My First MPOL! šŸš¦

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The Pol declaration!

HELLO!

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.ā€

Intro:

This is my first MPOL, and I am going to talk about some things that I am proud of, I can improve on, and what is going well. I will also circle back to my learning plan to reflect on how I have grown, and how I will show learning growth.

Projects that I am proud of!

There have been quite a few projects that I am proud of. The one that I feel best demonstrates my leadership and teamwork is the winter exhibition.

 

For me, it was quite stressful, but also very rewarding in the end. The assignment was to create a tryptich representing medieval, renaissance, and the present day time periods! Up above is a photo of the final digital tryptich. I had a lot of fun with using photoshop to creatively display the art. The reason that I felt like my leadership skills shone through, is because you will always get a different group, and a different set of skills along with it. I felt like I had to take control in time management, and helping our team stay on track. This circles back to my learning plan that I made in September. This project helped me grow a lot in the preparation area. I have shown a lot of growth. I attended tutorial when needed, and made sure the group was on task!

Scratch game šŸŽ®

Something that I did well was my scratch game. Coding has never been my favourite subject, but I definitely improved with my coding skills. You can read about my scratch game on my blog!

Something that I really benefited from in this project was asking my classmates for help. I think it is always nice to get help from someone who is in the same boat, but has problem solved before me. I also liked how I could show my knowledge of atoms through my creative ways! Coding is definitely a strength that I could work on, but I was proud of my first attempt at making my own game!

Poetry EbookšŸŒø

I thought I did my ebook very well! I find poetry as a cool way to express feelings. I also added to that by using my drawing skills to bring the book to life. Ā I am quite proud of this project. Although this was for humanities, in the first semester when we had Maker, I liked being able to use my art skills, and designing things. One of the projects I liked was designing my own shoe! It was a cool way to learn how to use keynote.

A project that I could improve on

One project that I think I could have improved on was our most recent one, Bon Voyage. We used ar Makr to bring our stories to life. Our stories were based off of the Age of exploration. I am proud of the work leading up to it, and my preparation, but I think the final result could have been a bit better quality. I was feeling a bit rushed, and I shouldā€™ve taken more time focusing

My learning plan šŸ‘©šŸ¼ā€šŸ’»

 

 

My learning plan was something that I wrote at the start of the school year. It showed what I am good at, what I can show growth in, and how I can get support in those areas.

How have I, or can I grow as a learner?

One of the areas of growth I talked about in communication and collaboration was to not be afraid to ask teachers for help. I think that I improved on that very much, because I am no longer hesitant to ask for help if I need it. Attending tutorial times in the morning is also a very helpful way to get help. I have greatly benefited in going to tutorial for humanities. We have had a lot of big, and stressful projects for humanities so this has been helpful.

Another area of growth that I talked about was managing stress (Under self regulation). I still struggle with stress management, but I am beginning to find new ways to deal with it. A strategy that I recently found out was writing checklists in the app ā€˜thingsā€™. I really wish that I had started doing this earlier, because it like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders when I check it off! This willl be an area that I will continue to work on throughout the year!

A subject that I have grown in is humanities. For a lot of people, it is a tough subject. It can be hard with all the revisions, assignments, and the workload. But again, one of the strategies is using things, and making sure iā€™m on top of all my work.

Thank you for coming to my first MPOL!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Imagine sailing across the world just to trade!

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Is there a way to bring you stories into real life?

Yes, there is a way! There is an app called ar MAKR. It can be a little tricky to use at times, but once you get the hang of it, your imagination can become reality!

If you want to watch my ar MAKR story, click here!

The Age of Exploration

The age of exploration was a time where the world united through global trades. Trade routes opened up, giving access to new materials and resources across the world. In this blog post, I will share my knowledge about the age of exploration, and how that lead to my AR MAKR movie about it! But first, letā€™s dive into some of the assignment we did leading up to that! šŸŒŠ ā›µļø

Cause and Consequence

This project was based around the causes and consequences of the age of exploration. It is very important to recognize the consequences of actions. We did some activities to help us understand causes and consequences better. One of the main cause and consequence assignments were our padlets. Pallet is a website that is used to make brainstorming boards, and idea boards. Here are my two padlets:

 

I think that making these gave me a better understanding of what motivated the Europeans to explore. There were three main motivations that caused them to explore, God, Glory, and Gold.

God, Glory, and Gold.

There were three main motivations that caused them to explore, God, Glory, and Gold.

At the time, Christianity was spreading around the globe. The Europeans wanted to convert many people to worship god. When exploration started, they thought of it as an opportunity to divide and conquer. (Convert people to Christianity).

Glory is something that I still see today. A lot of the time, people do things to gain respect from people they look up to, or back then, the king. If they discovered new land they conquered it, took over, and therefore got the glory. They would get recognized by the king šŸ‘‘, and they felt the power!

Gold. Yes, they did discover actual gold, but it is also referring to wealth and money. People are very greedy, and when the thought of money and wealth entered the picture, the Europeans became even more determined to explore. They seeked wealth from investment and trade. Many of the trades were
unavailable in Europe at the time.

Story mountain and draft

Like all stories, you need to map it out before hand. First things first, I started thinking of some ideas. The story needed to demonstrate our knowledge of the age of exploration, and the causes and consequences of it. I knew that I wanted to address discrimination to the indigenous people. In the story mountain, we had to have rising action, failing action, climax, and added details.

 

When we got feedback on our story mountain, we could start writing a draft for the actual story. This did not take me that long, and after a couple days, I was ready to start illustrating my story. Click there to read my story down

Once upon a time there was a man named William. William was a worker at a trading post in Canada. Day after day, William would assist the trades happening between the European and indigenous. He worked very hard, as he was trying to earn money to provide for his family back home in England. One day, William saw a European ship coming to shore. The ship seemed to have a large abundance of metals tools and weapons. William watched as one of the men approached the indigenous man. The indigenous man held furs in his arm, and motioned to trade. The European man started to laugh, and said, ā€œhaha! This is pathetic. I canā€™t believe I came all this way for fur!ā€ The indigenous man seemed confused, as he did not speak English. The man continued to insult him. William felt like he should step in to stop it. It felt wrong to watch helplessly. The next morning, the European man returned to the trading post to see if there was anything else. William watched as he approached the man, and started yelling at him! William finally made up his mind, and rushed over. He said to the man, ā€œYou should be more polite! That is not nice. If you don't like what we trade here, just leave!ā€ Immediately he regretted it. The man snarled at him, ā€œYou have the nerve to say that to me? You should think before you speak!ā€ He charged at William, knocking him into the cold shallow water. William got up, and ran away. Over the next two days, the tension between the indigenous and Europeans grew. William hid away, not wanting o get involved. He decided that he would leave the next day. He couldnā€™t bare to stand there and do nothing about the situation. As he left, he was mad at himself. He couldnā€™t do anything about it, but it felt wrong to just give up. William kept hearing stories from the returning explorers of discrimination, and fighting. All he thought about was how he gave up. As William went on with his life, he began to realize that he should stand up for what he feels strongly about. And in the future, he will try to be the best version of himself.

I tried to bring awareness to the Europeans starting to treat the indigenous very badly. That lead to racism, and it is a very bad consequence. The actions of people back then rub off today. In my worldview, there is ongoing discrimination and violence going on in the world. All from the actions of the past.

Drawings

I used keynote to draw my characters. For a couple of them I traced people from the internet, but for most of them, I drew them myself. Here are some of my drawings:

The drawings were the most most important aspect because they brought life and colour to my story! They portrayed emotion and feelings. I think that is an important part of storytelling.

How can we use storytelling to investigate what sparked global exploration and understand its impact?

For me, reading fictional stories can help information to stick better in my mind. Storytelling is a creative, and fun way to connect with people. I showed evidence of how the Europeans started treating the indigenous badly, and that lead to them taking land, and all sorts of things from them. I also included my cause and consequences padlet to give more depth to understanding cause and consequences of the Age of exploration.

Reflection

In conclusion, I think that this project was very interesting. I learned Ā lot about causes and consequences of the age of exploration, and why it is important to be able to recognize that. I loved drawing my characters and using the ar MAKR app. It is always really cool to see your drawing show up in real life!

THANK YOU FOR READING!!

 

DI PART.1

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After months of planning, building, rehearsing, writing, and hard workingā€¦ā€¦.

It was finally the day we had all been waiting forā€¦. The Destination Imagination regionals tournament! We put so much hard work into creating a unique project to present at the tournament. My group was Brooklyn, Gemma, Emilia, Daniel, and Marcus. (I wanna thank them for being very fun to work with!)

Keep reading to find out what we created, and how it went.

What is Destination Imagination?

Destination Imagination is a global academic Ā tournament that has multiple categories and age levels. The tournament go from regionals, to provincials, to globals! The age levels range from preschool, to university levels. It teaches Ā teamwork, collaboration, creativity, and much more. The categories are fine arts, scientific, technical, improv, and engineering. Along with your central challenge, there is an instant challenge. The instant challenge is confidential, so I canā€™t say very much about it! (I also canā€™t say very much about what were adding to our performance because, you know, we have competition!)

 

Our challenge:

Our challenge was the fine arts challenge. We were assigned to create a peice of reimagined art. But there is a catch! The art must be kinetic, meaning it should move. The peice of kinetic art was our leaning tower of Pisa! (Our story was based around the Leaning Tower Of Pisa).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those are some photos of the performance. You can see the Leaning tower in the background.

 

Preparation:

Something that I wish we wouldā€™ve done, is taken advantage of the prep time at the very start. I feel like you say, ā€œOh, we have plenty of time!ā€ But then the day is here before you know it! There was A LOT to be done! We needed a script (Memorized), costumes, props, team choice elements, we even wrote a song and had a dance! Letā€™s just say, there was a lot. Near the end, we met up every free time after school, and on the weekends. I think compared to some other groupā€™s situations at the end, we were pretty caught up. It was a lot of stress, but that is all part of it!

 

What went wellā€¦

Even though there is a lot of doubt and nerves going into it, we actually performed very well! Some things that I thought went very well was our teamwork and team spirit! We were kind to each other, and accepted each others ideas. Next was the comedy šŸ˜‚ We had some really funny scenes, and the room was filled with laughter. Another thing was our costumes and our props. We had creative costumes that really added to the characters.

What we can improve on for provincials

Something that didnā€™t work very well was our moving peice. I dont want to give away the solution, but we are going to touch it up to ensure that it works well for provincials! We could also touch up our props so they look neater.

What I learned, and how I contributed

I learned how to work with lots of new ideas. I also learned that sometimes things dont go as planned, but they seem to work out fine in the end. Along with that was stress management. I think DI has been teaching me that stress is a good thing when it comes to group work, because it helps you to perform your best! (Not too much stress though šŸ˜‚ )

I think that I contributed quite a bit to the team morale, adding positivity when things were bumpy. I also am artistic and creative, so I think that shows up in the project. Each team member has unique skills, that help us work well together!

Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for updates! Oh, and by the way, We got second place šŸ„ˆ!!!

Wish us luck in provincials!!

How can you share knowledge of atoms in a fun way?

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How can we communicate our knowledge of atoms in a fun + creative way?

In this last science project, we made a video game! Well, there was lots more to learn before the making of it. Keep reading!

MATTER TRANSFORMERS

Making observations

We did a couple of assignments to practice making observations. We did an activity called black box. Basically, there was a little black box that we had to try to recreate with cotton balls, marbles, and sand. We recreated it using our senses like hearing, and touch. Another assignment we did was a lab. We had corn starch, baking soda, salt, sugar, and a mystery powder. We added water, vinegar, iodine, and fire to each, and observed what was happening.

Ā  Ā This is what the observation sheet looked like. (Donā€™t mind the messy writing šŸ˜‚). I felt like this lab was really fun because we could experiment with different chemical and physical properties.

 

VIDEO GAME!

The final project was a video game! We used an app called scratch .

It is a website where you use coding to create your own games. It sounds easy, but letā€™s just say, the app is pretty tricky until you get the hang of it. I am not the best at coding, but iā€™m sure it is different for everyone.

The first step of the making of our game was to create a proposal. In mine, I included the goal of the game, how I showed my knowledge of atoms, and how to play. I did end up changing the type of game because I thought of a better idea.

I called my video game Matter Transformers. The goal of the game was to go from a solid, to a liquid, to a gas. The characters I used were and ice cube šŸ§Š, a water droplet šŸ’§, and water vapour šŸ’Ø. In order to transform, you needed to chase around the sun ā˜€ļø , and catch it 100 times. Once you caught it 100 times, the background changed from the arctic to underwater. Along with that, the character changes from ice to water. Once that happens, you have to get to 200 points (a.k.a water vapour. The background is the cloudy sky). In order to finish the game, you need to reach 300 points! Using the arrow controls, you chase the sun to 300 points.

I will put the link to my game right here: MATTER TRANSFORMERS

 

How can we communicate our knowledge of atoms in a fun + creative way?

I think I did a good job of communicating my knowledge of atoms in a fun and creative way because I made a video game! My video game was catchy, it had fun characters, and I feel like it was pretty fun in general. Sometimes science isnā€™t seen as fun, but in this project I think I turned it into a fun way to showcase my knowledge of atoms and matter. There our many ways to show knowledge, and present, but this was one of the most unique ways so far!

Overall, I enjoyed this project. I learned many new skills in the process of creating my video game. I also had lots of fun playing my own game!

 

 

The Forest of My Worldview (New ebook By Madeline!)

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Yup, You guessed it! We wrote an ebook. But not just any ebook. A poetry book! It is called The Forest of My Worldview.

Through the course of a couple weeks, we worked on lots of poetry. We learned new terms, techniques, and new types of poems every day. The poems included similes, metaphors, found poems, sound poems, haikus, experience poems, imagery, and a self portrait poem. Ā All of our poems were focused around our worldview.

I wrote them about how my worldview is like a forest, to the topic of climate change. There are things that shape a worldview, and I thought about that as I was writing.

How might I write poetry that I enjoy and shows who I am?

That was the driving question for this project. I think that question is easy for me to answer, because I enjoyed writing my poetry because it reflects on who I am. I could just be myself through my writing. I could put my thoughts on the page. With other projects, you dont feel the same.

When I wrote the poems, I used my own thoughts, ideas, and I put in my personality. The self portrait poem was the biggest reflection on me, but in my other poems, I used metaphors, similises, and other ways to express my worldview and who I am. You need to add feeling and mood.Ā 

Reflection

Looking back, I think that this was my favourite projects so far. I think it was the least stressful šŸ˜‚. But that is not the reason that I liked it best. I feel like I got to put myself into my poetry. I got to be a bigger part of my project than usual. I really enjoyed experimenting with different forms of poetry. I learned how to add mood to my poems, so it really hits the reader. I learned how to use imagery, and so much more. Overall, This was a fun project!

So, how did your first exhibition go?

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MY FIRST PLP EXHIBITION!

After weeks of prepping, reading, research, and stressing, the PLP Winter Exhibition was finally here! It was definitely an experience that I wonā€™t forget!

THE PROJECT

First of all, the driving question was: What can we learn from the past, and why does that matter to us today? We were assigned to make and perform a tableau that showed the Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern day worldview through a tryptich. My group was me, Emilia, Chloe, Finnley, Evelyn, and Ian.

Group work can be difficult at times, but I felt like this group worked pretty well together. There are always challenges that come with group work, but I learned that you always have to be patient, kind, supportive, and make sure that you are being helpful at all times. Something that helped was writing checklists of things that needed to be done. Here is one that I made:

At times it felt like we would never get it done, and it would be a disaster. But we managed to pull it off in the end! Keep reading to get a full walk through our final project.

BEFORE THE EXHIBITION

One of the first steps to this projects was our individual medieval and renaissance portraits. That required an art chart for each one. You can read about my medieval art on my other post. This is my renaissance portrait:

Knowing about the Renaissance times and how it connects to us today, we have learned valuable lessons on how it shaped our modern ideas of personal freedom. The last art I made was Medieval art with my face in it. I connected all the aspects of worldview back to society. This time, we had to make our art piece based off of Renaissance art. For this piece of art, I am going to connect everything back to how the renaissance times have shaped our modern ideas of personal freedom. The three aspects of my art that I am going to connect to my topic sentence today are beliefs, society, and knowledge. I will start off with beliefs. In the Renaissance period, beliefs were a big deal. What you believed in basically decided who you were in the society, and how you were ranked. I showed heaven above, because they believed that if you do not sin, you will go to heaven when you die. The church would also sell indulgences to those who sinned, giving them a free ticket to heaven.Today, people can believe in the religion that they choose. The actions of the Christian and Catholic Churches back then have lasted until now, and some of the actions werenā€™t good. But I feel like the beliefs and mistakes of the past have shaped personal beliefs and freedom today. Next up, society. In my art, you can see Saint Mark rescuing a slave. But I chose to use that painting because I think it shows the different roles, classes, and beliefs in the Renaissance times. The classes that they had back then were nobleman, gentlemen, yeomen, artisans, labourers, citizens, and merchants. It also depended on income, age, and place in the society. People would have to slave all day in the fields, factories, e.t.c. I learned that back then it was very sexist, and men were on top. I still feel that way today, and sadly people havenā€™t quite learned from the awful sexist things of the past. We don't really have classes now, but we still have royalty, politicians, rich, average, and poor. Although, I think we have more freedom as people in the society as we learned from the Renaissance. Lastly, knowledge. ā€œThe golden age of inventions!ā€ That statement is not wrong, as some very important things were invented in the Renaissance. For example, the printing press. This was a very important invention, as it helped spread knowledge all throughout the world. You can see a man working the printing press in the background, while showing children a newly printed book. The great invention has led to the modern day, electric printers that we use on a daily basis. Without the printing press, people would slave all day hand printing words after words, just so people could gain more knowledge faster. We have definitely developed way more knowledge from the inventions in our modern ideas of personal freedom, and worldview. Those were my three connecting points to my artwork and topic sentence. In conclusion, I feel like I have learned a lot of valuable lessons in how the past has shaped my modern ideas of personal freedom. I am glad that we have taken knowledge from the past, and used it in our worldview today. Thank you for reading my thoughts!

With our groups we compared all of our portraits, and thought of ways to blend all of them together to make our tryptich. We then created a digital tryptich for our group, to give us an idea. We also gradually worked on the process of creating scripts, props, and lists. Here is the final digital tryptich:

We also did many rehearsals, and if we hadnā€™t it would not be good. Rehearsals were tough, because there were so many props, and costumes that we made. That was hard because we only had 20 seconds to set up while one group members reads the script. Here is one of our first dress rehearsals in action (Renaissance)

 

Now, letā€™s Ā jump in to the exhibition itself.

THE EXHIBITION

The teachers were preparing us for ā€œChaosā€

It was most definitely chaotic. But we all worked together to set up the gym, roll out the mats, and set up the curtains, so it wasnā€™t too bad. We all headed down to eat dinner, and fuel up before the big night. (We were there from 3pm to 9pm). Ā It was stressful, because at the last minute one of our group members was sick so we improvised around that. We thought of a good solution in the end. People started arriving, and we were ready (Sort ofā€¦.). The first show was a bit of a mess, but as the night went on we became professionals šŸ˜‚. The other challenge was navigating our backstage, because we had SO much stuff.

But we had a good system going eventually. Something that I regretted was not getting photos or videos of us in the actual exhibition, but I will show the photos from the dress rehearsal.

 

 

MEDIEVAL

We had to include the seven aspects of worldview into our tableau. Time, society, geography, economy, beliefs, knowledge, and values.

We demonstrated time with the sundial that I am holding, and geography with the map. Society was showed with the king šŸ‘‘ , economy with the feudal system. For Christian beliefs we showed the cross, and the knights fighting in the crusades. We showed the medieval worldview, and how it was back then. We had all sorts of creative props, and costumes. I was the nobleman holding up the map and sundial. The painter was painting the scene, to show how they captured moments.

Here is our rehearsal video:IMG_9225

 

RENAISSANCE

The second section of our tryptich was the Renaissance time period, also known as ā€˜The golden age of inventions.ā€ That is not wrong, and we demonstrated why in our tableau. One of the big inventions was the printing press. We used a desk with a cardboard handle for a makeshift printing press. We also showed the telescope, and a cardboard clock. That shows economy, knowledge, and time. We also had a sun and moon that carried on throughout the whole presentation, for something that didnā€™t change from the past. We found ways to use some of the same costumes for the medieval and renaissance section. At some point in our presentation, we had to hand out some sort of food, and we chose renaissance biscuits. The lady at the printing press skipped up with her basket of biscuits and offered them. It went well with her character. Once again, the painter was painting the scene.

Rehearsal video: IMG_9230Ā  Ā  Please note- we had improved a lot from the the rehearsals. After all, thatā€™s what rehearsals are for!

 

CONTEMPORARY (Modern)

I found this the easiest time period to re-create because itā€™s the one I have lived in all my life!

Once again, we showed the same sun and moon to show time. For economy, we had someone holding a shopping bag to show how people spend their money these days. For knowledge, we turned around the printing press to make an office desk with a laptop. To show society, we had the president with a protester. A lot of the audience got a laugh out of how we were showing worldview today, because it is so different from the past. And for the third time, the painter was capturing the scene. Except, this time he was taking a photo, to show how we have advanced so much with technology.

Rehearsal video: IMG_9233

And with that, we concluded our tryptich with a bow!

 

REFLECTION

I think that we have definitely learned from the past, in both good and bad ways. We need to remember the mistakes that the world has made, and we need to learn from them. This project has taught me so many skills, and bits of knowledge that I will always use in life, and remember. I learned how my worldview connects to a worldview of a person back then. I really enjoyed the group work, because it helped me get to know classmates that I havent really interacted with before. Even though it was very stressful at times, it was also fun to experience what being in a PLP exhibition feels like! Overall, I really enjoyed the exhibition, and getting a feel for the PLP community.

THANK YOU!

Wait, you got to draw all week?! Lucky!

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What do you like to draw? Shapes, words, robots, emojis, logos?

Well, in this project we got to draw all of those things in Maker! Ā It was a very fun week because I love art and drawing, and I find it very relaxing. I will show each drawing, and explain the process of each one. The app that we used was Sketches Pro. Keep reading! šŸŽØ

 

SHAPES

Shapes can be hard to draw, especially when it comes to 3D shapes. But once you can picture them in your head, it gets easier. Here are some of the shapes that I doodled:

Drawing these shapes was fun, but it was also frustrating because I couldnā€™t quite get the shading right. I used the ruler tool in Sketches Pro to make the lines in the triangular prism and the cube. There is even a ruler tool for circles. Ā If you angled your Apple Pencil a certain way, you could shade using the pencil brush. You can see the blue in the background, which was water colour. Drawing shapes isnā€™t my favourite type of drawing, but it is good to come back to every once in a while.

 

WORD ART

I have actually always liked word art. I think it is cool to take a word or a name, and then turn it into a creative piece of art. I chose to draw my name in bubble letters. I used bubble letters a lot in previous years, and they are getting easier to do.

In the background I drew flowers using my favourite brush (Watercolour). Then, I used the pastel and the pen to draw lines that curved around each bump. I think doing that adds interest to the letters, and it makes it pop. This was very fun for me because I feel like there were lots of ways that I could show my personality through the art.

 

ROBOT šŸ¤–

This assignment was actually harder than I thought it would be. I just couldnā€™t think of a good design that would be unique, and have different shapes in it. But, every time I think of robots, I think of the cookie robots from the movie Despicable Me.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā 

So I made a modified version of those! I did it from memory, so the details arenā€™t perfectly accurate. We had to use shapes in our robot, and I used rectangles, circles, and squares. As you can see, The background is watercolour. I used shading in my robot, and I think it turned out pretty good, considering that we only had about 15 minutes to draw this.

FLOWERS šŸ’

As I mentioned before, my favourite brush to use on sketches pro is the watercolour brush. You can choose from different types of sizes, shapes, and opacities. This was not an assignment, but I did this on my own time.

I found that it was a very relaxing and fun way to use the watercolour tool. I have done flowers like this on real paper before, and made cards out of them. Anyways, back to the school work!

 

EMOJI

As you probably know, Emojis are used on apple devices. Emojis are an effective way to show your thoughts, feelings, or add emphasis to things. In this assignment, we were told to draw an emoji. We could make one up, or draw one that already exists. I chose to do this one: šŸ˜¬.

I am not very proud of the way that it turned out, and I think I could have made it neater. I could clean it up a bit. But like many things, there is room for improvement. It was hard to make it match the inspo picture in the top right corner, but I think it still resembles the original emoji.

 

LOGO

This was the last drawing of the week, and I was excited about this one. We were given an outline, and told to fill it out. We had to think of a business, the purpose of it, a catchphrase, and most importantly, a name! My business was called Surfā€™s Up, Merch Up. It sells merch my favourite movie called Surfā€™s Up. The merch features Chicken Joe. He is, in my opinion the best character.(He is!)

 

I was quite proud of this actually. I liked the vibe that I chose, and the colour scheme. I feel like the vibe matches the movie. I think that it also looks like a sticker, because of the light blue outline. Overall, I think this was my most successful drawing so far!

THANK YOU!

I hope you enjoyed that summary! Make sure to stay tuned for more posts!

 

WHY DOES THE PAST MATTER ANYWAYS?

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Surprisingly, we have learned a LOT from the past. You may have never thought about it, but in this project we dove into the past and how it affects us today. Keep reading to find out for yourself! šŸ˜

Here is a medevial portrait (Yes, that is actually my face). Ā Read about the process down below ā¬‡ļøĀ 

DRIVING QUESTION

Every project we have a driving question. It is used to quite us through the project. Everything that we did connected back to the driving question. The driving question was, ā€™What can we learn from the past and why does it matter to us today?ā€™ā€™ I think that this was a good driving question, because it really gets you to think deeply into the question. I used this as my guide for the whole project.

THE BOOK OF THE LION

For this project we had to read a book called The Book Of The Lion by Michael Cadnum. The book is about a boy in medieval times who got recruited to join the crusades. His name was Edmund. The book shows how people lived, and what their worldview was back then. I learned a lot about medieval times. I learned about religion, rights, economy, the society, and so much more. Ā My opinion on the book: To be honest, this was not my favourite book and I found it hard to follow. But it was different for everyone. With each section, we had to do a role sheet. Here is one of my role sheets: In this one, we had to draw a picture related to the reading, so I chose to draw a horse being beaten up, because in one scene, Hubert tries to stop a man beating up his horse. I think this book was good to help us learn about medevial times, and the role sheets helped us too.

LEADERS TRIBUTE

We did lots of research about different world leaders in the past, and how their actions affected us today. Many of them made lasting impacts to our world today. We researched about Genghis khan. He was a very bloodthirsty, and innovative leader. He made lasting impacts because he created the Mongolian empire.

Then Tyler, Cece, an I created a tribute to him. We could make a bill with his face on it, a drawing, a slideshow, e.t.c. But we chose to make a musical. Iā€™m not sure that it was very informational, but it was good for the 20 minutes that we got to make it. A017C141-7A36-491A-9E0A-BBFC4AD056E8

This assignment gave me a good idea of how one leader can turn into the leader of multiple countries by gaining followers and using their power.

 

SKETCH AND TELL

This assignment was a short activity that didnā€™t take long. We were assigned a partner to sit across from. We had 10 minutes to draw a quick sketch about how we think societies rise and fall. When we finished the drawing, we shared it with out partner, and then wrote a paragraph about the drawing, and how we think societies rise and fall. Here is the paragraph I wrote:

Societies rise and fall for different reasons. I find that the most common reasons are anger, religion, power and land.Ā 

We know that leaders and their societies rise and fall. But do we know why and how? This drawing shows a leader who’s land spans across a large portion of the world. But there is another society who almost has the same amount of land. The red leader is more dominant, and wants to maintain their land, so then conflict happens. There are a few things that fuel war and crusades: Anger, Religion, Power, and land. All of those ideas fuel conflict. And that conflict leads to war. The more that they fight, the more that the societies slowly fall apart. Anger is something that is very delicate, and something that must be used wisely. In the drawing, you can see the leader is very angry with the other side, and that fuelled him to fight. Next up is religion. Religion is a very important thing for societies. These days we can pick which religions to follow, but back then Christian leaders ran crusades that killed and attacked just to make everyone Christian. Power is definitely part of society. I think it is important for there to be organization, and a good leader for societies. But it should be fair. My last idea is land. I feel like this is an obvious one because depending on how much land you had, the more powerful you were back then.Ā 

Those are some ideas and thoughts I had about how societies rise and fall. In my drawing I represented each aspect.

ARTWORK CHOICE CHART

This assignment was for us to lay out the aspects of medevial worldview. We chose a piece of medevial art for each aspect, and we incorporated it into our final product in a creative way. For each piece of art, we had to explain why this would be the best fit, and also why we chose it. We had to include links and the image had to be Creative Commons license. The time period was 1000 to 1300. This assignment helped me to understand how I was going to lay out my artwork. It also helped me to stay organized.

 

FINAL PRODUCT

Finally, we made it to the end.

Well, not quiteā€¦.. I still had to assemble my personalized medieval art! In order to creat our art, we had to learn how to use SuperimposeX. It is an editing app that, after some practice, is very easy to use. It is a very fun app to explore, and our whole class had fun with it šŸ˜‚.Ā  Ā I learned how to mask things, layer, and edit. āœļø This is how we put together our art. You can see in my art that I included many small things from my artwork choice chart. I tried my best to blend in my hair and face. The cross represents religion in medevial times, the paper represents knowledge, the map is geography, e.t.c.

This is a paragraph about the art that I wrote before that answers the driving question, and it is based off of society:

We have learned from the medieval times because their actions taught us ways to organize our society, and society connects to the aspects of my artwork piece. Society is a big part of a civilization, and it shapes our worldview and much of our actions. The actions of the past shape the future. Have you ever wondered about medieval times and how it has affected us today? Well before this project, I have too. After some research, reading the Book Of The Lion, and making ourselves into paintings, I have finally began to understand how their actions back then have impacted us now. I found three supporting details to incorporate into my painting. I discovered that all three of them play a part in society. The first one that I chose was Beliefs. Beliefs are something that a society relies on, because it is important for everyone to believe in what they want to. Back then, they were essentially forced to believe in Christianity. There was no freedom in beliefs back then. Today, you can choose what you want to believe in. The next Idea that I had was Economy. Back then, people would travel on boats to trade. Trading was very important, and still is because that is how you would eat and get basic needs. Today, we can just go to the grocery store and buy whatever we need. They didnā€™t use currency until later on because they traded with goods.Trading was a big part of the society and still is today. Back then, I would have had to trade my prized belongings even if I just got hungry. The third supporting idea that I had was Knowledge. Without knowledge, we would be nowhere. Knowledge is something that you gain from experiences, other people, and reading. You can gain knowledge in other ways too, but those are most common for me. Back then one of the big ways that they learned was from reading. That is something that stayed until today, and will forever be affected. In my worldview, I believe that reading is a skill that will be effective for me all through life. Societies need knowledge in order to keep going. Knowledge is something that stays with you and helps you with life. In my painting I will incorporate all these things creatively, and put my face into the painting. Those are some ideas that I had about how the past affects the future and what has stayed the same or changed. There are other ideas too, but those are some. Making this art piece has helped me gain knowledge about all of those things, while challenging me to create something that will be interesting.

 

REFLECTION

Ok, now its almost over for real šŸ˜…. This whole project has really got me thinking into the past, and why the actions of the past have affected us today. We need to learn from our past actions, and take what we know so we can change it for the better. It is important to make up for mistakes, and learn from them. Even if I didnā€™t enjoy the book as much as I would have liked to, I enjoyed the process of the whole project. The medieval times were very interesting to learn about, and I am glad that we got to learn about it. It is important to know how the world has changed, and how to accept it. Ā Overall, I really enjoyed this project, and I know way more about worldview and the past. This post has helped me understand the answer to the driving question. I explained how the leaderā€™s actions reflect on us today, and it matters to us today because it is up to us to make decisions and we use knowledge of the past in our everyday life. In this project, I strived to do the best I could, and show my understanding the best I could.

 

THANK YOU FOR READING! šŸ“–

 

How can a text help me understand myself as my worldview is changing?

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WHAT IS WORLDVIEW? WHAT IS MY WORLDVIEW?

Donā€™t worry! Youā€™re not alone. Those were some of the big questions that I had before this project. But along the way, I learned what worldview actually is, and I learned how experiences, beliefs, and actions are only some things that shape a personā€™s worldview. It is a confusing thing, and everyoneā€™s worldview is constantly changing. In example, my worldview has changed in so many ways since the end of grade 7. I went on a trip to Europe (check out my blog on that), which really gave me perspective on how different people live in the world. Reading the outsiders taught me how bad some people have it, and how fortunate we are here.Ā 

THE OUTSIDERS

The Outsiders was set in The 1960s, and it is about of gang of boys. Three brothers live alone, and they face many challenges, and have to fend for themselves. Many of the gang members are thiefā€™s. And the gang vandalizes, steals, and much more. I thought that this book was a good read, and I do recommend it. It taught me a lot about perspective, and how things were back then. Every week we had to do a role sheet about the section that we read.Ā 

Ā We had to do many other small assignments that helped us think deeply into the idea of worldview in the outsiders, and in general. Here are some of the projects we did along the way: Worldview MindNode, Song lyrics, and finally, the end result. You can watch the final result here šŸ‘‡

 

 

MUSIC VIDEO

 

Keep reading to learn about the other assignments, and the process of creating the song šŸŽ¶Ā 

DRIVING QUESTION

The driving question for this project was:How can a text help me understand myself as my worldview is changing? Here is the paragraph I wrote about the driving question.

WORLDVIEW MINDNODE

This was one of the first assignments, and it was mainly to help us understand our worldviews.Ā For each section we had to write down a statement, and a personal experience or connection that we have with the statement. The sections were: Time, Geography, Society, Beliefs, Values, Economy, and Knowledge. This task really helped me piece together the idea of worldview. I think it was very helpful. Right now I don’t think that there is anything that I would do differently in this project, and I am proud of it. (This image quality is not very good)Ā 

ROLE SHEETS

Every week we had to do a role sheet. It was reflecting on the section of the book I read, and it helps go into depth with your thinking. This was one sheet called the coder. We had to draw two mini drawings and paste in the quote that we based it off. We then had to explain why we did it, and why we thought it was fitting. These role sheets were designed for our group discussions, and they are interesting to share with your group. Everyone always has different opinions and ideas, so it makes a good discussion. I feel like doing the role sheets every week and hearing my group memberā€™s ideas helped me understand the book way better.

 

 

 

SONG LYRICS

As we got closer to the end, we created a draft of our song. We had to re-create ā€˜Itā€™s The End Of The World As We Know Itā€™ by REM. The lyrics had to represent our transition into high school, and our changing worldview.I created my first draft, dreading the moment when we had to make individual music videos.I did NOT want to sing it alone. The day we handed it in, we were told that we were going to be put into groups to make a music video together.

Group: Chloe, Marcus and Madeline (me)

I was very relieved šŸ˜…! But that meant that we had to create new lyrics, to be a mix of all our previous lyrics. It was pretty challenging to blend it all together, but after lots of thinking we got it all figured out. I have to say, it was way smoother all blended together. Ā 

To hear the lyrics all put together, watch the music video up above!

 

MUSIC VIDEO

Finally, after all the work, we were on the final stretch. The most challenging part was recording on garage band. I think we re-recorded about 4 times. It was hard to all be on time, and we were having technical difficulties so that also set us back a bit. When we finished recording we inserted the song into iMovie. My group and I sent pictures of us all the way from toddlers to now. We used a shared album on the photos app, and shared that way. We added the pictures to the song, and finally, our group had successfully created a movie video!! šŸŽ‰ Check out my Youtube video above! Overall, I really enjoyed the process of this project, and I feel like I understand my worldview a lot more.

THANK YOU

 

Who Am I As A PLP Learner?

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(Click on the video above to check out my Youtube video! It is my Keynote presentation about Becoming a PLP Learner)

 

This is my very first reflection post, and I wanted to share it with you. Ā The project was called Becoming a PLP Learner, and I wanted to show you guys! The driving question was:Ā  Who Am I As A PLP Learner. The project consisted of many smaller assignments. I learned to use many tools, and applications that I have never used before. I really enjoyed this project. I could definitely improve on things in the future, but for now this is what I have done. Click on the video above to check out my Youtube video. It is my Keynote presentation about Becoming a PLP Learner. Here are the assignments:

ME-EMOJI ANIMATION

We were assigned to make a Memoji that looks like us, and insert it to our keynote presentation with a laptop. On the laptop we had to make digital stickers of images, logos, or things that are important to us. After that, we had to animate the stickers so they spin, bounce, e.t.c. I had some difficulty with making the stickers animated, but after some troubleshooting, we figured it out. Here is a picture of my Memoji: Ā 

WORDPACK

The next thing that we did was make a Wordpack in the Wordpack application. It is an app where you type in words, choose a shape, choose colour combinations, and change the font. It is useful if you want to use a creative way of displaying words. We had to pick words that describe us in ā€˜I Amā€™ statements. I thought that this app was pretty cool, and I will definitely use it again.

I AM DOODLE

This assignment also tied into the ā€˜I Amā€™ statements. We had to take a selfie of ourselves doing somethings that we love, or something that describes us. We then had to add doodles of the thing we were doing in the selfie, and write an ā€˜I Amā€™ statement. Here is mine:

 

USER MANUAL

One of the tasks that we were assigned was to create a user manual about ourselves. We had to refer to ourselves as a ā€˜deviceā€™ and create the ā€˜instructionsā€™. It was a cool thing to write about, and I enjoyed it. Check it out here:

About Me

REFLECTION

Who am I as a PLP learner?
I think that I am curious, open minded, and determined. There is more work in PLP, but I am learning how to manage my work with my extracurricularā€™s. At the start of the year, I thought I would have to spend way more time on homework, but now that Iā€™ve been in PLP Iā€™ve come to realize that I can use my time wisely and complete tasks. I think that I bring some good skills to the PLP learning team, including my sense of humour, my creativeness, my ability to concentrate and listen, being encouraging, and more. I have had to refine and learn many skills so far. Some of them have been learning how to use all the new apps for drawing, presenting, music making, and lots more! I have had trouble itā€™s a few of the apps being confusing, but I troubleshooted and figured it out. My teachers have been quite helpful and patient, so that helps with my work. This will change throughout the years, but for now this is how I am reflecting on this project!

(Ps. Check out my blog!)

THANKS!