Well, here we go again. Before I start, I just want to say welcome to my blog! Anyways, that’s not the main reason(no offence). The main reason is about mPols. Well, if you don’t know what it is, I’ll explain it to you. Also, I did one of these last year as well if you want to check that out. Anyways, let’s jump right into this blog post.

In PLP, we have to do something called the Presentation of Learning. It’s separated into two parts. The mid term presentation of learning and the transition presentation of learning. In this post, it’ll be about the mid term presentation of learning which is the mPol. So what exactly is this mPol thing? Well, it’s quite simple actually but when you start to present it’s not. Each year, we have a driving question to our presentations. This year it’s “How can I improve as a learner by the end of the year?” Or that might be the question to all mPols. Who knows? Anyways, basically all we have to do is talk about our work and how we improved. Talk about work that we’re proud of and we’re not. Talk about the driving question. Show some evidence of how you improved from the beginning of the year till now. But most importantly, we need to ask our parents and teachers a question. Each person will have a different one. The question relates to the driving question. My is… you have to wait for the end.

PGP

Now moving onto something new this year that I want to talk about and that is PGP. Personal Growth Plan. This is a new course that was added into PLP this year. PGP allows us to create goals, keep track of goals, and achieve goals. We were given a Journal to record down all of our goals. In our Journal, we have to do something called Forms. The forms are questions we get from a book we read. The book is called “What Do You Really Want?” The forms are supposed to help us reach our goal. It’s basically a goal tracker. The next thing is weekly reviews. These are things we do at the end of each week. It’s basically a reflection of the week. We also had to do something called a dream board. A dream board is about yourself and things that are connected to you. It can also include your idols, goals, and things you like. That’s basically PGP.

Metaphor Machines 

Now I want to talk about some of the best projects I’ve done this year. One of them is the metaphor machines project. This was indeed a group project and my group included Kiera, Jason, and Emerson. The reason I thought in did well is because we had a lot of trouble with our metaphor machine. Before we go into the details, the project is about Revolutions and Metaphors. Now your probably thinking what the heck does those have anything to do with each other. Well guess what? We were supposed to tell a story about a revolution using metaphors. We also needed to have some sort of circuit that needed to represent something. Anyways, back on track of what I was saying, I thought this was really successful. The teamwork was great, the metaphor machine turn out to be ok, and I was happy with our video. We had a slow start to our research and building but it worked out in the end. One thing I would definitely need to improve on is time management both in school and out of school. Other than that, everything was good. Oh, I forgot to tell you something. PLP 9 is all about Videos and Storytelling. It’s in almost every project! 

Identity

One of the first projects we did. The Identity Project. The reason I chose this project is because it challenging but fun. When we were in Alberta, we were tasked to create a video that explains how land impacts our identity. We had to have interviews with people and we had to film at least three places. We have to explain why each place impacts the people’s identity. We only had one chance to film each place we wanted. So that’s the difficult part. For my video, I did multiple drafts. My first draft was not the greatest. It had an interview that didn’t really work out so I took it out of the video. The second draft was much better. Things were coming along and connecting together. For me, this was an interesting project to do because it helped me develop my video creating skills, editing skills, and filming skills.

Live Event

This one is kinda different. It’s definitely not the best work I’ve done this year. That’s why I want to talk about it. The live event project wasn’t a big project. It was something we had to do in like a week. For this project, we had to film a live event, or create a live event and film it. It can be anything but it had to be live. That means we only got one chance at it. The reason I’m adding this is because this project help me understand better about the Beginning, Middle, and End in each video. That’s because it wasn’t in my first draft. I created a total of 3 drafts. First one was awful, second one was better, and the third one was better than the second. It was the greatest because it was really difficult to get the filming into a story because I did my soccer game so it was hard. Anyways, it had more of a beginning middle and end than my other two drafts.

Winter Exhibition

Exhibition, oh, exhibition. One of the must frustrating projects of the year. What I mean by frustrating is hard to do. The exhibition is basically when we share our learning to the community. The reason I wanted to talk about it is because we had a difficult time working on it. First, it started off with me in a group with Jackson and Caleb. Guess what, it wasn’t the greatest experience. I’m not saying they’re bad people, I’m just saying they’re not the hardest working people. So I had to do most things myself. Then, things started to shift. I was put into another group with Amelia and Lucy. Now that we have a group of five, things were easier. When our group was planning for the exhibition, we didn’t quite get what we wanted. We didn’t get the room we wanted and in fact it was our last choice! During the set up of our room, we also had trouble with our props. Some of the lights broke somehow. Anyways, in the end, it was amazing. Well that was a quick change. You just said it was bad and now it’s good? Well, we spent the whole day setting up our room. We even used our lunch break! Now that’s dedication. That’s also why I want to talk about it. Sometimes you might not get the greatest start but you’ll finish strong.

Reflection

Well, we’ve all come so far. This is now the end. The conclusion. Well, let’s start with things I improved. At the beginning of Grade 8, we had something called the Growth Mindset project. We also had to create photos with a goal on it. My go was getting comfortable presenting in front of teachers and peers. From then till now, I think I can say that I achieved that goal. Based off of my drama presentation, I think it’s done. Now onto other things. Something else I improved is storytelling. Especially the beginning middle and end. Now I know a lot of b-roll(backup footage) will help. Some things I want to improve is probably time blocking and fixing my schedule. My schedule is really full with mainly sports. I need to be able to do good in school without affecting my other actives and health. That’s something I need to improve. So that brings me to an end. How can I improve my learning without affecting my really full schedule and health?