Hello and welcome back to my blog. This post will be about our first maker project ever. This project was about how we build and strengthen the PLP learning team. We had to make things like a user manual, a laptop Memoji that had stickers on it that represented us, a physical representation that was made out of a ton of random objects, and a keynote guided tour that showcased all of the things that we made. 

The user manual: This was a document that we had to make about us. It included our settings, which were: PLP student, swimming, reading, and normal person. It was written in 3rd person which was a style that I have never really tried to write in. This was a really fun to write though, because we got to write about us, but in a different way, and with a bit of added humour that for me was added unintentionally.  

The laptop Memoji: this was a Memoji that we had to create, that had stickers on it. We had To learn how to create a Memoji, how to use keynote, how to add shapes, add colours, and do so much more with keynote. I feel like my laptop memoji really represents me and the things that I like.

My final laptop memoji.

My physical representation: To make our physical representations we had to use random materials to make something that represents how we work in a team. For mine, I made a campfire, and the materials that I used were: a plastic bag, a index card, some tinfoil, a paper bag and a bit of tape. I unfortunately didn’t get any photos. I think that a campfire represents how I work in a team because the logs are my team. They are all there, perfectly organized, kind, and respectful. The flames and the smoke are me. I can be loud, overwhelming and obnoxious. But the flames need the logs as fuel, and the rest of my team fuel me and keep me going. 

For the exhibition we had to make a guided tour with our keynote skills. This was basically a slideshow that had buttons that people could press that took them to different slides in the presentation. In this presentation we had to have slides that showed: our Big Life Journal three best works, an explanation of our physical representation (artists statement) our creative media that we made that represents our strengths and stretches during this project and one other thing. For me this was my WordPack image. Because I can not physically put my keynote in this blog post, I have created a video that explains my keynote.

The final exhibition! this was one the most fun things to do in this project. We got to give our tables a theme, and out table group theme was mafia. We had black tablecloths, a ton of fake lanterns and candles, and we all wore suits and red rose pins to match our theme. During the exhibition we had parents come up to us and critique our keynotes. I got a ton of helpful feedback from other adults! The only bad thing was that my keynote decided to stop working, but I worked around It. These are some of my group mates, Hannah and Sofia!

This was an extremely fun project to do. I learned a ton of tips and tricks on how to use an iPad, and how to use all of the fun features and apps. 

Thanks for reading!

Bye

How does what we hear read and see influence us?

How does what we hear read and see influence us?

This was the driving question for this project. In This project we were asked to make advertisements for real life businesses as well as learning about historical media and how it has changed. At table 3 we were assigned to make an advertisement for Sweet As Treats, a local candy and gift shop. The big idea of this project was to dig deeper into the techniques of advertising and studying historical media from a while ago. 

This slideshow shows the evolution of my individual ad. It started as a collage type ad, that I put together very quickly. After some critique, I changed the image, but it was still very rushed and I was not very proud of it. Then I took the time to think about what the business asked me to include in the ad. I then created and ad that I was proud of. We then did another group critique session, and talked with the teachers, and created our final advertisements! While making these ads, I really learned a lot. I learned a ton of techniques on advertising from how marketers and businesses capture the audience, how colours and layout can affect an entire ad, and the right way to make an advertisement. Another thing that we did to help learn about creating advertisements was our design principles workbook. This is a digital workbook that has tons of tips and tricks for creating a good ad. 

The dimensions on the slideshow are a bit off but it said: slide 1 and slide 2: at the top it said: Sweet as Treats. On the 3rd slide it said: not just candy, an amazing selection of gifts, and on the last slide it said: not just candy, an amazing selection of gifts.

The next piece of media that I think represents my learning well is my historical media analysis. I think that this represents my learning well because it shows what I have learned about historical media and advertising. For the historical media analysis we had to choose a pice of media. It could have been a show, an ad, or any other pice of old media. The media that I chose was a Pepsi ad that actually got taken down. We had to explain the ad and answer the following questions: Who created this message?, What techniques are used to attract my attention?, What techniques are used to attract my attention?, What lifestyles, values, and points of view are represented in or omitted from this message? How might different people understand this message differently from me? Why was this message sent? Profit and/or power, and In paragraph form, who is the target audience of this piece of media? What is the message of this media? I think that I could have taken more time to make my answers longer and more detailed.

During this project I definitely had some strengths and stretches. Some of my strengths were, the initial creation of my individual ad, working in a team with my group members, and completing some of my work on Time. That being said, I definitely had some stretches. Even though one of my stretches was completing my work on time, I could have tried to turn some of my work in on time. For some assignments, I would leave them until the last minute, and I could have done them on time and completed them with my full effort. Going back to the driving question which was “how does what we hear read and see influence us?” In media, from advertisements, and tv commercials, to youtube and other social media, advertising is everywhere. Take this ad for example. 

You see it and you think, “well that looks exciting! I should buy them”. Some people would stop to think, “wait a minute, they literally took a shreddie and rotated it! That is kind of a scam! And others might think “oh cool! A new product!”. This really makes you think about companies and how they advertise to you.

oh and by the way, check out my other group members! Sofia, Charlie, Tom, Francis, and Hannah.

Thank you for reading.

Bye

Ok so it only took a couple drafts.

So on Saturday the 30th of September I woke up to my dog going crazy. I was in my room and my mom got up and went to go look in the hallway to see what the commotion was. My mom went out into the hallway and saw 5 raccoons in my brother’s bedroom. One of the parents went up to the living room where they snuck in through, and started yelling at the other parent and the 3 baby raccoons to get the heck out of my brother’s bedroom. They had found a bag of kettle corn wich my brother was not supposed to have. We eventually got them out and now we have boarded up any of the possible raccoon entrance sites. Throughout this whole thing the cat had just vanished. We found him amongst my mom’s jewelry petrified.