Ladies and gentlemen! MPOLs is back again. For those of you who do not know MPOLs is basically parent teacher interviews that we have to do where we reflect on our learning over the year. Last year I decided that I wanted to improve my time management skills. Did I manage to improve? I would say yes. I have defiantly gotten better at handing things in on time and I have familiarized myself with apps like Things a lot more. That being said, I am still far from where I want to be. So I decided that I would like to continue pursuing that as my learning goal. I think that if I get better at time management I would be less stressed with doing things last minute and my work would improve. 

What have I done so far?
My goal ladders is a great example of where I was using my time effectively and, in my opinion, the results were rewarding. Having actual time blocked out made it a lot easier for me to think clearly which improved what I was doing. I found that a good strategy for me to use is to set the due date a lot sooner than it actually is. This way I can block out time sooner rather than later and hand things in before it’s due. I did this with the goal ladder and it defiantly worked. I handed it in early and even made a second one with the time I had left. Because I was less stressed it was easier for me to think rationally and like I said, I had remaining time blocked off for me to get other work done. I have begun applying this to DI as well and I can see that I am still in top of my work.

I find that where I am when I am doing the work also effects the level of work that I do. There is a big difference between the kind of work I can get done at school and the work I can get done at home. My goal is to close that gap. One thing that I have started to do to counteract this is to set alarms. Every 30 min or so I set and alarm to either take a break, get back to work or to switch up what it is I am working on. Something I find that I do a lot is to over think. So by setting these alarms I can switch from assignment to assignment and look at something with a refreshed view. Doing this has helped me improve in communicating, comprehending, and analyzing skills. Since I have started using the alarms system the amount of rants I go on have shortened down and I get things done quicker thanks to that. This means that I can be more direct and get the point across much easier. Not only that but looking at things with a refreshed view helps to change up my mindset and is really helpful in understanding my work.

That being said this strategy does not work 100% of the time. A great example of this is the math project that we are working on right now, or even the winter exhibition. If the project is non digital it becomes more difficult for me to take breaks or to listen to the alarms that I set. Luckily, I find that when I am making a physical object I don’t get as distracted because it is much easier to see how much progress I have made and how much I need to do. On top of that it is easy to see when I get distracted as well. So getting back on track becomes less difficult than in a digital project. I also have people there to tell me if what I’m doing doesn’t look like work.

Another challenge that I find happens is when I need to revise a post. Usually I have set times for me to do my work so when I’m suppose to revise something it becomes complicated. Rearranging what I have already planned is a little hard for me to do because I am usually one of 2 extremes. The first is that I don’t plan anything and I just do whatever needs to get done when I feel like it. The second is that I have planned something out and I need to stick to it or else I start getting stressed. In grade 8 I was the first example and that ended up with me handing everything in late and not being happy with the result. Nowadays it’s usually the second. This is exactly what happened with my Live Event post and the Run video post. I had set a reminder set to revise it but never finished revising until Ms.Maxwell had to track me down.

In the end, I think that I need to get better at being able to be flexible yet also sticking to a plan so I don’t fall behind. In order to do this I think that the best option would be to block out a free block that is used for revisions or anything else that I may need. This way it is in the plan to block out that time. Other than that I think that the strategies that I am using are working fairly well. Finally, I am aware that I need to work on the communication competency, by that I mean speaking out loud,  and revise competency and it is something that I am setting goals to do.

So, I would like to know whether or not you think that my goal is manageable, and is something that I should be focussing on.

So we’ve talked about what Tik Tok is, what a meme is, and what it is I’m learning in my earlier post. Finally we are combining our knowledge with Tik Tok and our driving question. Our driving question is; how can we use current memes to comment on the the significance and consequences as nationalism around the world? In this case, we decided that Tik Tok counts as a meme sharing platform because our definition of a meme is an idea that spreads from one person to the next. So what exactly did I make?

My first Tik Tok

This uses the “I don’t know” meme. In this video I am showing the scene where a whole bunch of European powers got together and divided up Africa for their own. In history, this was part of the scramble for Africa. I decided that this sound helps show the selfishness that was the Europeans. As you can see there are no Africans at the table joining in the discussion. This was because the Europeans decided that since they are minority, they were automatically less than them. The Europeans saw the resources that were on Africa which was the reason that they colonized it. This Tik Tok shows on of the consequences of nationalism. In the case of Africa, the nationalist Europeans lead to things like slavery, racism, civil disorder, and has resulted in the control over Africa to last even until today. However, unlike in the past Africa is controlled more politically rather than with military force. The person who is standing with the map is Otto Van Bismarck. He was the German Chancellor in 1884 and the one who gathered the European powers in the first place. 

Add second video

Since I showed the negative consequences in the first Tik Tok I decided that this time I wanted to show the positive consequences of nationalism. This time I used the “This is America” sound. I used this sound to show people celebrating their culture, and their nation. The positive effects of nationalism revolves around the sense of belonging and pride in your nation. When you take that pride too far and start seeing others as inferior is when things go south. In this Tik Tok I wanted to show that nationalism isn’t all bad and that there are many examples of people being respectful of others and recognizing them as a nation.

Finally my third Tik Tok

For this last Tik Tok (click here for sound) I decided that I wanted to change things up a little more and make a Tik Tok using drawings. Since the other 2 Tik Toks that I made were about the good and bad of nationalism, I thought that I would put both into this last one. I thought that rather than creating a video with people moving about, the last one would be still drawing where people could interpret the meaning on their own. I used a lot of the transitions making this video. Using the effects in Tik Tok helped making the overall video look better. 

The app “Tik Tok” is one of the most downloaded apps since 2019. So much so that it has even found its way to our classroom. That’s right, this post is all about Tik Tok! For those of you who don’t know, Tik Tok is a video sharing platform where user can view, like and follow other users. This platform is usually used for comedy and entertainment purposes and many celebrities have also joined in on this unique experience.

Before we get too into what we actually had to do, let’s first talk about what we are learning. We are learning about memes and nationalism. More specifically we are learning about this to answer this question; How can we use current memes to comment on the significance and consequences of nationalism around the world?

In order to answer this question we did research on what a meme is and it was decided that a meme is a idea that spreads from one person to another. We were discussing about how a meme in a since, is similar to Darwin’s theory of evolution. The strong survive while the weak die off. This is dependant on the popularity of the meme, which is why most “strong” memes are the ones that go viral. The weaker memes die off hence the term “that meme is dead.” Memes also evolve and mutate. Since it is an idea it spreads and changes based on who isn’t goes to. One person might send out a meme that itself isn’t strong, however another person takes that same image and add different words or context to it. It then becomes stronger and is sent out into the world again. This is why our class decided that Tik Tok was a meme sharing platform. Most people use the same song or the same sound but they put their own spin on it which supports the idea that memes are similar to Darwin’s theory of evolution. One great example of this is dance trends, more specifically the git up. You can see the original git up challenge here.

Now let’s look at a few examples of how people have personalized this trend;

https://youtu.be/05_SZfB1qNg

Finally you can see some of the videos that I made using this app. The person who made these videos with me is Julia who knows way more about this app then I do. I was not too big on this idea at first but I ended up having a lot of fun especially with the #Canada check trend.

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