This humanities project was on colonization. It wasn’t very difficult, but I will mention that I had trouble sticking to the due dates because of procrastination, (so fun).

For our first keystone we filled out an art chart. This chart was for reflecting on an art piece we were given made by by C.W. Jefferys. I wasn’t a fan of the symbolic message portion as it confused my tiny little pea brain. this is my art chart:

The second keystone way quite similar to the first as it was connected to it. This keystone was another art chart. But this time we were reflecting on the contrast between our reinterpreted piece and the original artwork. 🙂 I enjoyed this art chart significantly more as I now understood what was required as a symbolic message, (my tiny little pea brain went “yayyyy”). This is my second art chart:

The third keystone was a script for a video about our art. Though it isn’t my best work I enjoyed making this script. Here it is:

Finally for the finish line we made videos about our reinterpreted images! This is mine: (WARNING this video contains major cringe)

https://youtu.be/Llx38rW34LE

Hi people and potatoes! (For the record, I would die of joy if potatoes could actually read my posts).

Today we will be digging into the wonders of cell biology, the immune system, and vaccines! As a younger student, I’m aware of the possibility that this information may be oversimplified. Now we are both aware of this possibility!

I’m excited to share the shortest possible explanation of the first keystone! The reason being that I was away for a chunk of this keystone and was never granted the chance to experience this keystone in its full glory!

The first keystone gave us students a chance to use the scientific method through a field journal. This journal included pages displaying observations and my “wonderful” art skills. (I need to take an art class… or 12).

Despite my severely limited artistic ability this was a great opportunity to practice an experiment! I say practice, as now I know to put more thinking into and be more reflective within future conclusions, i.e. expanding on the why rather than the what, doing some individual research granting me the ability to answer my previous queries, etc.

Phew, glad we made it through that, onto número dos.

Have you ever wondered what a few primary cells within your immune system would look like as dinosaurs? No… well now I bet you’re thinking about it! Well whether you have, or (most likely) haven’t, appreciate and respect these cute lil dinocells.

Though these dinocells are cute, I’m disappointed in them for a couple reasons, first the style of them is inconsistent, second and more importantly, the writing is more than disappointing. The quality of writing causes me great frustration as I was going through a personal matter and couldn’t write if my life depended on it. Let me reframe that, I’m disappointed in the writing because I am confident it isn’t work I want to be affiliated with. Well, at least they are cute!

Lets move onto the third, and my personal favourite keystone!
This keystone was about making a simple infographic dispelling myths revolving around vaccines. Another aspect of this keystone was writing a short paragraph around vaccine hesitancy. Here is a link my paragraph if you’d like to read it!

Bias paragraph!

Disregarding the mistakes I believe this to be a good paragraph!

Last but not least there was a poster I made to encourage elementary kids to wash their hands! It was slightly cluttered, but I can appreciate specific pieces of the work, such as the art I drew for it!!

That’s all! Thanks for stopping by! 😀

Hi there friends… and foe!!! This is my first and likely worst mPOL! (Worst only because I hope that future me continues to improve!) In case you’re wondering, an mPOL is a midway presentation of learning! What an mPOL is NOT is a way to solely demonstrate my strengths as a learner. An mPOL IS a way to showcase my growth and areas for further development as a student!

In this mPOL I will be using examples of my work to display what I’d like to start, stop, and continue doing as a learner and why doing so will benefit me as I continue learning.

The main talking point for this mPOL is that I struggle with a cycle of overthinking, procrastinating, and perfectionism. These struggles challenge my development and stunt my growth as a learner.

This unhealthy mindset leads me to expect my first piece of work to also be my last. An example of when this caused me difficulty is in my MindNode for The Outsiders project (we didn’t create a blog post for this), which also happens to be part of my first keystone in PLP. I had trouble starting it.. continuing it… and finishing it. I couldn’t get two sentences into my MindNode without deleting and starting over as I couldn’t find the perfect wording or idea. As I couldn’t keep anything on the page, I wasn’t able to refine ideas or edit my thoughts as there was nothing there. This resulted in me running out of time and having to hand in work that I wasn’t proud of and was even embarrassed by.

The same pattern happened with my Worldview art piece in The Outsiders project (still no blog post) where I felt I didn’t have a good enough idea to start on the project. When I can’t start a project or task, there is no opportunity to have it evolve. When I get caught up in perfectionism, I overthink and that leads to my procrastinating. Then at some point I realize I’ve taken too long to get work done and won’t have time to deliver work that reaches the standard I set for myself this then makes me anxious.

In order to manage this cycle or pattern of thinking, I’ve identified the importance of breaking down the overall project into a number of steps and committing time to work on these steps. This improved organization will help me set expectations for myself more constructively. An example where I effectively organized my workload was with my triptych in my Renaissance Project (link to work).

Continuing to break work requirements into manageable pieces will also assist me in knowing when enough is enough. What I mean by this is realizing how much effort different tasks require and not getting hung up on creating “perfect work” as this is unachievable and takes time away from making other work better.

In order to further combat my tendencies, I need to start acknowledging when I get overwhelmed. When I am having difficulty or struggling with work, the room can feel very loud and distracting. I get caught up in things happening around me and I frequently lose focus. I generally resort to thinking that I can’t do the work now so I’ll do it later, but later never comes.

I didn’t work on the mPOL during class time due to all the factors I’ve mentioned. Another element at play was my inability to review past work. Often I am disappointed and discouraged by reflecting on work that I’ve done because I only see the flaws. It makes me worried that those around me might view me as less capable because that is how I feel.

Though I didn’t recognize it before, I now know I can self advocate and communicate my situation to a teacher and ask to move to a more quiet setting. I will strive to do this as quickly as possible. I feel this is also a representation of my self-awareness.

Hopefully, by using these strategies, I will feel more comfortable looking back and reflecting on past work. Rather than only seeing the imperfections I’ll see the effort and the iterations that built it.

Despite what I have explained so far, my perfectionism can also be a positive quality when managed appropriately. It can encourage a positive iterative process and result in a final product that I am very proud of. My attention to detail is also heightened due to wanting to get everything “right”.

The PLP environment enables my curiosity which is a defining trait of mine. I enjoy exploring and questioning. I’ve represented this both within and outside of PLP by trying new activities (ski racing, basketball) and joining clubs (Tabletop Games, GSA). In relation to my classroom learning, I’ve embraced technology. I used to shy away from it and now I’m able to exceed and comfortably use the skills that technology allows.

My self-awareness is also a quality I am proud of and helps me grow as an individual. I will continue to work on my awareness and understanding to further my learning and personal development.

The combination of my curiosity and self-awareness presents itself positively in group projects. Through understanding my own impact on the group, and the group’s impact on each other, I am able to offer a logical perspective on our work. I believe that bring out the best in others on my team by being positive and making sure everyone is heard.

My hope with this mPOL is that I’ve demonstrated both the progress and the challenges I’ve faced this year. I feel both are important to recognize and learn from. I know that the mPOL has been a difficult task for me to create, as it requires reflection on my shortcomings. Regardless of this difficulty I am so grateful for the opportunity to grow through reflection as I recognize its importance and wouldn’t be by choice. I am so glad to continue my learning journey with PLP! This sums up my mPOL, thanks for stopping by!!

Questions?

Thanks, Kennedy

Hi!! This is a blog post about a Renaissance project in humanities. The project was focused around Renaissance innovations and how they changed the world! The work above is my finished triptych. The idea of this triptych is to visually represent how innovations from Asia and Europe changed the world! This was project was a combination of research and art and I’m excited to share it with you.

Thanks for reading. 🙂

Hi there!

This is a blog post about a drawing project in Maker! The goal of this project was to develop our drawing ability! There were four assignments for the project and each one focused on a different skill. The first skill was learning about lines and pressure, second was doodling, third was lights and shadows, and the fourth was using colour! I’ve combined these assignments into a book! If you’d like to check out my drawings the link is below!

art book!

Kennedy’s art book!

Click to read this book, made with Book Creator

https://read.bookcreator.com

thanks for reading!

Hello there!

This a reflection of a humanities project focused around the Middle Ages, if you are here on purpose just keep on reading! If you’ve miss-clicked, feel free to leave, but if this topic interests you I encourage you to stick around!!

The title of this blog post, “How did the quest for power impact people’s lives in the Middle Ages” is also the driving question to this humanities project. From the title and sentences above you have likely gathered that this was a history project. What you don’t know is that it included creating two learning resources and a planning keystone. One learning resource is about the Crusades and the other is focused around the feudal system and Middle Ages in general. 

Here is a few slides of my planning keynote, the proper title for this is my inquiry portfolio!

In my mind the work  from this portfolio is high quality, and I am eager to post this section of the blog!

These are a few slides from my Middle Ages presentation.   

I am happy with the work that I did, however if I were to redo this project I would better site my photos, and spellcheck an additional time. 

Here are some slides on my crusades learning resource.   

I believe that this work was good, though I definitely could’ve been more thorough with creating detailed work.

Overall I feel that this was quite valuable learning. To be taught about about historical significance and what it means was important. Understanding that the Crusades is a historically significant topic made the project interesting. 

Thanks for reading! 🙂

Project overview: 

Welcome! This is a reflection and review of my first exhibition project! 

In case you aren’t familiar, this project was built around James Cameron’s Avatar. The guiding question and prompt, for the project was “What does James Cameron’s fantasy world of ‘Avatar’ reveal about our own society?” The idea for our project was to create a box representing our interpretation of this question.

The theme for my box was humans effect on the natural world, and how unexpected consequences can be fatal to nature.

 I’m excited to share with you the entire experience of the Avatar exhibition, the building process (which is called the Launch process), room decoration with grade 9s, exhibition night, and most importantly my learning and growth through reflection on this exhibition!  

Explanation of the Launch process:

L: The L in Launch stands for look, listen, and learn.

For the project this meant listening to the explanation of how the project would look, and learning about boxes we would create. 

A: The A stands for ask tons of questions. 

We wasted minimal time as we were excited and talking a tad bit quickly (words flying miles a minute). I found this task to be the easiest part given my affinity for verbal communication. 

U: The U means to understand the process or problem. 

We learned about the problem by discussing Avatar and real world issues reflected in the movie. To confirm and prove our understanding we took topics that fit our prompt and brainstormed all related things to the chosen thing like colours, items, symbols etc.

N: The N represents navigating ideas. 

This started back in A as we asked MANY questions regarding the size, shape, and colour of our boxes. We were given autonomy, and full creative liberty to answer these questions ourselves. With our queries answered we created draft ideas for our box, a sketch and notes in the form of a mind map to get the creative juices flowing and create a reliable outline. 

C: The C in the Launch cycle stands for create a prototype. 

I won’t lie, I’m currently trying to figure out if the sketch of our box was the prototype, or if our work on the boxes before receiving peer critique was our prototype… wish me luck as I continue to ponder! 

H: The H means highlight and fix. 

That’s exactly what we did! After peer critique we whipped those glue guns back out and got gluing. This section of the cycle was quick as the exhibition was only a few days off. Good thing for us the majority of work didn’t require much adjusting!

Reflection of the box: (effort, planning, outcome) 

Moving right along let me talk to you, or more accurately write to you my opinion of the effort, planning, and results of my box! I believe that my box looked relevant given the time allocated for in class work. The planning for my box seems disorganized and scattered. However from the perspective of my inconsistently productive brain the plan made perfect sense. “What was your planning process?” Great question! Me and my frantic wacky  self decided that not listening to the teachers guidance booklet was the best possible decision! Logically it was not… surprisingly it worked quite well. I believe it worked well because I was excited about the topic and willing to work hard, especially without a time frame for aspects of work, as I am quite easily distracted and am very forgetful! The effort and product of my box was adequate and I was pleased with my presentation and explanation of my box and the ideas behind it! 

Exhibition night:

The night of the exhibition was a flurry of chaos, improvisation, and random people. The setting up was an experience as we had 1 hour and a bit to throw the room together and pray that it turned out well! (And that’s saying a lot coming from an atheist!). Fortunately, luck was on our side! The room looked awesome by the end, and all that was left was our presentations. To my knowledge everyone’s presentations went swell! I felt proud of my articulation regarding my work! When it was my turn for a break a learned that everyone could be proud of their work as they all turned out great! 

All in all the night was a success!!! 

My unneeded opinion of the 2nd Avatar:

Last and probably least I’m going to give you my unrequested opinion on Avatar: The Way of Water! First of all I’m glad I got to watch Avatar: The Way of Water. On the positive end the visuals were fantastic, really reminiscent of an action movie. However the plot was lacking and far too busy, out of 10 I would rate the plot 6.5/10 and the visuals 9/10. 

Thanks to all the PLP teachers for making this possible! I know it must be difficult but I image it’s also rewarding!! 

I heard from MANY students the exhibition was deadly, so I’m glad I survived my first exhibition and I can’t wait for more to come!

The driving question for this project is

“how might I use the still image to create and communicate through technology?”

Encase you’re wanting a somewhat proper explanation of this project:

The goal of this project is to learn about provoking emotion, and good storytelling through still images! We learned about this by taking pictures of our environment and having discussions about how to enhance photos to have different effects ie through changing our angle or adjusting the exposure.

here is a link to my finale demonstration of my learnings!

Photographic storytelling

As a result of this project I learned to invoke certain emotions though enhancing a photo. I also learned about taking pictures with different perspectives and angles. I was introduced to the effect different angles have on the impact of a photo and have hopefully demonstrated my learning through this keynote. ^^

thanks for reading!!

– Kenthemenace!! (they/them) >:)

Alexas_Fotos / Pixabay

I started off a bit slow with deciding on a topic and Maddie kindly assisted with countering my indecisiveness. In the end I chose “Queer characters in media.” After choosing what I personally find to be a sincerely engaging topic writing the posts felt natural and it proved difficult to refrain from writing additional posts. 

This writing had a separate feel from our school blogging topics because, while I whole heartedly appreciate topics we create projects on, I have more attachment to hobbies and topics that I indulge in with my free time. With this writing I felt as though I was geeking out to my family, (while they were clearly bored) I was having the time of my life! 

A result of this blogging is I have realized how appreciative I am for all the queer actors and writers out there. Representation matters and I knew that, I just didn’t understand the extent of just how important it is.

The hardest part was CLEARLY the decision making portion, (thank goodness for Maddie’s empathy).  

The easiest part however was everything besides, I loved the writing, and brainstorming for ideas, and editing. Etc, etc.

Hear me out, I both will and won’t continue writing this geek out blog because while I LOVE this blog topic and have so much to say in regards to it, my memory is that of a braindead goldfish.

Thanks for reading my splendid attempt at a reflection!!!!!🍗

The casting for any visual media is significant to the impact and credibility of the entertainment. My opinion on casting actors for queer roles is they must have at least one queer actor within the show. It’s like actors ie Tom Holland playing American characters though he himself is British, no one takes issue with that so I believe there’s no issue with a queer character being played by a straight person, as long as there is still representation from queer actors within the material. I firmly stand by this belief, on one condition. The straight person must be positively representing queer people and not making fun of them through their acting of the character. Additionally, something I’ve seen in many movies is trans people, typically white men playing trans women. This is NOT ok as it tends to encourage transphobia by making fun of trans people and displaying that trans people are only trans for personal gain and aren’t really trans in their day-to-day life. This is UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE and UNTRUE, the harshness from this and harm stirred up by cis actors playing trans characters is contrasted by trans characters being played by trans actors as it shows transphobic people trans people are always trans and don’t “put it on” for the camera. 

In summary queer people can be portrayed by straight counterparts with the expectation that queer representation is still incorporated into the visual entertainment. Trans people however are only truly given representation, without malicious intent or mockery, if trans characters are played by those a part of the trans community! 

Thanks for taking the time to read about my opinion on the matter!! 😊

-Byeeeeeeee (Kennedy the menace they/them) >:))))