Ok, it’s time for another mPOL. If you don’t remember from last year, an mPOL is a mid year presentation of learning. In other words it’s everything we have learnt so far this year and what we need to work on in the future. I definitely have lots to work on for this second half of the year, but I am very proud of some of the things I’ve done in school so far. Anyways, stick along for the mPOL ride!
Here’s a picture of me at the start of grade 8 (wow I’ve grown!)
PGP
So, the first section of this mPOL is the Personal Growth Plan aka PGP. PGP is something new we’ve tried this year. It’s basically all about goal setting and time management. I think it’s great for some reasons, but also not great for others. We have been reading the book ‘what do you really want?’. It’s a book all about making smart goals and the benefits of goal setting. While reading this book we have been doing some different goal setting activities and every week we have been doing a check in to see if we are on task and not procrastinating. I think it has helped me with staying on task, although it does take time to read the book and do all the activities which takes away from time I should be doing other homework. I think PGP has made me focus on time blocking more and finding out when I have time to do more free stuff.
Goals
So, as part of PGP I’ve made some goals. Some are school related and some are just other things I want to do on my own time. One of my school goals for this year is too bring more of my video skills into different projects. I will talk about all the videos I’ve made and how I’ve improved immensely in a different section. This goal is just because I want to get even better at making videos and I think it’s one of my bigger skills. On the opposing side I want to watch less YouTube and make my own videos more. Sometimes I end up watching lots of YouTube just because I love amazing videos so much. I think I need to cut down and only watch YouTube for a little while a day. This will help me in all areas, procrastination, school, family, hockey. It will give me more time to do other things I love. These are just some of my goals, but these are my more important ones that I want to accomplish. Next I’m going to list a few projects this year that I’m proud of and a few I’m not so proud of.
This was probably my favourite project this year and I think I did great with it. This was the first video that I put every ounce of my effort into and got some great results out of. I was really happy with the end result and the video turned out so good that I barely needed revision. I used everything I had learned from watching tutorials and from Mrs Willemse to create an amazing video. I think this project was really important because it showed everyone what I’m really capable of and in the future I’d love to have a job as a photographer or videographer. That’s one of my big goals, to travel the world and make films. Anyways this project turned out amazing and it shows how much I’ve come from the end of last year.
This was another video project that we did in Maker class. This is another video that I’m really proud of because it was a new way of filming I hadn’t really done. Some things I want to get better at is talking in front of the camera. I get all caught up with words when I talk in front of a camera and I always turn out very awkward. I think all my videos would be much better if I got used to talking in front of a camera. This is one of my goals for the end of the school year. I want to be less awkward talking in front of a camera and when presenting. Anyways, the take your kid to work day video showed my filming skills yet again and makes me want to pursue getting even better at filming.
This is a project that I feel shows some things I need to work on this year. Basically we had to make a different blog post every week about random things and this was supposed to help make our blogs look more interesting, but more importantly get us better at writing. I was doing very good at first, but slowly the posts got less interesting and more boring the more I went on like this. By the end I was just doing it to ‘get it done’. I think this project was good for me because it taught me that I need to use my creativity more. I think if I was more creative with the posts towards the end I would have more fun making them and they would turn out better. Overall I thought this project was tough and was a good challenge to see if I could be less of a perfectionist, but still be creative.
Exponents board game
This is a project in math that we are doing using exponents. Lots of games like blackjack use math. Our task is to create a card game that uses exponents in some way. As of right now I am very happy with our game, but in the beginning it was way to confusing and didn’t work. I think I used lots of what I’ve learned in plp this year and last year about revision to make it better. We’ve done at least three drafts and the game is getting better each time. In this second half I will definitely bring this skill of revisions to be able to create better work every time. This was something that I talked about needing work last year in the tpol and I feel I have gotten much better at it. Another example or revision was the live event video. It took 4 different revisions and three different shoots to be able to come out with my best product.
See you in the second half
Anyways I hope you enjoyed reading about some of the projects I did well and some I still need to work on. Overall this first half of the school year has been great and I can’t wait to excel in the second half. I will continue to revise and I will work on using my creativity to my advantage especially in this upcoming DI. So ya, peace out for now!
Until next time… Aedan Loughran
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