Month: June 2016

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SLC #17839

I’m sure by now you all know what an SLC is, but if you are new here and have absolutely no idea what I am talking about then I will explain. An SLC stands for student led conference or in other words it is a small presentation where we as students show some other blog posts about our learning and growth throughout the year and present it to our parents and teachers. It gives us an opportunity to praise ourselves on work we our most proud of and reflect on what we could have improved on.

Personally these presentations are not my favourite thing in the world, but they are doable and aren’t that much of a hassle and honestly a really good thing to do to end the year. As well as it gives me a chance to improve my presentation skills some more. I remember when I did my first SLC ever in grade 9 I was shaking in my boots from fear. Now that I am on my fourth SLC coming up to present is a breeze.

Now below are my three blog posts that I will be presenting for my SLC. The first something I am most proud of from this final term. The second, a piece of work that needed improvement. Finally a blog post about a review of the year, which in my opinion was the most fun to write out of the three.

1. Most Proud of: LBS Civil Rights

2.Needed Improvement: Blue Sky Design

3. Review of the Year

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Little (Great) Big Story

Normally when we get the option to choose whatever we want to do for a project most people go with videos where as I normally go with a safer and smaller root to show my learning. This time for our project we all had to create two short, entertaining videos. Now when I first started this project I was unsure on how to even start. That’s probably why it took me so long to get this project finished in the first place.

After many failed attempts at trying to create some product that would be acceptable I finally came up with an idea that could work well. I have never really done a movie of this quality. In fact I think the last movie I made was the Frankenstuffie videos we made at the beginning of grade 9 and we all know how bad that is looking back on it now. When I think about that video I realize how much my video quality has improved over the two years of being in PLP.

I worked for several endless hours revising, adding more, and editing this video and finally came out with a final product that I am proud of. Although I’m sure if I went back and looked at it there would be another million things I would want to change about it to make it look better. Considering I am never one to make movies I really believe that this is one of the videos I am most proud of this year and the piece of work I am most proud of from this final term. image

For this project we had to create a short video about a piece from the Civil Rights movement that is less known about. I chose to make my movie on the story of the two youngest people to march on Bloody Sunday. We had the chance to meet those two ladies a few weeks ago while we were on the south trip which I was really fortunate to be able to have the chance to do that. They were inspirational, moving, and informative and really changed my outlook on the whole event of Bloody Sunday.

Overall I think that this is probably my best movie I have made this year and I worked the hardest on this out of all my projects over term three. There definitely is room for improvement but I am most proud of this product.

 

 

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Grade 10 is Over?

It doesn’t seem real that grade 10 is already over. Everything just flew by. I feel like just yesterday I was getting ready to go on the Victoria trip we took in October. This year has been my favourite school year by far for many reasons and I’m sad to see it come to an end. On the other hand I am very excited to see what next year will bring me.

Having the privilege to be in the PLP program for the second year in a row really opened up my mind to a new way of thinking. This year we learned a new concept to me called growth mindset. It really helped me to better understand a new way of thinking and to grow as a learner. Also we continued on using the term growth mindset throughout the year whenever people were thinking that they couldn’t do something. This surprisingly did help me to push myself beyond the point of wanting to give up and made it easier to keep going and finishing my work.image

The trips we went on this year helped me to become closer to my fellow classmates as well as further my learning on the topics we were studying in class. For example on the Seattle trip we went on in September I learned a lot more about the idea of being a maker and how I can create ideas that can turn into magnificent projects. Then when we went on the Victoria trip I learned a lot about the Gold Rush from visiting the Royal BC Museum.image

I feel like I have learned a lot this year in many different aspects. Not just by absorbing new facts and information, but learning about different styles to present my products and I can’t forget about the many ways I learned how to show my learning.

Procrastination has definitely been something that happened a lot this year with me. I honestly think I procrastinated almost every project we did this year which only made things more challenging for me. Although as we got closer to the end of the year I really felt more pressure and put my head down and got all my work completed. I know after this year that I need to fix this by creating a schedule and finding a place without distractions to get all my work done. Next year will not be the same because I don’t think I would be able to handle another year of waiting until the last minute.image

Over the year I feel I have come a long way in how comfortable I am with speaking up and presenting. This was made possible by the major support I got from my teachers and from all of my classmates and friends. Doing presentations is no longer a worry for me and I haven’t felt nervous for a presentation since my last SLC. I am quite proud of myself for overcoming almost completely my nervousness for presenting.

Overall this year was a great year. I got closer and more comfortable with my class mates, I developed my movie making skills, my writing skills, and especially my presenting skills. I also learned how to manage my time a bit better then last year, although we all know that still needs a lot of work to fix completely.

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Blue Sky: Round Two

Last year I remember how proud I was of my blue sky project and how hard I had worked on it. This year I didn’t spend as much time focusing on this project as I was also focusing on three other projects at the same time as this one. Although I did work really hard on this project it definitely was a last minute idea being that I only came up with the idea for my project two weeks before the exhibition where as most people had there ideas a month in advance.

I feel like one of the main reasons why this project was not one of my proudest piece of work was because the idea I had for the project was just hard to work with and was too simple with no depth or challenge to it. This could have been fixed if I had come up with ideas for the project earlier instead of later. My idea for the project was to create a Swiss Army knife phone case but using tools that would be useful to teens in the Swiss Army knife instead. This idea I was actually happy with but realized when I started making it that it was way too complicated for the amount of time I had given myself to work on it. This meant that I had to alter the idea slightly to turn it into something a bit more simple and easier to create.

My final product ended up being a wallet phone case but inside of the wallet were allotted slots which held helpful tools that teens would use on their daily basis. It wasn’t at all what I expected it to be but I worked hard in making it and it came out pretty well. Although I do believe that there was a lot of room for improvement. If I had the chance to go back in time and fix any project this year I would choose to improve my blue sky.image

I would make it so that I could’ve made my original idea for the product. Also I would’ve worked harder on making the movie instead of just putting my time lapses and some photos of the process together with some music. It was acceptable but it wasn’t something that I would say I am most proud of. Although the exhibition night is a different story.

On the night of the exhibition our group really worked hard in transforming our space to fit our theme of PNE exhibition hall, or what we called The Hall of Bazar. We all came together to get everything in place and looking great. Also I presented my product well to people who came by to look at it. That part of the Blue Sky project I was proud of, the actual product I made, not as much.

Overall I think that I worked hard on this project but it didn’t turn out the way I had hoped it would. It needed a lot of improvement and I wish I would’ve worked harder on this or started a few weeks earlier then the final product could’ve been what I had hoped for.