As much as I love doing projects I don’t really like math projects and I would much rather just do tests.

This year I may have had a few projects that didn’t turn out the way I wanted them to, but I have also done some very good work. I was really proud of my storytelling podcasts in maker. As soon as I saw the criteria for that project I was very excited. It was so much fun getting to listen to everyones stories. I really got excited after I listened to some of the story’s from Storycorps. They were such meaningful stories and were told amazingly. I loved editing the stories that were shared with me and hearing them come together. I was very nervous on exhibition night to get the interviews because I get very anxious when I have to talk to strangers. I have been getting a lot better at it but it was very nerve-racking to ask a stranger about a personal story. After my first interview I realized how much these strangers enjoyed telling their stories and I became a lot less nervous. My final podcast told an amazing story about emigrating to Canada from Mexico. I was so proud with how the podcast turned out. I didn’t really want to do podcasts this year because I had heard some bad things about them, however I have loved every single one I have done this year. Everyone Has a Story

https://soundcloud.com/claire-teegen/immigrating-to-vancouver

My work ethic has been really good this year. In the past I have struggled with time management but this year I have finished everything on time, in fact, I have even finished some things early, which is really good for me. I have approached almost all of the projects with a positive attitude and this has really helped me get them done faster. For the rest of the year I would like to continue to work hard and get my work done early so I have extra time to revise it. I am excited to continue working this year and improve as a learner even more.

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