January it’s a new year, new goals and a fresh start. But for the PLP students of seycove its a time of reflection. I’m talking about mPol’s. I’ve done a couple last year but thing have change since then.

Now I have the difficult task of explaining my achievements, success, growth, goals, and improvements. As well as talking about the new course and my thoughts on it.

PGP

This year in PLP we got a new course. This course PGP is the place where we dream. What we want to do, become, achieve, the places we want to be years from now. So far I have found that this course at first just seemed like a lot more work had assembled into arguably the most important course in PLP.

We also had to read this book. The book was called “What do you really want” by Beverly Bachel. In it I learned about goal setting and what truely inspires me. One of the forms that we need to do was not actually a form.

This was the dream board. The dream board was something that really pulled back the curtain into my true inspirations and goals. I really enjoyed this form because I got to put everything I love onto it. 

Next I would like to talk about my success this year so far.

Though out the year so far there has been two themes that has been obvious the first is video making and the second is story telling. Using these two things has been pretty much required in every project thus far.

Identity

This unit was the introduction to the true power of video editing. In this unit we went to Alberta. Our project was to film and edit a video the showed how the land impacts peoples identity. We had to feature at least 3 different places and have an interview. The hardest parts of this unit for me were first we only we able to film at each place once as we weren’t going back. So you had to plan ahead so that you could get the shots you needed. I struggled with this because I am not good at planing things out ahead of time and then following though. The second was the interview. If you didn’t know I get very nervous when I talk in front of lots of people and when I have to interview strangers. In this unit I learned a lot about filming, editing, audio, and problem solving if you don’t have the right shot. Also I have developed a new found respect for editors, as editing is really hard to do if you want to make it good.

Metaphor Machines

Next up we have metaphor machines. In this unit my group members were Kiera, Jason, Sam, and I. In this project we had to research a revolution and create metaphors for important events then we had to combine all of the metaphors together and make a machine out of them. I thought that our team did well. I picked this unit to show because I had to persevere though a lot. We had a sluggish start to our research and some parts of are machine were not built correctly due to lack of communication. But we managed to corral ourselves and get it done. All in all I think we did a great job on our video and our end result was great. 

Winter Exhibition 

This year our exhibition was different then lasts. This year we were assigned groups. For this exhibition we had to animate a story about chemical bonding. We then had to combine two stories together then after all that we had to pick one spot in our story and turn it into an immersive experience. For this project I thought I did pretty well. We had some rough spots and at one point we collapsed from problems with communication. But we managed to reel it back in and make an awesome room. I felt that in this project I could of done a lot more when we were designing our story.

Live event

Up last we have my live event. For this project we had to make a video featuring an event that was real or made up. The challenge was that we only had one shot at filming it so again you have to plan out your video. This project for me was definitely the hardest one. I can say 100% I F.A.I.L.ed this project. I thankfully after a long talk with mom was able to save it and get something in. Unfortunately it was weeks after the due date. From this I learned a lot about what to do if I get stuck.

Reflection

Since grade 8 started I have done some pretty great things. Before I even knew the benefits of goals the PLP teachers had already made us make some. The goal I set last year in the growth mindset unit which was “I want to take criticism as advice rather then a put down” has definitely been checked off. Another goal that I set at my first mPol unfortunately has not been completed. Although I have definitely been improving. Thanks to the new apps that we were taught how to use it has been easier to complete my work. Now my question for you “how did you manage sports, music, and school with out getting overwhelmed?”