Month: June 2022

Surviving Year 1 of High School (tPols)

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“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.”

This year, I’ve worked really hard and made a lot of progress in my learning. I’ve collaborated, shared ideas, communicated with groups, and created some amazing things that I am very proud of. I would like to share with you how I have grown as a learner and am ready for the transition to grade 9.

Reflecting on my Learning Plan and my growth as a learner

Scimatics

In Scimatics, I forecasted earlier in the year that I would reach a sun as a level of accomplishment. I feel like I have met the bar that I set for myself. I continued to show that I could be a productive and reliable group member when given the opportunity, and always completed my portion of the work. I felt like I made a strong effort to bring ideas to the group for the different projects.

I can continue to work on submitting my work on time. For Scimatics in particular, I struggled to manage my time with assignments and often underestimated how long it would take me to complete the work. I may not have submitted them on time, but I always completed the assignments and tried to do the recommended revisions.

– Chemistry Coding

With the Chemistry Coding assignment, I learned that we will almost never get things right on the first try, and that it will take many revisions to achieve the product that you set out to make in the first place. For example, for this assignment, I had to keep going back into the game to fix bugs and glitches and to make sure that it met the criteria.

Humanities

For Humanities, I think one of my greatest skills was in understanding new ideas quite quickly. For example, during the Working with Words project, we learned a lot of new types of poems and I was able to grasp the major concepts in a short amount of time and come up with my own examples of these poems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We used the App Book Creator to create the poem ebook for Working with Words, and I feel like I learned some valuable new skills from this app. Some of those skills include creating background photos and adjusting colour schemes to complement the poems I created.

Some of my stretches for Humanities are related to writing. These include writing longer blog posts, especially reflections. I think I could organize more of a plan before beginning to write. I also need to work on putting in my best effort rather than putting in a mediocre effort and moving on. A great first step would be to go back and review the assignment criteria to check if I have met all of the requirements. Argh Matey is a good example of an assignment where I could have put in greater effort by using more descriptive words in the Pirate Story and could have organized my thoughts a lot more clearly so that the story flowed more naturally.

 

Maker

In Maker, I developed a ton of skills based on the new programs we were introduced to in Maker 8.  One of the new apps that I now use all the time is the Sketches Pro app, and I first discovered it when I participated in the “Power of the Pencil” Carr unit. One example of how I’ve applied it is the cell biology comic creation in Scimatics that we just completed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also really enjoyed all of the photo walks and the tutoring on new photography techniques that could expand our creativity in taking photos. I look forward to using those techniques in grade 9 and seeing what photography challenges lie ahead. I feel like I am already very comfortable photographing nature, but I’d like to work on photographing people and experimenting with different angles and lighting.

Another example of work that I am proud of from Maker 8 is the Geek Out blog post challenge in which we had the freedom to write about our own interests. During this blog challenge, I used my skill of drawing to create a tracing of a photo from the December choir concert, and now I’ve expanded even further on this skill in creating several comic panels in a much faster period of time. Looking back, I think I found the Geek Out challenge a lot more enjoyable because when I’m limited to a particular subject, I feel frustrated by how it squashes my creativity and I can sometimes suffer from a “brain block”. Going into grade 9, I think I need to continue to look for ways that I can express my creativity even when I’m given a specific topic.

Conclusion

I think my work in grade 8 reflects that, as a learner, I may lack motivation and become easily distracted, but in the end, I have the knowledge and the technical skills to get things done.  I’ve grown a lot in terms of my group work skills. I know that I need to continue to work on time management and will find strategies to motivate myself instead of relying on others to help to motivate me. I will take my new iPad skills, group skills, and knowledge with me as I move into grade 9.

No Beginnings

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Explanation for Visual 1

– The money sign; I chose the money sign because I wanted to use it to symbolize the currency and supplies (e.g. medicinal herbs, new foods, supplies native only to Europe, blueprints, etc.) given to the First Peoples in exchange for beavers and their pelts, which was in high demand at the time.
Bow: I chose the bow because I wanted show people that they were hunting (if “Hunter’s POV” doesn’t do it for you) and I thought that a bow and arrow would be the best thing to symbolize that. The bow could also hypothetically show the fact that things weren’t exactly peaceful between certain First Nations and European groups.
Shaking Hands: I chose the shaking hands emoji as a symbol of agreement between the Europeans and the First Peoples. It was meant to symbolize the trading of beaver pelts and supplies between the 2 groups.

Overall Summary of the “Hunter’s POV” Visual:

Explanation for Visual 2

(Editor’s Note: the beavers probably weren’t actually this smart but if they were human this would most likely be their reaction)
– People: I chose to do a picture of multiple shadows of people to symbolize the “giants” that were invading the beavers home (Europeans and First Nations hunters). I also wanted it to convey the sense of the beings that came there being larger than the beavers and so i tried to make them a big as would make sense in the photo and also make more of them to make them look bigger.
– Ripped Map: I chose to do the ripped map to show how the beavers home was in a way invaded and destroyed and their life was disrupted.
– Skull and Crossbones: I chose to do the skull and crossbones to show how the beavers were hunted and killed off just to be made into hats.
Overall Summary of “Beaver’s POV”: A slide meant to show the beavers perspective on the fur trade and how they might have felt.

Now, it’s time to reflect.The first thing I’d like to touch on is the fact that this project was closely related with the “Arghh Matey” project because they were both partially about the research and discovery of the “New World.” This project took a lot of time and I personally found it a bit uninteresting but I really like the idea of sliding into 2 different perspectives. Something I think I’ll do differently next time is choose a different perspective like the buyers instead of the beavers (the Europeans). I want to do that instead because it was harder to think of things for the beavers POV.

Now to answer the driving question:

What did the establishment of New France mean for all people involved?

From what I’ve learned this unit, I think the answer to this question is that it meant that they had a home in the new world and somewhere to trade, but it also meant that sometimes they would be under attack, and there was a lot of poverty.

No Beginnings Blog Post Draft 1

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Explanation Part 1

– Money Sign: Meant to show the currency/supplies you would get for trading beaver pelts.
– Bow: The weapon used to kill beavers and get the, their rewards.
– Shaking Hands: Meant to symbolize trade and agreement between the First Nations People and Europeans.

Overall Summary of “Hunter’s POV”: A slide meant to show how the First Nations people interacted with Europeans and hunted beavers.

Explanation Part 2

– People: Showing the beavers land being invaded by strange people.
– Ripped Map: Meant to show their home being destroyed.
– Skull and Crossbones: Symbolized the death that beavers had to face
Overall Summary of “Beaver’s POV”: A slide meant to show the beavers perspective on the fur trade and how they might have felt.