On my Bring Your Kids to Work day I was hosted by MMe Rae (a family friend) and her class at Dorothy Lynn’s. I learned a lot from this day including how much work goes into being a teacher, and what skills are necessary to be a good one. A lot of the things that are important if you’re a teacher are also important when you’re a student like collaborating and time management (which now that I think about it are probably important to all jobs). It was nice to go back to my old elementary school to see all my old teachers and it was really valuable to see this profession from another POV (pizza was a bonus).

I created a video about this day as well. I interviewed Tova which was cool, and it was a much longer interview than I anticipated but I wish I could have added it. This shows some of my learning from this project. At the beginning of the year, I would have found it really hard to cut any of it and now that I have experience making videos the process was a lot smoother. I added a voiceover which I think added to the video (much better than just having photos and music).

I will apply the learning (both from making the video and the actual day ) by keeping both in mind. I’ll apply the learning from the video to my technical skills because now I know how to add visuals to just audio in iMovie (really more complicated than it should be). I’ll keep the learning from the actual day in mind when choosing a career obviously, because now I’m half interested in teaching. I’ll also keep it in mind when interacting with my teachers because I know how much thought and effort goes into each lesson and activity.

Until Next Time!

Neko

We recently made a remake of the short film run in maker. We shot our first draft over a week, replicating each shot. We also tried to recreate the sound of the original which was really hard! No ones first drafts replicated it perfectly and so after class critique sessions we re-tried shooting it. Our group reshot the whole thing within the two 20 minute class periods and I’m really proud of that. Unfortunately the group member that was supposed to put together the video didn’t finish it in time for it to be handed in mon time.

I think that the main idea of this project was to prepare us for the rest of it. We worked on skill we will sue throughout the rest of this project like angles, working together and preparedness. We also worked on critique as a class when we watched everyone’s first drafts.

The critique we got was really helpful. After watching everyone’s videos it was clear that everyone was struggling with similar things (timing, sound). I could see our progress as a class as out critique sessions happened.

After these sessions we went back to filming. We switched the main actor and location. The original location was really hard to shoot it because we’d either have other people or the school. We also made all the clips longer because the original wasn’t long enough.

We had many successes in the project and many stretches. We did well with teamwork everyone contributed. We also got all of our shots really quickly so we got it all done in class time. We stretched with the audio and getting it long enough. We didn’t reference the original enough so it didn’t line up properly.  We also didn’t finish the second video because a group member didn’t finish it and didn’t ask for the clips until it was too late to complete it in time to hand it in in time. Because of this I don’t have the finished one but here’s our first one.

Until next time!

Neko

Hello!

Stories are everywhere. They make up almost all the ideas we share with one another. Without them we couldn’t even communicate with one another. Even this blog post is a story.

We recently took a trip to the Canadian Rockies. It was for two projects, one in humanities and one in Maker. In Maker, we learned about how we can use the moving image to tell a story. We learned this through 4 videos. We also focused on the questioning competency which was visible EVERYWHERE, which was surprising to me. Speaking of questions, the driving question for this project was “How Might I use the moving image to tell a story?”. Here’s what I learned from each video.

At home Video
This was the first video I made when trip 1 was away. It Centers around what interests me. I think this shows the questioning idea through the fact that I had to question myself to be able to make it, and it shares with others about me since it’s published online now. I’m proud that I made this in a short period of time and that it’s still good quality. I think I also really reflected who I am well while keeping the video interesting with different shots, and visuals. Next time I would add music to push it to the next level.

Investigative

This is the video I worked the hardest on. I pushed myself to create something I could be proud of. This shows the questioning idea because it was all about questions. The whole point of the video was to ask questions to a variety of people to get an answer. I showed this through my interviews. I’m proud of the quality I was able to produce, it has a voiceover, music, and a bunch of shots. I’m also proud that I didn’t get really mad at myself when I had to do revisions (as outlined in my learning plan). I grew in the process of making this. Next time I would fine-tune my thesis before leaving. I found it hard to make my video later when I realized that I asked the wrong questions at the moment. I would also make sure I got good quality video and audio from all my clips (that’s why I had to revise), I lost a lot of really good content because of that. This tells the story of our humanities project which you can read about here.

Silent

This was probably my favourite video to shoot, I liked making it and my group was great. The skill we used the most for this one was filming on-site, which we learned in class before leaving. We used close-ups, sound effects and exaggerated facial expressions to tell a story. This shows that questioning idea, through sharing ideas is the most important. It took a lot of teamwork to come up with a story spine for this video (like an outline of what’s going to happen.) I’m proud of how quickly we got our shots and planned out where the shots would be when we got to the ghost town. We also adapted the story once we were which required us to think on our feet. Next time I would add more closeups to make the feelings of the characters clear. This tells the story of two thieves trying to steal the necklace of a wealthy woman, and failing dramatically.

tik tok

I changed my mind this one was the most fun. I filmed this with Ailie throughout the whole trip. We filmed at almost every stop, though not all the clips made the cut. My favourite one is the one on the boat! See if you can spot it…. This one also shows teamwork, we had to find each other quickly in the crowds so we could get the clip before we moved on to the next stop. I’m proud of all the cool backgrounds we got into the video and of how we got so many shots even though we were really busy on the trip. Next time I would try to have all the clips have the same ratio of us to the background so that the transitions are smoother. The story of his video is how we went to all these places!

All of this has led me to my answer to the driving question (it’s How might I use the moving image to tell a story? Just in case you forgot :D)

I can use the moving image to tell a story in a bunch of different ways. Videos should have a clear beginning middle and end, good audio and visual but that’s just scratching the surface. It’s also important for good videos to ask questions and make the audience FEEL something, to take them on a journey.

Until next time!

Neko

We are forever connected to the places we visit and live in. They impact almost every facet of who we are. Without place we are nothing. 

This September we set out on a field school to Alberta with a question in mind, the driving question of our project: How has the Geography of the West Impacted us? After returning and reflecting I think I finally have the answer to that question. Here’s how I got there.

We kept 4 main ideas in mind on our trip Communication, Listening and speaking to a variety of audiences, The physical environment shapes change politically, socially, and economically, and and process.

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All of this (the ideas, the trip and personal reflection), has led me to my answer to the driving question. For a reminder, the Driving question was How has the Geography of the West Impacted us?

The geography of the West impacts us because it is the reason we are where we are. The Rocky Mountains connected BC to Canada and without that, we wouldn’t even be Canadian Citizens. The CPR is an important part of Canadian history because it is still relevant today because it still keeps people connected, through the historical sites, the ideas it brought and the country it connected. Everything we see is connected to geography, from where our school is to our hobbies, we just have to open our eyes and look.

Until Next Time!

Neko

I HAVE RETURNED. After a very fun summer I have returned to my blog to show you  all what I’ve worked on over the summer (aka Sumer learning). This summer we worked through the What do you really want? Book about goal setting and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  The book wasn’t as boring as I thought it would be and I throughly enjoyed reading it. I especially liked the goal getters in action part which showed other kids and how they accomplished their goals I found it inspiring. I set a goal to read a book a week every week until November 30 but you can read more about that in my book. We all created goal trackers to track out progress over August and share out learning. I so without further ado here is mine 😁.

“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.”

Let’s start with humanities.
At the start of the year, humanities was my favourite class. I really enjoyed all the projects we were doing and even though I got a little loud sometimes, I could handle it. That changed the second semester. I found myself dreading the class because of the amount of Oise. It was very hard to escape even with headphones because we did not have many work blocks.
The people in this class made it very hard for me to produce the best work I could, especially with all the noise in the class. This was the most difficult with the random groups we are put in. I would often find myself having to get people to stop talking very often so we could finish activities.
I tried my best to combat this by wearing headphones when I could listen to music and finishing work fast so I could maybe read after.
Through all of this, however, I managed to have a very successful year in humanities project wise and here are some examples of that success and why I’m ready for Humanities 9. I went over many of my projects from the first semester in my mpol so I will be focusing on semester 2.

We did many projects but for the sake of this blog post, I will focus on 1. Which is the Consequence of colonization.

I enjoyed this project a lot more than I thought I would. Though it was repetitive from our other project blue eyed brutes this is an important topic so I was ok with that.
The end project for this was a video and I surprised myself because it turned out much better than I thought it would.
One of the things I was really proud of with is project was y time management. I had a busy week the day that the last assignment was due so I did it earlier and I would have thought to do it at the start of the year. This was the day we worked on it in class I was able to help everyone figure out what it actually had to look like, and I was happy to help everyone.

One of the other things I was proud of with this project was asking for help. This is something I’ve somewhat struggled with, having a perfectionist mindset. During the art chart part of this project, I freaked out a bit because I couldn’t find the spot on basecamp, but I asked friends for help and that was really successful.

Science
Science really surprised me this year! In past years I have not liked it because of the amount of repetition of topics but we did branch out a bit more this year and it was really interesting. I especially liked the first project we did which was called small but mighty. I loved learning about all the different jobs that the cells have to keep us safe!
Ms. Kadi made it very interesting and engaging I loved her little comics!
I also really like the drawing we did for this project, I did all the Wednesday characters!
I did struggle a bit with this project through. For part of it I was in Rome and other places in Europe and it was hard for me to find the time or eagerly to do all the assignments when I was away because I was doing so much learning there already! I found myself overwhelmed when I came back to make a final poster but it turned out well and I’m very proud that I got it all together!

I also struggled with the scratch program for our atoms /game project. I had to restart my game twice because the programs weren’t working or the tutorial was moving too fast. I eventually found a really good video that slowly showed me how to do it. I ended up with a successful matching game.

Since this class was the same group of people, it was also very loud. I was luckily able to leave the room one time because my brain just started like really getting overwhelmed. I couldn’t just do the noise anymore. Especially sending you the back. Still very proud of all the stuff I have completed in science this year and I hope that our class is better next year.

Field study!
In May we took a trip to the Oregon coast. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed myself. This really showed the real-world learning part of PLP. I really liked getting to know everyone better and it really added to our learning. I thought it was really successful for me. I’m proud of the way I acted in my interview I think I was very professional and kept the conversation going.

The project that went along with his field study was more difficult for me with a perfectionist mindset. This is because we had to make so many drafts. It did go better than it would have a couple o months ago, and I did expect to have a couple of drafts but the amount I got shocked me. I would overthink everything I did, and then get massive amounts of negative thoughts about myself.

Habits.
This is the part I’m most proud of this semester/year. At the beginning of the year, I was not very organized and really struggled with focus. I have adapted the way I work in class and at home to help myself. One of these things was going to the library. It really helped dot leave my house with intention. Part of this was my negative brain saying that I was stupid if I didn’t get anything done but I tried my best to be kind to myself and in this instance it was helpful. Though the focus is still a struggle for me especially with the noise around me, it’s really improved.
I also used things more which made sure I didn’t forget anything.

Overall, I’m very proud of my progress this year. My mindset has improved and I’ve kept my grades up with the transition from elementary to high school. I think I am ready for grade 9 because I grown so much this year, have gotten almost all rainbows and continue to have a learning mindset.

Byeee!

Neko

Aka, the day of loud noises.
Our final project for grade 8 is what we presented at the spring exhibition! I honestly can’t believe that my first day of grade 8 was so long ago. I learned so much year I’ll talk about that in my tpol post though.

I definitely like the spring exhibition more than the winter one. It flowed much more smoothly. For one we had a lot more time to prepare. My group was much more active in basecamp and that really helped. Im very proud of the lighthouse we made. We successfully covered our table and were ready on time!

During the part when it was open people weren’t as clumpy s the winter exhibition. I ended up speaking to fewer people then I thought and that was ok. The ones who I did talk to were very interested and I really appreciated that. They really liked looking at all the drafts. Here’s the portfolio.

(Photos because it was too big to upload)

Through all of these drafts I used design principals we learned about in class while the other Oregon trip was away. Through the rest of the learning we did for this project we learned a lot about what media is and how we interact with it. I took all of this into account while creating my ads.

Some things I would do differently next time include making different cookies. In theory, my idea was good, but in real life, the cookies just look disgusting because they were grey. I made them look like the cobble beach that we saw on our Oregan trip See that here. I would have Meade sugar cookies with a different recipe and use icing to colour them or go with a different snack idea completely.

I would also start my ad earlier even if we hadn’t worked on it in class. It would have been nice to have gotten feedback earlier so I would have had more time.

One more thing that isn’t good or bad really is that we were the ones that put out the mats. A thing to remember for next time is that IT IS EASIER WITH JUST A FEW ACTUALLY GOOD PEOPLE VS A BUNCH OF UNSYNCHRIZED PEOPLE.
phew.

Bye!
Neko

Our first field study was a whirlwind, to say the least. It had its ups and down and it was cool. We had so many great experiences that we wouldn’t have had anyway.

When you interpret so much learning in such a small period, without much time to go back to these things that you are learning because you are onto the next thing it’s very easy to forget things but ill try my best to remember as much as possible.
There were some things I didn’t think about that I would learn about before. One of the most important things that I noticed (ok two), was that it is POSSIBLE FOR ME TO NAP. For some reason before this trip, I just couldn’t. On this trip, I slept on the bus a lot. The second was to fuel at breakfast. Sooooo important to get all the energy you need for the day. This way I didn’t get hungry for the rest of the day.
I also got closer with a bunch of my classmates, all of my sleeping groups were so good.

One of my favourite stops for other learning was Fort Stevens. This was included in my book but I wanted to add more information. We were so lucky to get to have met the reenactors. They were so passionate about what they were doing and it’s always nice to see that. I even got to try on a parachute helmet from ww2. The ones I spent the most time with were the British/Canadian ones. They were very happy to meet us. Our tour guide was also very into it. I never thought I would learn that much about guns that move up and down in one day.

Though maybe not directly part of the learning I also loved the quests. They were so much fun! The feeling when you figured out the clues was so nice. Our team worked pretty well together too.

Project learning (aka the interview)

This was a lot chiller than I thought it would be. The ranger we talked to actually had a background in advertising (a little intimidating). It surprised me that they didn’t know that we were making ads for them. We got lots of great info that I’m very happy with. Yaquina Head is a pretty place.

Extra Pictures

(None of them would upload)

Learn more in my Journal (completed during the trip)

Bye
Neko

In this project, we learned about the consequences. Though this project was confusing at times I found it pretty easy.
The driving question was “What did European settlement mean for all involved?” We learned the answer to things question through all our keystones and the investigations that came with them.
Keystone 1’s question was “What changed about European power worldviews?”
To represent our understanding of this we made 2 art charts about a work of art by C. W. Jefferies. The fact that I wrote an entire paragraph on the way the explorer was standing made me laugh a bit. The first chart was the explicit details from the drawing (the 5 W’s) and the second one was the implicit details more about the figures, and how they were placed etc.
Here are my two charts and the picture

https://www.craft.do/s/CNotMImbqTJQoK

I think I did well on the implicit chaRt especially, and am also profundity of the fact that I figured it all out from home because I was sick when it was explained in class.
Next time I would like to start working on this earlier and manage my time a bit better.

Keystone 2’s question was “What were the consequences of the Europeans’ change in worldview at the time?” We represented our learning through a reinterpreted drawing of the last picture we analyzed and another implicit chart. Though the drawing was a bit tricky ( sizing all the tracing and adding the right background ) I think I did very well on this keystone and graphed a better meaning of what the implicit chart was meant to be. The drawing was supposed to show another point of view at the time to show how it impacted everything. To show this I flipped my drawing to show how much the Europeans were taking
Here’s my chart and art.

Keystone 3 was a script for our final video. I found this pretty easy because writing is one of my strengths when it comes to humanities (videography not so much 😂). Keystone 1 and 2 were pretty easy to write about but this keystone was due before we learned much about keystone3 so I had to look through Basecamp to figure it out. I won’t include my script because you can see it in the video.

I am very proud of my video because I finally planned for something and dint left it until the last minute. The learning from this was pretty much the same as Keystone 3 because I just added visual which is more of a maker thing. Since I planned beforehand when we were given class time I got extra time to work on science and helped my classmates figure out what to do.

( the file is too big 😭 I will add a link when we post them to our YouTube channels 😃)

Overall I feel I did very well on this project, I got the grades I wanted and was on top of everything for the most part. If I did this project again I would plan a bit more and start the keystones on my own before we finished the investigations because waiting made me have to cram it all in.
Thanks!
Neko

Mind over matter!
This project was cool, even if I had learned most of it before. (Any project involving gummies is fine with me). The keystones were pretty easy and I loved the ones ms kadi choose.
The first keystone was about a mystery object. We had to calculate the mass and its qualitative and quantitative qualities.
I found this keystone pretty easy, my favourite part of the learning we did before was the mass finder things (I can’t remember the name). Here is my keystone 1.
The item was a tennis ball, But for some reason, the reveal wouldn’t work.

Keystone 2 was a gummy bear experiment which I worked on with Maddie. We put different kinds of gummy bears into normal water (our control), sparkling water and vinegar. Take a look at our presentation to learn more!

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFgknko2O0/sQC9TzMcr5L69oAn0QkE6w/edit?utm_content=DAFgknko2O0&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

Copy and paste into search bar to view!

Keystone 3 was probably the easiest even if I did end up changing my plan. This keystone was a plan for our final project which I made in scratch.
I originally wanted to make a shooter game for this where you had to hit the other atoms coming toward you and I worked on that for a while but I ended up changing my game to a matching game

Heres the first game i made. It doesnt work very well but I wanted to show my whole process.

The final project was the hardest part. I had a really hard time with the program and found it frustrating. I worked hard on my first game but it didn’t work out and that was hard.
Here’s m first game!
Here’s my final game!

Overall I had an okay time with this project, I did prefer the last one, but I’ve been having a good time with science this year.

Something I would do next time is to take more time on finding a good tutorial. I spent too much time on videos that were too fast for me and it was a bit of a time crunch to finish everything.
The end
Neko