Well, it’s the last post of this astoundingly work-filled PLP quarter, and I couldn’t be more relieved. I can’t wait for this weekend, and I intend to enjoy as much as possible. Our hands will rest, our minds will calm, our bodies will relax. I’ve never had this much work in school before, and I hope I never will again.

Anyways, we need to actually get this post started, so let’s get on with it. The project that this post is about is called “the case for a nation.” In this project, we made 1 video per week, and might I add, in my case, sometimes stayed up until 1:40 am doing it, or for some others, 4:00 am. The project was based on nationalism, and without further ado, our driving question is: “how can an understanding of nationalism in the past help us understand today?”

This project consisted of, every week, learning about different examples of nationalism, creating a story mountain (method of organizing story), a screenplay (script of a sort), and storyboard (visual idea of a story), then filming a video based on all of these things. First was an animatics video based on our chosen case study of nationalism (Crimean war for me). Then, we did a tutorial video of how to create Canadian confederation. We then proceeded to film an explainer video to educate the viewer on oppression in Canada, and topped it all off with a cumulative video taking pieces from any point in the 4 weeks we worked on this project, and made a video of a parent reacting to it. 

Finally, we will talk about the dreadful curricular competencies, of which there are many. We’ll start with empowered learner (the use of technology to create a project). My performance on this competency was mediocre; I could have done better by putting in more effort, but I did some pretty creative things. We’ve also got designing texts (pretty self-explanatory) I was acceptable, albeit minimally, in this regard. My reason for saying this is that I did what needed to be done, but really nothing more. We must also talk about identifying continuity and change (finding out what has changed and stayed the same). There was plenty of room for improvement here, specifically in the sense of making it a goal, and not just essentially ignoring it. Finally, we have using evidence/resources. (Finding facts from reliable sources). Now, I’ve always trusted in the information stored in my brain, and thus I avoid other  sources, and by extension, more work, as much as possible, resulting in a somewhat lacklustre execution of this area of learning.

Well, that’s the end of that post, and the end of this quarter’s PLP classes, which means no more posts for a few months. See you then, and, well, you know how this post ends.

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BROFIST!

An award-winning project fuses together with overworked, depressed, mentally unstable schoolchildren. Yes, it’s me again, and yes, I’m talking about the critically acclaimed “Rise of the Frankenstuffies.” This is a project where we take our beloved stuffed animals that comforted us from a very young age… and then brutally butcher and dissect them, finishing only when we stitch them back together. It’s not JUST that, mind you, we also have to relate our creation to the industrial Revolution. We would then write a story, and finally, make a video.

Now, we have to do it. The disappointing part of this post, the curricular competencies. Creative communicator is our first one, and I did ok on it. I used technology in a decent way, but I could’ve put in some more effort. Next we have designing texts, I did pretty good, due to the fact that I planned everything in my writing quite well, but there was room for improvement. Then there’s comprehending texts. I have a large vocabulary, and comprehension has always been one of my strong suits. Finally, there’s analyzing cause and consequence. I did quite well on this competency, and this was because I know quite a lot on the subjects we learned, and that’s that.

That’s the end of this post, overall, great project, and I would happily do it again. Until next time.

*brofist*

Welcome back everyone! It’s… me. An average human being writing a perfectly normal blog post who definitely does NOT have a gun pointed at him right now. Now that we have that aside… STORM THE BARRICADES!!! TAKE BACK OUR FREEDOM!!! VIVA LA REVELUCIÓN!!!

This project is all about revolution, cause and consequence, historical significance, and being horribly overworked. In short, we learned about a man named Crane Brinton’s theory of revolutions, and how they all follow a common pattern. Next, we examined the American Revolution, then the French Revolution. For each revolution, we created a Rube Goldberg machine, and an accompanying video. We also created a couple of paragraphs, and a final video of a Rube Goldberg machine representing Crane Brinton’s theory, as well as the American and French Revolutions to top it all off.

First and foremost, my group member’s names. That would be Randy, Logan, and Indy. With that out of the way, it’s time to show some evidence of learning. Now, we did a lot to get to this point, and first of all, I would like to show our storyboard, the plan for our video. It shows what we planned… but perhaps not what went down.

Now, here’s our final video, the product that took a truckload of time, and caused inconceivable amounts of stress to finish on time. This is where all of our work culminated, and where we FINALLY came to catch up with the impossible time management expectations

Now it’s time to talk about that one thing we’ve all been dreading: the curricular competencies! First off we’ve got designing texts. This one was probably my strongest of them, due to the fact that I was the main scriptwriter and storyboarder, which I did well on. Next we’ve got establishing historical significance. I did decent on it, the reasoning behind that being I knew some history, learned some history, and was able to single out what was important, but didn’t apply myself too much. After that we’ve got analyzing cause and consequence. My performance on this particular competency was mediocre. I did a fair job overall, but there was room for improvement. Creative communicator is next up, and I would give myself a solid “meh” on this one. It’s not that I didn’t use the technology, it’s more that I wasted my time for significant chunk of the day. Finally, we’ve a need to discuss discussing, listening, and speaking. I did a pretty good job on this one, if only for the reason that I was the main voice-over actor speaking in the videos.

That concludes this perfectly normal blog post. Overall, I did minimally acceptable on this project, and naturally, as always, there is a vast amount of room for improvement, particularly in the area of effort.

*brofist*

It has been a long time everyone, welcome back to my blog. I haven’t made a post in quite a while, but I will make one (albeit a bit late) right now! Today, I will talk about an interesting project in which we worked our fingers to the bone… the teachers REALLY wanted us to get our work done quickly.

Running a remake was a project where the basic idea was that we would watch a short film by the name of run, and with our group, attempt to recreate this film. First and foremost, I need to give credit to my group. Their names are Erin, Julien, Ryder, and Quinn. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic we are currently going through, we have been using a new layout of class times and sections of school. To be more specific, we would usually have school split into 3 terms, each ending with a break. 1st term ends with 2 weeks of winter break, 2nd term ends with 2 weeks of spring break, and 3rd term ends with 2 months of summer break. Normally, each day we would have 4 classes, and we would rotate our 8 different classes with each other. Each term would have a different elective class which would be chosen by us. Now, we have 2 classes per day, same 2 classes for the entire quarter. Because of this, our PLP (performance learning program) teachers have decided that we need to try to complete our projects in a much shorter amount of time.

In PLP, we believe it is of the utmost importance to show and reflect on your learning, and so I will do that now. Nothing can show one’s learning better than plans one’s project, and the finished product. Because of this, here is our storyboard for the project. Essentially, this is the plan for the video we made.

We also have, of course, a finished product. I was the main actor in this project, though I don’t know if I was really THAT useful outside of that, more on that later. I will now show this video of our project next to the original video, try not to cringe.

I believe that these two things are strong evidence of our learning, and I believe it is now time to talk about ME specifically. I’m talking about our curricular competencies, of course. I’m not going to go on ANOTHER ego trip, no one wants that. Let’s start with our one and only core competency: innovative designer. I think I did fairly decent on this one, as I was essentially the solution to the simple problem of: who is willing to act out the main character? I’ve always thought of myself as an ok actor, and it would appear many people agree with me. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get out of acting this out even if I wanted to!

That concludes this blog post concerning our remake of the short film: “RUN!” I found this to be an enjoyable, relaxed, project, despite the strict time limitations and criteria. That will be a… common theme in future blog posts, except I won’t mention being relaxed. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and farewell!

SIKE!

*brofist*

It’s finally time, the blog post you’ve all been waiting for: the Tpol blog post. All my time in 8th grade PLP has come to this, and I’ll try to make this one better than the last one. As John Dewey once said: “We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience”.

I would like to talk about something positive to begin with: destination imagination. I felt that I did quite well when I was narrating for our group, but I was told I was exceptional. Our regional tournament was sadly not won by us, but we were good about it. I know, however, that I could have improved my costume and script, so that’s exactly what I did. I changed from just a hoodie and sweatpants to a safari outfit. I made suggestions to my group members, listened to what they had to say, and overall just did my best to contribute. Our second presentation, the provincial tournament, was online. The reason? The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. Regardless, we adapted to the situation quickly and effectively, and thus improved greatly. Adaptation is a vital trait for any leader. It has become more important in these times than it had been for several years, if not decades.

When it comes to my blog posts, I have always tried to use as much humour as possible. I have many reasons for this, which I will explain. Now, you might be wondering, “how is this relevant?” Well, it’s relevant because I need to talk about things I’m proud of, and because I need content in this post. I focus on making posts funny because I want to express myself, so that nobody has to read another generic post, and they can see a little bit about me. Another reason is that my teachers have to sit through more than 20 of these posts, and that’s my class alone! I want them to be a little less bored, so they’re motivated to keep going. When someone’s  life can be a little dull sometimes, it’s always nice to brighten it up a little. I essentially just don’t wanna make it torturous to read my posts, so I try to keep them short, simple, and funny. If you want examples, look at any of my posts: particularly the earlier ones.

I truly do value all of the technical skills I have learned from my first of hopefully many years of PLP. I know 10 times as much as I did before on the subject, and it’s just incredible what I’ve taken away from this. I do hope I will be considered for PLP next year, and I say goodbye for the summer. Except, I say it how I always have, and always will. No matter what happens, no matter how much I change, I will always end the post with the nostalgia-inducing, pirated, trademark of this post the thing you all know and love.

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*brofist*

You can’t stop me. I don’t choose this anyway. I’m gonna do a few more school posts. After that, well, let’s be real here, I’m not going to use this blog until I have to start doing it again. That’s not what this post is about, mind you. I’m here to talk about my project, which is officially called: Argh Matey!

this project was actually a joint project between the school subjects of maker (ADST, sort of), and Scimatics (science and math). No, these aren’t normal Canadian school subjects, but rather, part of the PLP (Performance Learning Program) program that I’m in. This project, despite it’s name, focused on the age of exploration. Our end goal was to make a comic book about a famous explorer, and a disease that they would carry. It didn’t have to be 100% historically accurate, for example, the disease didn’t necessarily have to be one that this particular explorer contracted. The disease aspect was, unsurprisingly, the Scimatics part of it. That means, obviously, the explorer aspect of it was the maker contribution. We attended online classes throughout the project, instead of our regular classes.

Now, of course, I have to talk about my project specifically. First of all, click here. You don’t have to, but I recommend it. Second, you might be wondering about the picture above. That’s a rough representation of the disease, smallpox, which I picked for this project. My explorer was a French man named Jacques Cartier. The basic idea of the story is that he arrives in North America, accidentally gives smallpox to a native chief, killing him. That invokes the anger of the Iroquois native people, who end up in conflict with Cartier and his explorers, Cartier is saved from the disease by modern medicine, and leaves. Here’s a link to my book.

Now, the part that I never wanna do, but always do anyway because it’s important: The curricular competencies. Our first one, the easy one to explain, is establishing historical significance. I did pretty good on this one. Why, you may ask? Well, it’s because I focused on important events that actually happened, such as the accidental naming of Canada, or the angering of the Iroquois people. As for the other one, connecting, I did pretty good as well. This is because I listened to the feedback I received, and I was aware of my connection to the story.

That concludes this blog post that I almost accidentally deleted, but saved. I end it off the same way no matter what though, a big, ole…

*brofist*

I’m gonna do it. It’s not what you wanna see, I know, but I have to post this kinda stuff. It’s not my choice. Why? Well let’s just say I will neither confirm nor deny that I’m writing this while being held at gunpoint. Anyway, here’s what this project is about. We were asked to create a cover of a certain song, to be specific, It’s the end of the world as we know it by R.E.M, a song of pure nonsense in my opinion. To say I’m 100% finished this would be incorrect, I know, I know, but that’s not the point right now. Because I’m about to talk about it so I can go to bed.

now, I would like to say that this was a team project, and we worked well enough together to not be at each other’s throats all the time. In the end, I take full responsibility for our failure to finish, and while my teammates don’t deserve the blame for the failure of the group, they DO deserve recognition. They go by the names of Keenan, Dries, and Little Timmy.

Anyway, curricular competencies. First we have create. This one I didn’t do TOO bad on, although it was incomplete, I also was able to create some content, and get that done. ‘Nuff said. Second, we have cause and consequence. I think not only did I figure out some causes and consequences of the renaissance, I learned the cause and consequences of my failure.

finally, I can go to bed. It’s been exhausting making 3 blog posts tonight, but I’ve managed it. It’s done. Goodbye and…

*brofist*

Should this have been posted a while ago? Yep. Should I be broadcasting this to everyone? Probably not. Do I have any sense of shame? Barely. Am I going to do another boring school post? You bet I am! If you’re wondering what D.I is, you haven’t been paying attention to my posts, or those of my classmates. D.I is a tournament of creativity, or a nerd competition depending on who you ask. The rules are simple, follow your challenge guidelines, don’t get any interference, and try your best to look like you’re having fun.

My team was the same as it was for the online sequel to this tournament. Liam, Raymond, Ryder, and Julien. However, if you want to see someone else click here. Or not, if you don’t want to. As I’ve previously established, our team works really well together. We all respect and listen to each other’s ideas, and never just flat-out tell someone: no, that idea is stupid. You suck. After you have achieved mutual respect, there is nothing getting in the way of true teamwork.

now, the part I’ve been dreading. While I’m almost done this blog post, I have another to do before I can go to bed. I don’t like doing this at night. It’s almost over. And to introduce the beginning of the end, here’s our curricular competency: research and understand. I did pretty terrible on the research part of this, due to my lack of research, but when it comes to understanding, I did good, as all my information came from my head.

that concludes this blogpost. Oh wait, it doesn’t. This does.

*brofist*

Come on, be patient. I mean, more patient than you already have been. It won’t be much longer now. I have to do, like, 5 more school blog posts after this one, and then I’m done for at least 2 months. Actually, maybe more like 4, but that’s besides the point. What is the point you may ask? Well, it’s talking about my photo essay. Let me explain. A photo essay is a story told with pictures, although captions are involved, photos are the main focus, For obvious reasons. It’s as they say, a picture is worth 1000 words.

My project specifically was called The Isolated Captures, but I’m sure any of my classmates will have a drastically different theme to theirs. My theme in particular is isolation and emptiness (like my love and social lives). I used the concept of the world left with an unimaginable void of power after the loss of earth’s dominant species, humans. As the world is reclaimed by nature, and the cities overgrown, the next intelligent species (almost definitely evolved chimps) is left to speculate about what could possibly have inhabited this world.

and now, the part when everyone but the teachers clicks off: the curricular competencies. First part of the dreadful duo, being an empowered learner. I didn’t do too great on this one to be honest. My reasoning behind saying this is that I didn’t really research anything at all to make my photo essay, and this didn’t learn using technology. The second of the terrible two is being an active digital citizen. I did good at this one. Saying this was the obvious choice because I have stayed in contact with others throughout the project, before and after, asking for help when needed.

that wraps up this tedious task, and I close it off with the natural way, which, by this point you’ll either find annoying, or vital.

*brofist*

Now, I know, you’re going to ask why I keep doing these school posts, but let’s just throw that aside for now, and talk about what needs to be said. The DI provincial tournament. Now, if I haven’t said it before, DI stands for destination imagination, which is essentially a competition for creativity. I’m pretty sure that I’ve made a post on the regional tournament, but it may have been corrupted, because I can’t find it, but I’m SURE I made it. Honestly, I am. (Checked this later on, I was completely wrong) So, we spent a lot of time making our projects (it was a team project, more on that later), and we were pretty proud of it. We didn’t want to have to go to the regional tournament, no one did, but then, disaster struck! The covid-19 pandemic hit, and well, to be honest, hit moderately hard (I’ve heard some people say that it’s worse than the Spanish flu, which is absolutely not even remotely true whatsoever). So, of course, our tyrant overlords (teachers) made us do it online (Teachers, if you’re reading this, that was a joke).

Now, about my team. First of all, you deserve to know their names. That would be Liam, Raymond, Ryder, and Julien. We worked really well together, at least, in my opinion, as there weren’t any arguments or anything of the sort. Instead, we built on each other’s ideas, suggested new ones, and respected each other in general. While there is always room for improvement, in this case there was a lot less room than there usually is in any group I’m in (I’m not that easy to get along with). There weren’t any power struggles whatsoever, because we all understood our skills and the skills of those around. Overall, we were quite amazing. I can honestly say that, and if you’ve seen any blog post I’ve made for school, you’ll know I’m usually hard on myself. If you’re talking student blogging challenge posts, however, I’m an egotistical maniac who treats everyone like my peasant underlings.

Now to talk about the curricular competencies. I hate this part. I really do. It’s not a choice though. First and only one is research and understand. I’d say I did well on this one, due to the fact that I was able to do the research to make my presentation better, and applied it and what I already knew to our different setup online.

that concludes this school post. Don’t worry people, all the school posts will soon be over. Just one more month, then it’s all done. Just you wait.

*brofist*