Recently we did a project about ethical dimensions. The driving question for that project was How can we present past actions and decisions through images to help us make decisions of what is fair or unjust? For this blog post, I’m going to be talking about what I think are the three most important milestones. The milestones I chose were 1, 2, and 3.

Milestone 1: The first milestone I’m going to be talking about is milestone one. What we had to do for the first milestone was we had to find an event within the last 30 years involving indigenous peoples and write a one-page paper explaining the who, what, when, where, and why. I chose the Oka Crisis. In the assignment I talked about how it started, who was effected by it, all those sorts of things. Overall I think this first milestone was an fun assignment. I enjoyed it because I find it pretty interesting to find out all about things I didn’t even know existed. It’s amazing what you can learn from the internet.

Milestone 2: The next milestone I’m going to be talking about is milestone 2. What we had to do milestone two was we got our groups (mine group was me and Angelo ). Then we had to pick a topic, we picked Big Bear. The next step was to research all about our topic. Find out as much about it as we could. I think this was a very important milestone, and plus it will be very useful in the future. It was really cool and super interesting to learn more about Big Bear and his story.

Milestone 3: The last milestone I’m going to be talking about is milestone 3. What we had to do for milestone three create our images. I really enjoyed this milestone. it was definitely my favourite. I thought it was really fun brainstorming what we were going to create and getting to actually create it. Each group had to make three images. Me and my group member, angelo, decided amongst ourselves who would make each image as well as who would write the Instagram caption for when we post it on our class Instagram.

In conclusion, this was a very interesting and fun project, and I enjoyed reading and learning about Louis Riel and Big Bear. If I were to do this project again, I probably would have worked on my time management a bit more. Now finally, the competency’s connect and understand ethical dimensions. I think I meet the competency connect because, throughout the project, I looked at the textbooks and the graphic novel we read through other points of view to help me understand how other people and I understand the texts. I think I meet the competency Understand Ethical Dimensions because I have shown my ability to decide if actions and decisions of the past were fair or unjust. I showed this in the debate where the discussed if Louis Riel’s execution was just or unjust. I also showed this competency through all of the writing we did about if he was a hero or villain.
Welcome back to another blog post!

 

– Emily ✌️

Hello and welcome back to my blog. Today I’m going to be talking about our most recent project in scimatics. In this project we created a Rube-Goldberg style metaphor machine. Hand crafted series and parallel circuits are built into the machine as well.

Thing we did was get a good understanding about what a Rube-Goldberg style metaphor machine was. After watching a couple videos, we we’re easy to start planning our own.

We were all put into groups of three. Each member of the group made a quick blueprint of their ideas on how they wanted to make the machine. Once everyone had done that, we looked at everyone’s blueprints and combined them together. After we decided what our metaphor machine was going to look like, we had to start getting materials and measurement.

And of course we can’t forget about our driving question now can we? The driving question for this project was “How can we represent the scientific method?” how did we answer this you ask? Well I think my group did pretty good with this and I’m proud with what we created.

– Emily✌️

So what is Confederation? Who was part of it? Why did it happen? Well this project we learnt just about that. And those questions we answered in our most recent project, Confederation Commercial. This project involved Canadian history of course, team work, and coolest of all we got to use green screens! As of every PLP project we were put into groups. My group was Owen , Liam , Ciara, and Ben. Together we created a commercial proposing the six demands of New Brunswick they needed to be met if we were going to join confederation. The most important question being asked was of course the driving question: How and why did Canada develop into a nation? As we answered this question, I learned two competencies during this.

Evidence: 

How do we evaluate evidence to decide if it is adequate to support a historical conclusion?

Create: 

What literacy skills am I using to write, speak, and represent in the texts I create?

How did these colonies come together and why? Working in a group that represented a colonies beliefs and needs really helped me figure this out. New Brunswick for example which was the colony my group was given, New Brunswick wanted to join confederation because the colonies would be much stronger all together, instead of being alone, especially New Brunswick because we are just in the US border and since we are such a small colony it makes it hard for us to defend ourselves.

The colonies united together in the end because they were better together. But of course to that point was not easy. It took many conferences and a lot of negotiations to get there. We got to have our own little conference in our class to pitch all the colony’s our six proposals. This project was just one of the times I used the create competency by sharing demands using literacy skills and showing that in the commercial we made. To be able to really show the colony of New Brunswick we had to do a fair amount of research. All the research relates to the evidence competency. Another example of evidence is that when I was watching the other colonies commercials, you have to think about if they facts are indeed true and if they would come handy for your own colony.

At the end of this project I had learned how Canada became a nation through many conferences and demands and all the people who were involved and made all it happen. My class also did similar conferences and demands in this project that helped me gain an understanding of the two main competencies for this project. And I can’t forget that we also created a whole commercial explaining our proposals using a green screen. Using a green screen was something I have never learned to do. But it was much easier then I thought and was really fun. All of these things helped me make an awesome final project that I am overall pretty proud of. This project was a fun little experience that I really enjoyed.

– Emily✌️

Hello, and welcome back!

Hello people and welcome back to another blog post. This time I’m going to be talking a project that we just finished in math. So we were learning about polynomials and like terms. And for the project we had to come up with our own driving question that we had to answer. The question could be many things. For example one group in our class coded their own game, another group made a cake, and one group made a bridge. Now what my group decided to make was a strawberry smoothie. Our driving question was “How can we make an equation and use like terms out of ingredients of a fruit smoothie?” So we answered that question. First I’m going to talking a little bit about the curricular competencies. 

Understanding and solving
~ Apply multiple strategies to solve problems in both abstract and contextualized situations

We got accomplished in this competency because we used correct mathematical operations involved in combing like term. This was shown in one of our slides that included all of our math and equations.

Communication and representing
~ Represent mathematical ideas in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic forms

For this competency we were given accomplished/extending. We did good on it because our presentation to the class was practiced, enthusiastic, clear, detailed, engaging and interactive. It helped others understand the concept better. This was shown in the presentation part of our project.

Connecting and reflecting
~ Connect mathematical concepts to each other and to other areas and personal interests 

We got accomplished/extending on this competency because we used personalized, authentic and original work on our project and presentation. This competency will also be assessed on our blog posts, the one you are reading right now.

Applying and innovating
~ Contribute to care for self, other, community and world through individual or collaboration approaches

We got accomplished on this competency because we used all our class time wisely and got things done on time. 

This project was very fun and I really enjoyed it. It was a little hard to come up with an idea in the beginning because there are so many options that we couldn’t decide what to do. We did end up a strawberry smoothie like I said. And how we answered our driving question you ask? Well what we did was take the first letter of each ingredient and use it as a variable and the amount of of that ingredient was the number. So we put it all together and we got our polynomial. After making the smoothie we put together our keynote presentation, practiced and we were ready to present. Over all my group did very well with this project and I’m very proud of our work.

– Emily ✌️

So far this is year has been quite eventful. At the start of this year my class went to Alberta where we learnt about how place impacts us. Then before we knew it, it was already the start of the Winter Exhibition. We have learnt many things in many different ways, including the Winter Exhibition, many videos and even TikToks. Yes TikToks I’m not kidding. I have definitely learnt so much from all our projects… so far. I know there is so much more to come. But today I am asking myself how I can improve my learning skills with a goal I would like to accomplish by the end of this year.

Whats my goal you’re wondering. Well with all the projects I’ve done this year the biggest thing I struggled with was my time management skills. Even though I used Things and time blocked it still didn’t give me the motivation to get the work done. This is something I’ve struggled with last year too. There many projects I did well because I felt motivated to get it done on time. But as soon as I fall behind a bit everything starts piling up and it makes it much harder for me to get my work done on time. 

I find what helps me most through those stressful homework piles is taking a break every hour to reset my mind in order to finish my work and not have it be rushed and not thought through. So my overall goal is to keep a positive mind set and to stay on top of my work. 

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A good example of a blog post that I rushed this and didn’t think through what I was doing was Star Wars Review ~ Empire Strikes Back. This blog post I did not do well on. I didn’t plan out anything, I kept losing my focus which made it much harder to concentrate which made the blog post so bad. If i were to go back and do this again, I would first off have a plan on how I was going to complete this on time but also include all the requirements and extra things i wanted to add. Then I would take my time and actually write a good blog post.

 

But a good example of when I took my time and did the work well, was my Maker 9 Reflection Post . This post I believe I did very well on because before I started any writing I created a bullet point check list of everything that I needed to include. I planned out the amount of time I was going to need for completion. I’m proud of this post because it shows that I put good effort into it.

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Now I say everyday that I’m going to be very productive and get all my work done. But lets be honest, that almost never happens. So my question to myself is how am I going to change my work habits so I can be more productive? I do find this a little hard to answer because the couple things I’ve tried to help me so I can stay on top of things but none of them help me as much as I need them to. So this is something that I am going to work on as this year comes to an end. Before its over I want to have accomplished my goal so I can move on to work on my other weaknesses. 

I did notice that when I was in a group I tend to get work done on time because if I don’t I know I’m letting my group down which is not something enjoy. Looking back at my individual work compared to my group work, I see that my group work is better. But I want to have my individual work be at the same level as my group work. This will help me with many things and it will help me to enjoy doing my work much more.

So far this year I have learnt many many thing. I’m so grateful to be in this wonderful program called PLP. I’m so psyched to continue my learning with PLP.

Thanks for listening

– Emily✌️

Yes actually we are making TikTok for a class project. But there’s a reason. In class we are studying nationalism and historical significance. The way we are going to be showing our learning is through current day memes. Right now we are learning about cause and consequence. The third milestone for this project was we had to create TikToks.

Ok I would be very surprised if you didn’t know what TikTok is. But just incase I will give you a little explanation. “TikTok is a video sharing social networking service that is used to create short videos ranging to a minute.” But continuing on in this project we won’t just make a couple TikToks, we will also be making memes.

So what is a meme? A meme is a funny image or video that you would normally see on social media. A meme can also be explained as a picture or video that has a message/idea that is represented by using more then just words.A good way to explain a meme in one word is DNA. Memes are like DNA because They are like DNA because they reproduce and change all the time. As soon as a meme is released the people decide if it is funny or not, and if the rest of world will get to see it. If it’s not popular and no people take it and evolve it and change it to continue o in the world of memes then it will just die, and no one will be able to see it cause it wasn’t worthy enough. Well maybe it’s to that dramatic but thats pretty much the gist. 

Richard Darwin said, a meme can also be compared and described with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Thought as an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. when you think about it memes are all over the place. Sometimes you don’t realize it, but they are there.

Ok I think its time for me to talk about the TikToks I created for this milestone.

TikTok #1: SNOW DAY!!

The first TikTok me and my friends created was about a snow days our school had. This was a great day. We got this idea from… well to be honest why we chose to do this one was because we forgot we had to do TikToks for our project to we hadn’t actually done any yet. So we decided it would be easy and fun to do one about the snow day. It turned out pretty good I think. This TikTok show all the things we did that day. We went sledding, we went to a cafe for a nice hot chocolate break. Well except Holly, Holly got an iced tea instead. 

 

TikTok #2: Yes, I still have stuffed animals

The other TikTok I did was about my stuffed animals. Ha yeah I know sooooo childish. But you know what? I am very childish. I’m practically still a little kid! But anyway back to the TikTok. This one was really fun to make and I really enjoyed making it. Hopefully it makes a little sense and it funny too. 

– Emily ✌️

Hello people welcome back to another blog post! If you have read my blog before you might remember me writing a different blog post about last year’s exhibition. Here’s a link to if you would like to check it out —> Winter Exhibition 2018 now let me first say what this year’s exhibition was all about. The 2019 winter exhibition’s focus was STAR WARS!! I really enjoyed the exhibition this year. Probably more then last year. It was really fun getting to work with the grade 8’s this year too.

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Before this project started I knew nothing about Star Wars, even when we had to write a paragraph about all the things we knew and were excited for about Star Wars, I didn’t have much to write because I didn’t know anything. But we all got to start somewhere, right. So as I said the first thing we did to start off this project was a littler introduction about our knowledge on Star Wars. Since I don’t have much knowledge about Star Wars mine was pretty short but it still had a couple things I knew about Star Wars from my dad telling me about it.

For this project we spilt it into two parts. Each half we had a didn’t thing to work on and a different curricular competencies. For humanities we made a short story. For maker we created a artifact that represented our part of story.

Humanities: What literacy skills am I using to write, speak, and represent in the text I create?

Another thing we did to start off this project was a short story review chart. We did this so we could learn how to write a good story for the humanities part of this project. What did we have to do for the humanities part you ask. Well each group had to write their own story about a character in Star Wars. They could either make them up or choose an already made character and create their backstory that the movies do not include.

After we had been assigned our groups, each group got a planet. My group was Malaika, Alex,

Anders, Anthony, Jude and Gabe. Our plant was the Death Star. Now that we were in our groups we started writing the story. The story was divided into seven parts. The story followed the hero’s journeys rules. You ask what that is? Well the hero’s journey is what we used to make our stories.

 

Maker: How might I use technology to create in new ways?

Below you will see my artifact that I made. At first when we were brainstorming what to make I had absolutely no idea. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to create something in real life or on my iPad. I finally had decided a week and a half before the exhibition which made things pretty stressful but it did all work out in the end.

For the actual creation of my control panel didn’t take long. I had to look all around the house to find enough cardboard and paint but once I had everything it was pretty quick to put together. I first made the base with cardboard and duck tape then I spray painted it all black and finally I put little holes around the edge to put these colourful lights. In the middle you’ll see a big hole. That is there so I can place my iPad in there and on my iPad it has a map of the Death Star. I did this because I thought it would make it a bit more clear that this control panel was from the Death Star.

Before creating our artifact we had to make our LAUNCH journal. A LAUNCH journal is pretty much steps to follow that helps you create something successful. The LANUCH journal was very helpful for me when I was creating my artifact. It was easy to follow and it helped me stay on top of the work so I wouldn’t miss an important step.

After our stories were done and everyone had finished making their artifact. It was time to actually start the Winter Exhibition. This was quite the night. We started setting up right at 3:00 and finished by 5:00. The whole time we were setting up everything was chaos! The one problem we always have is that there’s never enough tape! No matter how much you bring it’s never enough. I brought three full rolls of duck tape and didn’t get any back. Pretty crazy. Anyways, after everything was set up and looking great the teachers had to feed us so we got pizza! I think that put us all in a good mood because the exhibition had started. People started arriving going to check out everyone’s awesome projects.

I think the whole night was a success! This was definitely my favourite PLP project we’ve done so far. It was really fun learning how to write awesome stories and learning all about Star Wars. I feel like I did good with this project. I’m proud of what I created. And I think I met all the companies. I’m really proud of my whole class for pulling off a exhibition to remember!

– Emily✌️

The Empire Strikes Back was a remarkable movie. It included everything you could want in a movie. It had action, comedy, a little romance and at all times I was very interesting in what was going on. I don’t like Star Wars movies. I find them boring and not interesting.

But this one, The Empire Strikes Back was an amazing movie. I loved how in all scenes there was always something that had your attention. You could never get bored watching this. They did a great job with each scene and I can’t say this enough, but it was just such an amazing and interesting movie. It is by far the best out of all Star Wars movies.

– Emily ✌️

Hello welcome back to my blog. Today I’m going to talk about this little project we did. This was called the Live Event Video. So basically we take a bunch of clips and  pictures from an event of our choice. I chose my gymnastics practice. So in the video is pretty much what my gymnastics practice looks like.

Ok first step in this project was the action plan. Which is just about what type of shots I wanted to take and details about the video itself.

Next I actually filmed the practice and got everything I needed to create my video. As I’ve said I decided to do my video about my gymnastics practice. My gymnastics team is pretty small compacted to the other teams. But we still have lots of people. In gymnastics there are 5 levels. I am on level 2, at this level we do backhand springs, front/back flips and all sorts of jumps and leaps. There are two girls in level two, one girl in level 3 and everyone else is in level 1. Every gymnastics practice are pretty much the same. We warmup, we stretch and then we do lines. Lines are pretty much just us doing all of our basic skills. We do this so we don’t do a skill and hurt ourselves because we didn’t warm up before.

Here’s  how my video turned out!

I am pretty happy with the out come wth my video. I think I got some good shots and angels. It definitely turned out how i wanted it to be, which I’m happy about. The old thing that wasn’t great was the audio in my interview/ but thats ok, next time I know what i need to fix. Thanks to my team mates for letting me film this practice. Hope you  liked my video! See you in my next blog post!

– Emily ✌️