January 30

My First Mpol ☺️

Thank you for coming to my presentation on learning. I am the expert of my own learning. I am the expert of my own learning I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation if my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.

To begin let’s look at my learning plan ( put in a link here)
I met all the goals for grades this semester. However, I feel like I didn’t follow through with my habits. Often when I sit down to work on homework at home I get distracted. It’s very hard for me to start tasks. At school, I can’t focus with the noise. I get into a mental block, where I just give up on focusing for that time and it prevents me from doing the best work I can do. Even if my work is getting extending marks I know I can make it even
.

To be fair to myself I am very proud of the grades I’ve earned, especially since I have everything else going on (extracurriculars), and I just started here at Seycove. I’m especially proud of the work I did on the power play project with Ms. Madsen. This is one of the times I felt like I worked my hardest. I pushed myself to try a different medium ( as outlined in my learning plan). Another reason I’m proud of this project was that I got lots of the work done quickly. Part of this was using our big computer in the family room since that doesn’t have as many distracting apps, and I had an easier time starting with this because I knew exactly what I wanted to say.
I am also proud of the work I did in the geeking out blogging challenge. This project surprised me. In the beginning, I thought “oh no, I’m interested in a bunch of things but I don’t know enough about any of them”. This mini-project made me feel much smarter. I eventually did my project on storytelling, and that inspired me to learn even more about it.
I’m also proud of who I am as a learner. Even if I struggle to start or get distracted easily, once I’m in the zone or if I know where I’m going with something I can produce high-quality work. One of the things I’ve noticed I’ve gotten better at with PLP is taking criticism or feedback on y work and realizing that everything I do doesn’t have to be perfect,

As I’ve mentioned some of the things I’d like to work on are focusing and extending even more. . Often when I sit down to work on homework at home I get distracted. For example, while writing this post it took over an hour for me to get the first few paragraphs done since I couldn’t make the first sentences sound right . It is very hard for me to start tasks\. At school, I can’t focus with the noise. I get into a mental block, where I just give up on focusing for that time and it prevents me from doing the best work I can do. Even if my work is getting extending marks I know I can make it even better.
I also want to look back on my learning plan more often and follow through with my statement of learning intent. In my statement, I planned to reflect on my work before I hand it in and ask if it is my best work to myself before I hand it in.

Plan
To get better at my focus at home, I want to set timers as I outlined in my learning plan. For example, I would set a timer for 5 minutes and challenge myself to finish a paragraph in that amount of time. This puts pressure on me in a good way. I also want to time block in my calendar and use things more. ( thanks ms Willimse!). I am also going to use things more often because I’m just now realizing how great of a tool it is and I want to take proper advantage of them. I also tried going to the library recently and it helped. It’s very quiet there and I can get fresh air first. It makes me feel like I’m going somewhere to do stuff so I get more stuff done.
For class, since the main issue is noise and that distracts me along with everything, I want to make sure I bring headphones, so I can listen to some kind of ambient music. The random table assignments also help because as much as I love hanging out with my friends, they are extremely distracting.

Into each subject.

Humanities

This is my favourite class so I’m very glad that I will be still taking it in the second semester. All the projects we did got me thinking. The outsiders one made me think about what kind of resources we use to learn in school. The outsiders was very sexist, and though I understand the concept of worldview and why those characters thought that way…. THERE ARE SO MANY BOOKS OUT THERE. Many of which could give a better example of worldview and how it affects us. School is supposed to prepare us for the future, not the past. I did love the English part of this project though because that’s my favourite subject. I hope we get to do more of it in semester 2.
The power lay project made me push myself. (See bottom of page). I wanted to try a different medium because I outlined in my learning plan that that was one of my goals for this year. I enjoyed seeing the website come together.
The latest project we did was the renaissance project. This project made me think about how humans evolve and what makes us evolve. When people began to speak up for themselves and dream their lives got better. Instead of accepting a problem they tried to find a way to fix it.

Maker

I liked this class this semester. The thing that blocked me from enjoying it was the NOISE. 60 kids in a room are LOUD. Makes it impossible to focus. I LOVED the quiet room. If that had been available more often I think I would have enjoyed this class a lot more.
I did really like the geeking-out project because it made me feel really smart, to be honest. I never realized how much I know. I loved being able to blurt it all out.
I also really loved the user manual project. It was cool to write about myself in the third person.

Overall I feel like I have done well this semester and I’m proud f the work I have produced. I am looking forward to using more techniques to focus and get more stuff in semester 2.

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January 27

Radical Renaissance Trytptich

My tryptich of me in the Renaissance, now and before the Renisance with innovations from each

My Tryptich 😊

Thesis

This triptych represents how ideas from Europe and Asia changed the world. The left panel represents the renaissance and its innovations from it. The middle one represents those innovations as we use them today. The right panel is of traditional ideas from before the Renaissance. The panels are at different times of the day and the brighter it is in each panel the brighter and smarter the innovations featured in it are/were (at least according to me).

The left panel

New ideas and innovations changed the Renaissance world, by spreading knowledge with the use of the printing press, popularizing religious freedom, and developing lenses to learn out space and make us see better. It was a time of reflection on who we are as humans. In my triptych, I added a bible to show how more people could access books and literature and though people were beginning to stand up against the church they were still very religious. I also added some scientific journals to show the advancements that people made during this time in medicine. There is also a telescope on the desk to show how people were beginning to look into space and investigate it. If you look closely you can galileo printed on the side of the telescope. Out the window, you can see a clock on a church because it wasn’t common to keep a clock in your house in these times but people were beginning to rely on them more and more. The painting on the desk represents people's ability to think for themselves. The person in the painting is looking out of the frame, but there is still a cross on the wall behind her. The painting is small representing how people were beginning to think critically but still not completely. This panel is set in the morning to represent the beginning of new ideas.

Right panel

Traditional ideas from before the Renaissance times promoted people to follow the path the patriarchal church had set for them, in this time people lived very simple lives and did not think critically very often. In my right panel, I have a church out the window because the church dictated how people lived. Instead of having books to learn from ( most likely good sources), they learned from gossip and the church ( probably a non-reliable source). The church was the main resource for medicine. The church controlled almost everything, so people weren’t thinking about how they could evolve to make life better. The church had everything so the church is what I put on the triptych. This panel is set a night to represent the darkness and absence of critical thinking and innovations that came later in the renaissance. In my panel, there aren’t many things that don't have to do with the church because this time everything had to do with the church.

Middle panel

Ideas from the renaissance changed the world today by promoting people to think and advocate for themselves, collaborate, and create things to live better lives and wonder more about how our world works and how it should be. This affects how we live today because people have continued to do these things. My middle panel has people on a zoom call to represent how people collaborate now, especially with COVID-19. There are both real books and the books app visible in my middle panel because I use both and feel that both are important. I feel like books are evolving right now just as they did in the renaissance. In the panel, you can see both a physical clock and the one on the laptop, (if you zoom in). Clocks are also in the middle of evolving right now so I represented both. There is a book on the desk about medicine. The cool thing about this is that there are still books on medicine even after so many years. Of course, most medical knowledge is online now, but it's still cool to think about it. This panel is in the light to represent how our society is coming into the light and has grown from the dawn (renaissance) to where we are now, today in the sun. Overall my triptych shows how our society grew and changed over time when people began to think for themselves. Before people thought critically about their lives they were controlled and didn’t explore ideas. When people began to think critically and communicate with one other they made their own lives better. The lesson we can learn from this is that when we think critically about situations we’re in and then take what we find from that and collaborate with others to make out lives better.

My favourite things in this project included how fun it was to dress up as a nun for the right panel. I could not keep a straight face. Seriously impossible. I did get it in the end though!

I also liked using the candles in the left panel I felt that if gave it a more authentic feel. Another fun thing was making the zoom call. I really like acting so it was fun to be stereotypical people on a  call, especially the person in the hoodie.

Things I would do differently would be to take the photos in advance so that I could edit them more in class. I found my self scrambling to have them all done for the due dates.  I also would have liked to have my sketch prepped better because I realized a little later than was comfortable that my original dead wasnt going to work.

Overall, I had a lot of fun this project and it really made me think about how humans evolve. I am taking it as an opportunity to reflect on my time management and how I can become a better student.

☺️ Neko

 

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January 23

Middle Ages

Weird… I was SURE I had posted this anyway here you go

For our second humanities project in PLP, we created learned about the Middle Ages. We made learning resources about the feudal system and the crusades. Most people made 2 keynote presentations for this ], but I decided to make a website to push myself and make it more accessible.

I learned a lot from his project but I still want to learn more about the middle ages and website building.

Some of the things I learned about were:

-how to use Wix

– within this, I learned

– how to add buttons and link them to pages on a website

– how to use copyright-free images properly

– how to make pages look visually pleasing so people enjoy being on the website

  • More about Islam and Christianity. I’m not religious so I didn’t know much about either religion
  • How these two religions came to be from Judaism though there both interpret things in their ways
  • How long grudges can last. Yikes!
  • How though history seems short it’s eternity.
  • How if one person has enough power they can change the world forever 
  • How the feudal system worked and whom it served

 

Things I still want to know more about

  • What knowledge did we lose after the fall of Rome as a race?
  • Were other religions involved in the crusades if so, how?
  • What would have happened to the world if the crusades hadn’t happened
  • How can I push myself further when making websites?

Overall, I learned a lot from this project and one of the best things about it was that I ca keep learning about it from here. Thanks for reading!

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January 6

Pandora World of Avatar Exhibiton

💤 This is the emoji I think of when I think about this night, and not because it was boring either. Standing up and talking for that long was physically and mentally exhausting.
To be fair I also think of these emojis 😁 🤓 🙌🏻. I did have a lot of fun and I learned a lot. At the end of the night, I felt very accomplished.

This was my first exhibition for PLP and the theme was the movie avatar. Our driving question was “ What does James Cameron’s world of avatar reveal about our own society?” It was really cool to see how so many people thought of such different ideas and opinions about this question.

The Box
To start when we made our theme boxes each grade eight made a theme statement. Mine was “Our actions can often affect people and things around us in a much bigger way than we expect.” I portrayed this in my box by taking 4 shallow wood boxes and telling a story through them. The first one depicted an undisrupted forest with all the animals and nature coexisting peacefully. In the next one there are soldiers in the forest who have kicked up the ground, are trying to shoot a bird and have left their fire unattended. In the next one, the soldiers’ fire has set the entire forest on fire putting everyone (not just themselves) in danger. Finally, we see a smokey scene with sticks where there used to be trees. This represents my theme statement because of how thoughtless the soldiers were.
The setup
For the most part, this was actually pretty fun. I enjoyed putting up the tree in the centre of our room and it was nice to get to know the other grades. Some part of me loves organized chaos because it feels like everyone’s working together and even if it’s unorganized right then it will all come together in the end. The only thing I didn’t like about this was the tone of some of the older grades some of them were condescending and unwilling to hear our ideas. They were probably stressed though so it’s understandable.
The exhibition
So, the boxes were done, and we set up, and then people started coming in. they came in waves and by the end of the night I could do my spiel in my sleep. It was also really interesting to go and see all the other’s work, in different rooms. I wish I had seen Macbeth, but my break didn’t correspond with the time so oh well. I loved talking to all the people at the exhibition and it was eye-opening to see their opinions on my work.

Overall I really liked this project, especially since we got to use our hands and be creative! I hope to do more projects like this in the future.
Thanks for reading!
Neko

 

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January 5

Interesting Images

Oops! Looks like I forgot to post this one 🤦‍♀️. This is a project we did before the break with ms Kadi in maker. It was kind of like a sibling project to geeking out with ms Madsen. For this project we worked on making photos. Instead of quickly snapping photos (taking them) we thought out what we were photographing making the images.

This projects driving question was “How might I use the still image to create and communicate through technology.

Here’s my keynote presentation, and within it a reflection on each picture. (It wouldn’t upload so I took some screenshots instead)

The three skills I found most useful were 

-interesting angles. 

-filters for mood I liked how one image could look so different with different filters

-using a timer for jumping photos or self portraits . This one was useful, but also very fun

I really liked how all of these gave the photos personality

That’s all for today thanks for reading!

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November 4

Who am I as a PLP learner?

DRUMROLL PLEASE!!!!!!!!!

I PRESENT TO YOU

MY VERY FIRST BLOG POST!!!!

*crickets*

Ummmmm

This is the part when you clap….

NEVERMIND

 

This post is all about our first maker project. Our driving question was “Who am I as a PLP learner”. At first I was a little confused as to why we were doing this project so early in the year, (we’re only done 2 months of school so far) so I didn’t know if I would have an answer yet. However, when I actually thought about it I discovered that we actually have done a lot this year. I’ll be focusing on what we did in maker (basically ADST)for this post.

1ST Up is my laptop Memoji

The point of this assignment was to learn about using keynote. I learned a lot about how PLP uses keynote. I had never used keynote before this so I gained many skill such as

-instant alpha (now background remover)

-gradient 

-image fill (my favourite)

-colour fill

-borders

I also think that this showed who I am as a PLP learner because I blended my home and school selves. I projected my home self through my stickers showing my interests, such as reading, music the earth and my fish. It showed my school self because I used my iPad to to make it and probably wouldn’t have made it if I hadn’t been in school.

I think I did well on this because I payed attention in class and revisited the criteria many times to try be extending.

Next is my user manual

C

I wont include a picture of it all because that has personal info, and that is NONE OF YOUR BEESWAX. I will however show a couple pieces here ⬆️

The point of this assignment was to get to know our self’s more and practice using pages. We also had to make sure the set up was almost exactly the same as Ms. Kadi our teacher’s. This assignment really helped me share my personality and the page that I showed really made me think about how writing about myself as a machine is creepily similar to writing about myself as a person. I realized that I really do have different modes. I did well because I followed the criteria and got a rainbow.

3rd is my digital selfie

The point of this was to learn about all the cool things our iPad’s cameras can do. We learned about how to use the following features

-photo

-self timer

-adjusting the exposure

-panorama

-burst

-markup

This showed my interests in writing and nature in 1 photo. I think I did well even though I originally got in incomplete since the wifi wasn’t working down at myrtle and I forgot to once we got to school since i had gym next. My revised grade was a green check mark so I’m more confident now.

Last is my dream board

The point of this assignment was to plan out the things we want to do with our lives in a visually appealing way. The interesting thing about this was that in couple years I might have a completely different dream board or it could be exactly the same. We’ll have to see if stands the test of time. This assignment showed my personality and interests. I also have a lot of long term/challenging things on there so it shows that I’m ambitious. I did well on this because I was really happy with the finished product and my grade fit the goals outlined in my learning plan.

 

Thanks for reading! I hope you check back soon!

-Neko ✨

 

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October 20

1st post ever!

Hi I’m Neko and I guess this is my website now… apparently I’ve had this for a while but I just didn’t know. I’ve really like PLP so far and I hope it continues to be great! I’m really excited to get a break and go to Disneyland this weekend though, I might even write a post about it on here.

Bye for now,

Neko

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