🛸The Return of This Reflection🛸

  Hello ladies and gentlepeople and welcome back to the late night show with me. No, I’m not anywhere as cool as Stephen Colbert but I’m trying so please, cut me some slack. We are now continuing from where I left off in my last post so if you haven’t read that already, I recommend you go and do so now! 

   To briefly refresh your memory, as a class we were split into 4 groups. Each of these groups were assigned a planet and story to write. Along with those components we also had to create an artifact that represents our part of The Hero’s Journey. As I was the conclusion this was a difficult task for me seeing as our character dies at the climax of the story. You might be confused as to how that even worked and trust me I was too but we eventually figured it out. Anyway, back to my artifact!  Our story evolves around a character called Pudge. At the climax of the story, Pudge is sacrificed in order to save the life of Luke Skywalker himself. In my part of the story, part 7, our protagonist takes the form of a force ghost, a figure commonly seen in the Star Wars universe. Usually force ghosts only appear when Luke, Anakin, Rey, or even Ben Solo are in need of guidance of someone, typically a Jedi master or an influential figure from their past. Since force ghosts are usually only Jedi or main characters, my artifact idea was a little risky. I wrote in the sense that Pudge had moved on to a spiritual form and followed alongside Luke in his training to become a powerful Jedi master. In order to represent this through my maker project, I built a hologram.

   Holograms are very, very common in the Star Wars universe and yet we don’t see many of them hanging around these days. Who am I kidding, Elon Musk probably has a few lying around and simultaneously hidden from the public eye. Back to my hologram. With projects like these, our teachers have us follow what is known as, the LAUNCH Cycle. Last year’s spring exhibition was my very first time using the LAUNCH Cycle for a project and this was only my second time around. That being said, I’m not going to lie to myself in saying that on both these occasions I was very good at keeping up to date and actually following the journal’s steps to success. In recognizing that I don’t do particularly well with keeping up to date on regular repeating assignments, such as literacy circles, I can identify that this LAUNCH process is not one of my strong suits. I undeniably stumbled and went off that tracks for a while during this project but I certainly let myself down in not being able to move forward. All that aside, I’ve made it a goal for my next time using the LAUNCH Cycle, to try even harder and really show the effort in keeping up to date of everything. A great example of an opportunity to do so in Term 2 is Destination Imagination 2020, trust me you’ll be hearing a lot about that soon enough.

   As the night of the exhibition approached at a rapid pace I got closer and closer to finishing my hologram and lets be honest it was really stressing me out. Eventually, after I had completed multiple drafts and worked with different spectrums and images I finished off with a bang and created something that I’m genuinely proud of. Looking at my hologram now and reflecting on the exhibition as a whole I can see where things could’ve used some editing, but nonetheless I’m still very proud. 

The curricular competency for the maker component is “take creative risks.” As I have just reflected upon my LAUNCH Journal and my performance with it this year I would like to jump into the competency side of things. Taking creative risks simply poses us with the question, “how can we use technology to create in new ways?” I feel that with the LAUNCH cycle I didn’t take creative risks in the best way I could have. I was very keen on creating a holographic image but I know that I could have challenged myself more when it came down to it. For instance I could have animated my hologram more or made a recording allowing for the illusion to speak. I recognize that while I did succeed in the end, it was on low standards. Having blue sky again at the next exhibition provides me with a chance to improve and succeed with the LAUNCH cycle and take creative risks more so than this time!

   Alongside every PLP exhibition project comes the set up and preparation for the big night. I had the responsibility of being my team’s DRI, also known as the “Directly Responsible Individual.” This simply meant that I was in charge of making everything happen smoothly. At least that’s how I determined it this time around. While taking charge in my PLP 9 team was difficult, I like to think that I did well in the position. Add six grade 8’s to the mix and things tend to go awry. Yes, you read that right. Our teachers assigned us six grade 8’s to have in our planet rooms during the exhibition and all it did was leave me another six people to keep on the same page. That’s a bit of a blunt way to put it but nonetheless, I was more stressed handling 13 people, including myself in set up. Setting up took us hours and hours, days actually. We mapped out the room and presentation areas and make plans for decoration that would evidently lead to the recreation of the planet Hoth. Another simply delightful challenge we faced was turning our classroom into a literal ice desert using paper, sheets, lights, and ice. We drove the temperature of the room down by opening all the windows and used LED white lights to bring the room to life. I kid you not this set up took hours and was a serous commitment. In the end our room was surprisingly fantastic and it really looked and felt like you were stuck in the eye of a storm. A cold and wet storm but still. 

   When it comes down to it, I believe that I did well and I can recognize that with my performance in the curricular competency side of things. We were challenged to answer the driving question, “How might we build an interactive exhibit which explains the hero’s journey?” I am able to identify literary elements and use the proper vocabulary to provide evidence of my understanding’. I am able to create and extend a shared understanding and build upon shared ideas to reach goals. And finally I believe that through the entire process leading up to this exhibition I was able to strongly express and support my opinions using credible evidence. Providing examples of my accomplishments comes in these posts in the form of a reflection. Going ack to my launch process again, I was able to recognize the steps that had to be taken, even in the situations where I fell behind. I have goals for the next exhibition and surprisingly enough I’m not hating the idea of doing another one in a short 5 months. We answered the driving question confidently and took the exhibition by storm. Our exhibit clearly allowed for our guests to understand the hero’s journey and our story, Pudge’s story. 

https://youtu.be/V9tgKntTzCU

Here is my LAUNCH Journal in which I kept track of my progress going toward the exhibition!

 With that , I am concluding this long, terrible TED Talk ✌️