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Comfortable with the Uncomfortable – Loon Lake

Comfortable with the Uncomfortable – Loon Lake

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Sometimes the biggest lessons you learn in life don’t happen inside a classroom. Sometimes they happen in the middle of the forest, surrounded by people who slowly become your community.

Field Studies

The PLP program focuses on three main ways of learning, one of which is learning beyond the classroom. We go on field studies to gain real-life experiences and explore what the world outside of school is like.

Loon Lake

Recently, my class and I went to Loon Lake for a learning retreat, where we spent five days learning, growing, and acquiring skills we can apply to our lives. Going into Loon Lake, I didn’t have much of an idea of what I wanted to gain. It was my first field study, so I just wanted to get a grasp on what they are like and I wanted to grow closer to my classmates. While in Loon Lake, we had several workshops with a man named Jonathan Willcocks. We did risky things like climbing on a climbing wall and walking on high ropes, and we did activities as a group, all of which brought us so much closer as a learning team and taught very valuable life lessons.

Vision Mission Values

I want to improve my group work skills, I will do this by going out of my comfort zone and trusting my peers. Rather than taking all the work to do myself, I will open my mind to new ideas, and spread the work to my group members in a way that plays off of each others strengths.

At the beginning of the year, I created my vision, mission, and values (see this blog post to learn more). These are goals and success behaviours I set at the beginning of the year as a plan for what I want grade 10 and the rest of high school to look like. A goal I set was to improve my collaboration skills. I reflected that I often have a hard time trusting my peers with work that is up to my standards, which leads me to do all of the work myself. My time at Loon Lake was very impactful for changing my mindset and struggles. We did an activity with trust falling where we took turns falling into each other’s arms, which gradually led up to me falling off a table into my peers’ arms. This activity was very impactful on me, my mindset, and my goal because it showed me how much I can trust my peers, both literally and figuratively. I know that we all have each other’s backs, and that during projects, I can communicate my struggles and trust that my peers will understand and prove my peers wrong. 

A Meaningful Moment

An important moment I had during Loon Lake happened on the first night. We had gotten our sleeping arrangements, and I wasn’t in a room with many of my close friends. At the beginning, I was very close-minded and even asked to switch rooms because I felt more comfortable with my closer friends. However, as Jono said, “in order to grow, you have to learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Staying in the room with people I wasn’t as familiar with was such an important part of the trip for me. We ended up talking and connecting all night. This experience not only brought me closer with my grade 10 class and gave me new connections and a new sense of community, but it also showed me how it is good to be uncomfortable because that is the only way you can learn something.

Evidence of my Learning

This is a video of the trust fall activity we did. This taught me that I can trust my peers and showed me my peers trust me, ultimately bringing us together as a PLP 10 community.

This is a poster I made displaying all of the things that define me, my values, and my passions. This exercise made the things that are important to me clear, making it easier to make decisions and live life by my values.

 

This is an exercise we did where we had to work together to pull strings and make a wooden A-frame walk. This tested my collaboration skills and forced us to work together to overcome challenges, bringing us closer together.

Success Behaviours

During this field study, I showed strength and struggled in every single one of the four PLP success behaviours: agency, grit, self-regulation, and community. I believe I really showed strength in community. At Loon Lake, I was kind and respectful to all of my peers. I listened to everyone’s ideas and perspectives, and I encouraged my peers in all of the activities and with their goals. I struggled with self-regulation. I didn’t have the best sleeps while I was there because I stayed up very late talking. This led to my social battery running very low and my attitude not always the best. Next time, I would prioritize and communicate how important my sleep is. That way, I will be recharged in the morning and more open to learning and collaborating.

 5-Day Goal

During Loon Lake, I learned how important it is for me to get enough sleep. It affects not only my mood but how I think and how I interact with people. My 5-day goal coming off of this experience is to get a minimum of 9 hours of sleep each night. I am going to do this by, each morning, planning out exactly what times I need to go to bed in order to reach my goal. I will need to give myself 30 minutes of time to prepare for bed and make sure I am not procrastinating so I get all of my homework and tasks done early and don’t have to stay up late. I will track my progress by marking it off on my calendar every day I reach my goal and I will keep myself motivated by rewarding myself with doing 15 extra minutes each day of something I love, this could be cuddling my dog, listening to my audiobook, etc. If I follow through with my goal, I will wake up each day feeling recharged and it will make the day so much easier and engaging.

Takeaways

This field study changed me as a learner because it pushed me to embrace discomfort, trust others, and push myself to connect with new people. It showed me that I need to regulate myself and stay rested in order to learn with an open mind and push myself to do things that are challenging. Through me connecting with, trusting, and supporting my peers, my experience at Loon brought the PLP 10’s so much closer and turned us from just classmates into a community and team.

I Became a Teacher?!

I Became a Teacher?!

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Every weekday, I attend school and listen to my teachers teach. For this assignment, my listening skills were put to the test. I was questioned, “How well do I really know how to teach?” because the roles were reversed, and it was my turn to teach the teachers.  

The Assignment

I’ve had this blog for 3 years, and while I’ve changed and grown as a person, my blog’s format and content haven’t, and neither have my skills for updating it. For this assignment, I had to look past the surface of my blog and find new ways to customize it beyond my old and basic ways. I explored all of the features my blog platform had to offer and gave it a full glow-up. Then, I chose one that really intrigued me and taught my teacher how to apply it to his own blog.

New Skills

After experimenting with my blog and learning new skills, I gave it a major upgrade. Throughout this post, try to notice the new techniques I used to make my blog more engaging.

Customizing a SidebaR

One thing that made my blog stand out was the sidebar. Before exploring the settings, I thought the only thing I could add was basic elements like categories. However, I discovered a wide variety of widgets I could use, such as photo collages, mini games, videos, recent posts, and much more. Adding these features made my blog so much more engaging and fun. This is the skill I chose to teach my teacher how to use. 

Teaching my Teacher

To understand the importance of giving clear instructions, imagine this:

I don’t know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It’s your job to teach me. You tell me to “spread the peanut butter and jelly onto bread.” I grab the peanut butter and jelly and use my hand to spread it onto the unopened bag of bread. This isn’t what you intended, but with the little amount of steps and detail you gave me, how would I know?

Now imagine you say:

“Grab the peanut butter, open the lid, open the bag of bread, use a knife to cut a slice off the loaf, put your piece of bread on a plate, use a butter knife to scoop out the peanut butter and jelly and spread it onto the slice of bread.” This time, I had clear step-by-step instructions and a load of details, and made a perfect PB&J.

 

This same concept applied when I was teaching my teacher how to decorate a sidebar. I created a PowerPoint presentation, where I listed out every single step and added photos to go along with them. Being descriptive really helped make the lesson much easier to follow and showed my teacher I truly understood what I was doing. 

F.A.I.L (first attempts in learning)

If I were to do this project again, I would consider all of the possible roadblocks that I could run into before I present my findings. One problem I ran into was that my teacher’s blog had a different theme and format than mine. Because of this, some of the steps didn’t work the same way and looked different on his blog. Next time I would test my instructions on many different themes to make sure they worked for everyone.

Sharpen the Saw 🪚

Sharpen the Saw 🪚

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Imagine you are sawing down a tree with a very dull saw, to the point were it is taking you hours…what will you do? Keep sawing? Quit? Or…Sharpen the saw?

This chapter of the book, the 7 habits of highly effective teens, takes this situation and turns it into a Metaphore for taking time to rest and restore oneself.

The Project

This is the final blog post included in our project ‘Level up: the 7 habits challenge’ in which we had to create 3 blog posts and a short video for each one, displaying a few of the 7 habits in the book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective teens’

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens is a self improvement book created for teens. It highlights 7 habits that are the key to a successful life.

Rest to Run

For our final short video we had to highlight the habit ‘Sharpen the Saw’. My group members (see Chloe and Cole’s perspective on this project on their blog here) and I created our video around a runner named Chloe. The story is about how Chloe learns in order to run she has to rest. Watch it here:

Sharpen the Saw

What is it?

“Imagine  that  you’re  going  for  a  walk  in  the  forest  when  you come upon a guy furiously sawing down a tree. “What’re you doing?” you ask. “I’m sawing down a tree,” comes the curt reply. “How long have you been at it?” “Four hours so far, but I’m really making progress,” he says, sweat dripping from his chin. “Your saw looks pretty dull,” you say. “Why don’t you take a break and sharpen it?” “I can’t, you idiot. I’m too busy sawing.” We all know who the real idiot here is, now, don’t we?  If the guy were to take a fifteen minute break to sharpen the saw, he’d probably finish three times faster.” Excerpt from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey. 

Put this story into your life. If you are constantly working hard at things like sports or work and never take rest, you are going to grow very burnt out and get less work done than if you had just taken a few days off. Balance is very important in order to be an effective person. That is habit 7, sharpen the saw.

My Experience

This is probably the most important habit for me to learn. I am a very busy person, school, hockey, mountain biking, running, basketball, snowboarding and friends, all are things that consume my life. I hardly scan ever find time to rest and rejuvenate. I often find myself very burnt out to the point where I fall behind in everything I do. 

What Will I Change in Order to Sharpen the Saw

Going forwards, in order to get better at sharpening the saw, I need to do 2 things. Number 1, learn how to say no. My parents describe me as a ‘yes person’, I often say yes to every opportunity I am given, this is why my schedule is so jam packed. Going forwards, I need to think about how I want to use up my time, and whenever I am given an opportunity I will refer to my schedule and make sure I can fit it in, still leaving room for rest. Number 2: find things I enjoy doing that provide me with rest. Sometimes when I sit down to rest, I end up doomscrolling on my phone. While this does rest my body it doesn’t provide much rest for my mind or soul. In the future I need to find new ways to sharpen the saw, this could be reading, watching documentary’s, meditating etc.

What Have I Learned From the 7 Habits

Now that I have finished the book, I have a game plan for the future. Each habit has taught me something that I need to improve about myself and my actions in order to become a more effective person. Going forwards I am going to start focusing on overcoming my perfectionism, I am going to commit to doing one thing a day that will help me climb my goal ladder, and I am going to set timers while doing work.  I am going to celebrate other peoples strengths and benefit off of them by learning from them. I need to be supportive, and create more collaborative interactions that benefit all people around me. I need to go out of my way and seek ways to listen to people (ask my parents about their day).  I am going to listen to my peers ideas and embrace them rather than throwing them away. Lastly I am going to focus on balancing my life, prioritizing rest days, and saying no to things that don’t fit well into my life.

Habits 4, 5, and 6

Habits 4, 5, and 6

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What if I told you you have thousands of bank accounts, some overflowing with money and some in debt. No, these are not real life bank accounts, but invisible ones. Something Sean Covey, the author of the 7 habits of highly effective teens, calls an RBA or a relationship bank account.

An RBA symbolizes the relationships between you and any person you interact with. Every time to talk to someone, do something to someone, etc you are either making a deposit into your shared RBA or you are making a withdrawal. All ultimately leading to a positive or negative relationship with that person.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens is a self improvement book created for teens. It highlights 7 habits that are the key to a successful life.

Tyler and Tryouts

We were assigned with creating a short video that displays habits 4 – 6 of the book. My group member (see Julia’s perspective on this project in her blog) and I created a video about a girl named Tyler who is going into football tryouts and does some actions that are not very effective. What will happen to her?? Watch it here:

Habits 4 – 6

If you haven’t read out my last blog post, check it out and read about the first 3 habits. The next 3 habits all connect to RBA’s. Habit 4: Think Win Win, Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood and Habit 6: Synergize.

Habit 4: Think Win Win

What is it?

Think win win is when you seek mutual benefit in situations you are faced with. It means you believe that everyone can win and that one persons success does not require another’s failure. Thinking win win does not include any competition or comparison.

My Experience

Thinking win win is a struggle for me. I have perfectionism which requires me to have everything in my life up to my standard of perfect, including my relationships with people. When someone creates or does something better than me, or has a better relationship with someone than me, I tend to compare myself. I turn all our interactions into a competition which is very much a Win Lose attitude, and makes several withdrawals into my RBA’s.  

How Will I Improve in Order to Think Win Win? 

going forwards in the future I need to I start by recognizing when my perfectionism and comparisons are taking over. When that happens I need to take a break to reset my mindset. I need to practice celebrating other peoples strengths and benefiting off of them by learning from them. I need to be supportive, and create more collaborative interactions that benefit all people around me.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

What is it?

Seeking first to understand then to be understood is all about listening. Sean Covey says ‘you have to ears and one mouth for a reason’. People need to be heard before they are ready to listen. The book talks about different ways of effective listening, these are ways to make people feel listened to. 

My Experience

I believe I am not that bad of a listener. I know what it is like to feel not heard and I always try my best to nod along when having a conversation. This book taught me more skills on how to listen even more genuinely, for example listening with your eyes, ears, and heart, and repeating back what thy were saying in your own words to show understanding. Something I don’t do the best is stretching my listening further, I dont search for opportunities to hear people. 

How Will I Improve in Order to Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

Going forwards I am going to practice my listening skills by going out of my way and finding opportunities to listen. For example, when my parents get home from work I am going to ask them how their day was, I am going to make them feel heard, and ask follow up questions to show that I care.

Habit 6: Synergize 

What is it?

 

Synergy is all about collaboration. It means you work together with people in order to create a better outcome then you could do alone. Synergizing means you embrace differences and utilize other peoples talents. It does not mean you do everything alone and only think your way is the right way.

My Experience

This habit is probably the most important habit for me to learn. I have a huge problem with trusting my peers with doing work up to my standards. During group projects I usually take on all of the work because I think that only my way is the best way.

How Will I Improve in Order to Synergize?

When I am working with a group or a team I need to work on genuinely listening to their ideas without immediately throwing them away. Rather than taking all of the work myself I will work on spreading it out. I will give the work that I can do the best to myself, and spread out the other work to my peers in a way that best suits their strong areas. That way we all can do something we are good at and work together to create the best outcome possible.

Conclusion

Thinking win win seeking first to understand then to be understood, and synergizing are  3 very important habits that will help me have overflowing RBA’s. In order to follow them I need to celebrate other peoples strengths and benefit off of them by learning from them. I need to be supportive, and create more collaborative interactions that benefit all people around me. I need to go out of my way and seek ways to listen to people (ask my parents about their day). Lastly I need to listen to my pers ideas and embrace them rather than throwing them away. If I do all of these things I will be well on my way to becoming a highly effective person.

Habits 1, 2, and 3

Habits 1, 2, and 3

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Have you ever blamed all your problems on someone else? Wasted days on end, binge watching your favourite TV series? Decided to scroll on TikTok instead of doing your homework? All of these things don’t make you feel very good right?

I’ve always known I did these things, I’ve always noticed how awful they make me feel, and I’ve always wanted to stop it. However, Ive never known how…that is until I read the first 2 chapters of ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens’ by Sean Covey. 

What is the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens?

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens is a self improvement book created for teens. It highlights 7 habits that are the key to a successful life. In this post we are going to talk about the first three habits, Habit 1: Be proactive, Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind, Habit 3: Put First things first.

The Ghosts of the Present, Sean, and Future

We were assigned with creating a short video highlighting the first tree habits. My team member and I created a video inspired by the Christmas Story: Scrooge. Watch it here:

The Habits

Be Proactive

What Is It?

Being proactive means you take responsibility for your actions, choices, and things that happen to you. It means owning up to your mistakes and accepting your circumstances rather than blaming them on other people. The opposite of being proactive is being reactive. 

My Experience

Being proactive has never been something I have thought about until reading this book. After learning about this habit I started to be more aware of how much I blame things on other people. For example I am often in a time crunch for finishing my homework, when this occurs, I have a habit of blaming it on the teacher. “They are giving me too much work”, “Don’t they know I have other classes”, “They don’t consider I  have a life outside of school”. These are common sentences that come out of my mouth. Although blaming it on the teacher is the easy thing to do, that is not proactive of me. 

What I am Going to Change In Order to be Proactive

My struggle in getting my work done on time is not my teachers fault, it is mine. It is often a result of my perfectionism. Rather than wasting time complaining about my teacher (reactive), I need to focus on the things I can control, overcoming my perfectionism (Proactive). I will overcome my perfectionism by focusing on doing what is asked of me first and then, if I have time, I will go in after and add the extra pizazz. This will help me complete my homework on time. 

Begin with the End in Mind

What is it?

What kind of person do you want to be? What are your values? What do you want to achieve? Beginning with the end in mind means you have a clear vision on what you want your future to look like, and a plan on how you are going to make it happen. It means you have goals, and you do things in order to reach them. The opposite of this habit means you don’t have a plan and you waste your life parting and doingu unimportant, dumb things.

My Experience

I believe that I do a pretty good job with beginning with the end in mind. I have a very clear plan on what I want to do with my life. I want to one day become a social justice lawyer, I have a pretty solid plan on how I’m going to get there, and I make my everyday decisions based on what will help me reach it. However, something I could work on is spending more time completing my goals. 

What I am Going to Change In Order to Begin With the End in Mind 

I have already completed a goal ladder, now I need to focus on actually climbing up it. From now on I am going to commit to doing one thing a day that helps me reach my goals. This could be studying, volunteering, researching, working on my passion project, etc.

Put First Things First

 What is it?

Putting first things first means you focusing on the most important tasks and managing your time wisely. This doesn’t mean cutting out all fun or easy activities, It’s about making sure the priorities come first, so your not rushing or stressed later.

My Experience

Putting first things first is a habit I struggle with the most. I always know what I should be doing, like working on an assignment or doing my chores, put Ill end up procrastinating or getting distracted by things like TikTok. 

What I am Going to Change In Order to Put First Things First

In order to improve my procrastination problem, I am going to st timers when I have to focus on something important. For example when I am doing homework, I will set a 20 minute timer in which I will put my head down and do work. When the timer goes off I get a 5 minute break and then I set it again. This will give me something to look forward to when working and help break it up so it is not so overwhelming

Conclusion

Being proactive, beginning with the end in mind, and putting first things first are 3 very crucial habits in order to become a highly effective person. Some of these things I struggle with and some I am well on my way to mastering, however there is something I can improve on in all 3. Going forwards I am going to start focusing on overcoming my perfectionism, I am going to commit to doing one thing a day that will help me climb my goal ladder, and I am going to set timers while doing work.

RUN!

RUN!

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You’re running through the forest when you get a feeling, something or someone is behind you. You look behind you but see nothing, however, that doesn’t fix the pit in your stomach. You grow more and more anxious and decide to check again, and low and behold, you see a black figure sprinting towards you. You pick up the pace and start bolting through the woods. And then…CUT!! The scene is over.

RUN!

Watch this short horror film:

The Project

For the past month in maker, we have been working on filming and recreating the short horror film “RUN!” With the driving question ‘How might we learn video skills by creating a short film’. We watched the film thousands of times, studied it, created a screenplay and a storyboard, we learned about different camera angles, and editing techniques. All of this learning led to our final production when we identically recreated, down to every angle, camera shot and second, “RUN!”.

My Answer to the Driving Question

Re creating the film run helped me realize how many steps and work it takes just to create a simple 1 minute video. It requires so many people and actions. It made me become aware of how many different camera shots are in movies and films, movies aren’t just all one video, instead many clips, this makes films so much more interesting. Making ‘RUN!’ taught me so many video skills, I learned how to analyze and plan a good video, i learned camera skills, how edit a video together, and how to create a sound that is just right. . 

How I got There

Storyboard

Before filming our video, we had to create a story board. This is a document that makes that turns a vision into a reality. We had to draw out every single camera shots along with how long they were and a descriptive sentence. This storyboard taught me video skills because I learned how to turn an idea in my head into something I can communicate to people, and turn into something great. 

Practice Video

At the very beginning of this project we were given 60 minutes to recreate the short film “RUN!”. It was the first time we had ever seen the video and before we had learned anything about video skills. I watched this version back several times while creating the real copy and there was always something off about it, and after learning about video making I realized that it was the fact it had little to no sound effects. This practice video helped me answer the driving question because it taught me how important sound it when making videos.

Concepts and Competencies

Whe creating our “RUN!” Remakes we focused on certain concepts and competencies we had to learn by and later reflect on. Concept: I use technology to purposefully find, conceive, create and tell a story in all my work. Competency: analyzing, I can analyze ideas and make supported conclusions, recognizing the tools and process needed to build and test a design solution. 

During this project I believe I did a good job at story finding. The moment I watched “RUN!” For the first time I was already coming up with the story behind it, and continuing to watched it I continued to elaborate on it. When we first started this project I did not realize hw much people and work it takes to make a film. After learning, I started to recognize just how much work it takes to crate a video even if its just 1 minute.

F.A.I.L (First Attempts in Learning)

If i were to do anything different in this project,  I would make the sound effects louder in our final video. Sound is so important in order to create a successful video and while watching back our video in class You could barely hear it, taking away from the full effect.

 

What I Learned

Throughout this project I learned many things about what makes a good video. I learned how to communicate ideas in your head to others by creating a storyboard. I learned how important sound is to create a successful film. I learned about different camera angles. This project also gave me an opportunity to work on my group work skills, which always have room for improvement.

Take Your Kid to Work Day

Take Your Kid to Work Day

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When you picture the city of Vancouver, you see big buildings right? These big high rises consume the city, you may see them everywhere, but have you ever wondered just how much work it is to build one? 

I put myself in my dads shoes, I was a Vice president of construction at Wesgroup construction company for a day.  With the driving question, how does experiencing a workday shape our view of career choices?, in mind, I learned just how much thought, people, and work goes into creating these buildings.  

The Project

I travelled to my dads work and spent the day shadowed him doing his job. I then was assigned with creating a video full of footage from my day, this video had to include the story of my day, an interview, my answer to the diving question, and my thoughts on the job.

Here is my video:

My Answer to the Driving Question

This day really helped me realize things that I value for my future career. In the video my dad talks about how half of his work is interacting with people while the other half he spends in his office sending emails. I have come to the conclusion that for my future career I want to work with people, I want to talk to them, collaborate with them, and I want to help them. I have also realized that I want to a job where I go places and get out into real life, I don’t want to spend  half of my job in my office sending emails.

What Helped me get There

Going to the Site

Going to my dads work site really helped me answer the driving question because it made me realize how much I value moving around during my work days and getting out into real life.  At the office, my dad was having a hard time deciding what he wanted to do on a part of his project but as soon as he got to the site everything started to make sense to him. That was a significant moment to me because I want to make a difference in the world and it helped me realize the only way to tell what needs changing, is to experience that world. 

Shadowing his job

While watching my dad in the office I realized that sitting on a computer is not somthing I want to do a lot of in my future career. Being on a screen all day is not very fun and it makes me feel groggy and like I’m not doing anything with my life. 

The Meeting 

I really enjoyed the meeting, it helped me conclude that I really enjoy working with people. In the meeting my dad collaborated with people, he had to debate and work hard to find a solution. This is something I want to do, I really enjoy listening to many perspectives on something, and trying to put ideas together to create or do something.

Thankyou Email

This day required so much effort and planning for my dad and his work. In order to communicate my gratitude I sent him an email, thanking him, telling him what I took away from being at his work, and including the link to my video.

F.A.I.L (Fist Attempts in Learning)

If I were to do this project again i would film more of my dad in action rather than just mostly B shots. This would’ve made it way easier to get a point across and properly show evidence of what my dad does and how he does it rather than just by word of mouth.

What I Learned

During this project i learned lots about what I value for my future career. It gave me a grasp on what I want to do for the future and what that looks like. I learned what my dad does for a living and just how hard he works. I learned how much work and attention to detail it takes to create the high rises that consume the city. I also learned many new skills on iMovie including Ken burns, freeze frame and speed changes.

Echos of Colonization

Echos of Colonization

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Reconciliation is one of the biggest things we should be focusing on as a society today. Have you ever wondered why we are reconciling? Why is rasicm a thing? How did it become a thing? Lucky for you, I have spent the past month working hard to answer this question.

What I Created (the keynote)

A few weeks ago we were put into groups of three and asked to create a Keynote presentation answering the driving question What are the consequences of colonization? 

Within those three weeks I have been working very hard with my group in learning all about what the Europeans changed when they came to Canada and claimed the land as their own. We came to the conclusion within our group that we wanted to create our keynote around the following topics, worldview, ethnocentrism, and the life ways of the indigenous peoples.

Watch our final keynote here

Presenting The Keynote

Now that we had finished our learning, it was time to showcase it and share it. The BCFP’s grade 11s were learning about a similar topic, so we presented our keynote to them. To make our Keynote more engaging, we created sheets for them to fill out as they followed along with the presentation. I think these sheets were very helpful because it caused them to actually listen to what we had to say in order to find the answer. 

We presented our keynote to two different groups of the grade 11s, our first time presenting, the group gave us the feedback to slow down. We were quite nervous the first time, which caused us to speed up while talking. The second time presenting, I felt we were much more organized. We really tried to focus on slowing down, however, our feedback at the end was to go even slower. 

 

My Individual Keynote

Once we were done with our final keynote, we had to create an individual keynote, this keynote had to be 2 slides with 3 words on each slide. This assignment really forced me to think about and display MY answer to the driving question and what I learned. Also, only having 3 words on each slide really challenged me to know what I was saying rather than just reading off of the slide.I presented my individual keynote in front of my class. I believe I did a good job, I was very confident with what I was saying I believe that I had a very good understanding of what I was presenting.

My Answer to The Driving Question

Colonization was the beginning of racism in the world. Before colonization, Europeans had only been with people who have the same beliefs, looks, language, culture, etc, their entire life. This isolation caused them to develop ethnocentrism which is the act of only seeing the world through their own culture, which leads to the belief that their culture is better than everyone else’s. When they came to Canada with their ethnocentrism intact, seeing the indigenous peoples and different how they look and act, caused them to immediately dehumanize them and belive that they were better. This is what made them think it was okay to culturally assimilate them, and strip them of their culture, land, resources, clothes, language, etc. Still today, maybe without even realizing, everyone has ethnocentrism, this is why racism and discrimination still exist to this day

What Helped me Get There

                                       Craft

Craft is a note taking app that really helped me organize my thoughts and everything I did during this project. I learned how to use it earlier this month and it made it so easy to look back at all of the work I did during this project when I was creating the final keynote.

Worldview Review

At the beginning of this project we did a review on worldview, this time focusing more on the indigenous worldview. This made me notice the difference in the worldview of the Europeans and the Worldview of the indigenous peoples which helped me understand why the Europeans colonized.

CBC The Story of us: Worlds Collide  

World’s Collide is a short film by CBC about European explorer Champlain and what he did when he arrived in Canada. I really enjoyed watching this video because it gave me the opportunity to actually SEE colonization and not just hear about it. This helped me understand New France, what it was, and how it came to be.

Colonization Vocabulary

Colonization Vocabulary are notes we made in class highlighting important words and defining them. I learned about Subsistence, Reciprocity, Exploitation, Sovereignty, Cultural Assimilation and Ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the word that really put colonization and the consequences of it into my understanding. Ethnocentrism is the act of only seeing the world through the eyes of ones own culture, this taught why the Europeans believed they could take the land, which helped me answer the driving question.

Fail

Nothing anyone has ever done is perfect, including this project, and although I am really proud of what I created, there is always room for improvement. If I were to do this project again, I would make more time to practice more before presenting it. My group and I were mostly focusing on the keynote, to the point that the only time we practiced presenting, was the morning of. I believed if we practiced more, we would be more confident, which would prevent us from talking too fast.

What I Learned

I learned so much about racism and the history of how it came to be part of our society. This project taught me about ethnocentrism, how it is developed, what it is, and how it is still in effect today. I also learned how to use and navigate craft which will be very useful in future projects. This project was also another opportunity to grow my teamwork abilities. 

My Group

I really enjoyed working with my group, we all worked together very well and communicated to create healthy teamwork. Read my group members perspective of this project here:

Julia

Siena

A Week Devoted to Drawing

A Week Devoted to Drawing

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Have you ever dedicated a whole 5 days solely to mastering the art of drawing? I have!

 “Why is drawing important?” This is the question I devoted my week to answering. In the midst of creating, learning and sketching, I came to a conclusion. Drawing is not just about lines and shapes, it is a way to express yourself and your emotions. Read forward to hear about my week where the importance of drawing, stretches farther than the blank canvas, becoming a powerful language to communicate and connect. 

Coming to The Conclusion 

The process of this project was neither long nor boring, but calming and fun. To come to my conclusion, I went through several assignments within the app Sketches Pro. I created a word art, I made a robot, I drew an emoji, and I designed a logo for a club I created. 

                                 Sketches Pro

Sketches pro is an app that allows you to draw and create art digitally. In the app, there is several drawing tools with different purposes that help you reach your artistic goals.

  My Word Art

 For this part of the project, I had to choose a word, and then draw and decorate it as an exquisite representation of the word itself. I believe that word art is very crucial because it makes the word more eye catching, it’s giving you something to look at rather than it just showing an old boring word. I decided to be-dazzle the word ‘swiftie’, referring to hardcore fans of Taylor Swift (AKA. me).  Each letter of this important word, I made to look like the cover of all of her albums. If I were to do this again, I would fix how messy the lettering is, I drew the letters by hand and very rushed which leaded them to be a little wonky. Next time, I would take more time on drawing my letters. 

My Robot

The next assignment within the project was to create a robot made out of shapes. While making this art piece I was really focused on shading, I wanted it to look like it was popping out of the page. Unfortunately, the end result did not look as real as I wanted it to, but I’m still proud of it as a whole. If I were to make another robot, I would take more time blending in the shading so it looks more lifelike. 

My Emoji

To help me answer the driving question, I was tasked with creating or recreating an emoji. I chose to create an emoji that looked as if it is judging something. Emojis are important because they help express an emotion that you can’t say with words.  I am very  proud of the shading work I did here, I think it looks very realistic and almost as if it is popping out of the page. If I were to do this again I would work on improving the expression to be more judging, I could do this by narrowing the eyes more.

Ladies Lead Club

This piece was the last part of our project, I was assigned with creating a new brand or cluband making a logo for it. Logos are very important because they give people a way to recognize your brand or organization. I thought up a new club called the ‘Ladies Lead Club’, it is for woman who notice the unfairness in the world and want to take action. While making my club, I first had to create a design brief that laid out all of the information. I then created my logo, I decided to go with a blue colour scheme because that is the stereo typical ‘colour for boys’, and by using it, we are implying the message that we don’t want to follow societies idea of a ‘woman’. If I had to do this again, I would try to make the lettering more neat because messy writing does not look professional.

F.A.I.L (First Attempts in Learning)

Something I could do better in this project would be managing my time better. I was sick for the first couple days of the assignment, so I never completed the work on time. I found myself working on all of the assignments in one night, which lead to them being a bit rushed and messy. I can manage my time better next time by messaging my teacher if I am away so I can work on the work at home and not two days late.

Why is Art so Important?

After finishing this project, I have come to the conclusion that art is very important because it is a way of expressing yourself and communicating when words can’t.

I Became a Learner in the PLP Program

I Became a Learner in the PLP Program

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Who am I as a PLP learner? Have you ever wondered what skills you need to have to be in PLP? Well here is my first project ever in the program and the things I learned that will help me be successful in my PLP journey.

My Assignment

For My first project in PLP, I was assigned with making a Keynote presentation answering the driving question, Who am I as a PLP learner?
Here is my presentation:

 

In making this presentation I learned many skills that will help me throughout my time in the program. When I first entered PLP in September I was only equipped with an iPad and basic tech skills. After completing this project, I have a such a more thorough understanding of my device and how to use it.

Skills I Learned and How I Can Apply Them On to Future Projects

While working towards answering the driving question, I learned many important abilities that are necessary to complete assignments in the program. 

 I learned how to use all of the drawing tools on the iPad, such as colour fill, pencil, marker, crayon, gradient fill, image fill, etc. These are very essential skills that I will use in several projects in the future, such as other presentations, drawings, editing photos, and much more. 

I learned my way around different apps on the iPad, such as Keynote, Wordpack, Pages, Photos, and emoji. This will help me in future presentations, design projects, any writing projects, when I’m editing photo’s and lots more.

I also learned how to animate my drawings and photos, and add transitions on my slides. These skills are very important for future presentations and videos.

What I’m Proud of

During this project I created many things I am very proud of. I am very happy with my Nike shoe, I was giving full creative freedom to colour in a Nike shoe as my dream shoe. My shoe is inspired by the famous ‘Lightning McQueen Croc’. To make this I found a picture of Lightning McQueens number 95 from Safari, I then removed the background using ‘remove background’, and I coloured in this shoe using trace and colour fill. I am proud of this shoe because it looks a lot like the ‘Lightning McQueen Croc’, it has a lot of detail and it is something I would one hundred percent wear. While making this shoe, I learned how important detail is to me, I believe it makes designs and drawings so much more interesting.

I am also very proud of my character settings, I believe they are very well written and take on my moods perfectly. While completing these settings they made me think hard about the four main values that are the most important to me. Read more about me and my settings here.

My First Attempts in Learning (F.A.I.L)

Almost everything in this project I could improve on, because nothing is ever fully perfect, but one thing that stood out to me is the aesthetics of my presentation. I dislike the dark colour palate I chose because it isn’t very eye catching. I also believe it is a bit messy and I could clean it up a bit. If I were to do this project again I would chose a more light and pastel colour theme. I would also type the titles rather than doing it by hand to make it more cleaned up.

What I Learned About Myself

During this project I learned how important aesthetics are to me. I believe that the content of this project is fairly good, but I am not very proud of it because the aesthetics of it aren’t on point. This project also forced me to think more about my values and the things that are most important to me. While writing my character settings I had to brainstorm my four main moods, this helped me learn more about who I am as a person and how I act. Also, when I was adding the stickers on to my MeMoji, it made me think about all of the things I love and cherish.

Who am I as a PLP Learner?

A big part of being a PLP learner is reflection on the work I do, now that I have finished my first maker project I have to reflect on what I have learned and created. I am a self motivated, hardworking, and creative learner, and I always try my hardest to bring something new and different into everything I do. After finishing my first PLP project in maker, I have learned many important skills throughout the process that are necessary to complete assignments within the program. I learned how to use all of the drawing tools, such as colour fill, pencil, marker, crayon, gradient fill, image fill, etc. I learned my way around different apps on the iPad, such as Keynote, Wordpack, Pages, Photos, Emoji, etc.  I also learned how to animate my drawings and photos, and add transitions on my slides. I really value equity, and making a change is very important to me. I also learned how essential good aesthetics are to me. In the last month I have been working on learning the basics that will make me a PLP learner, not only did I learn tech skills on my iPad, but I also learned lots about myself, my values, and who I am.

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