Improving My Fitness

This unit I would like to improve in my cardiovascular endurance, because it will help me when I join swim squad and start to do laps. It will also help with the tournaments that I play in squash. Another thing that I would like to work on is my strength. I am not very strong and if I become stronger it will help in my further fitness. To help develop my cardiovascular endurance I can do activities that will help strengthen that such as running long distances and using jump rope.

Introduction to Asian Music Unit

Last week on thursday, we had a visitor come to school to perform and teach us about asian music. He played the Shakuhachi, as well as two of our music teachers playing traditional music on koto’s and shamisen. The shamisen and shakuhachi are both instruments that I didn’t know until this session. During there visit we were asked to think about the question ”What makes music sound like it belongs to a particular part of the world?”.

During there visit they played a lot of songs for us, even though they were long I still found them interesting and fun to listen to. These were all of the pieces that were performed:

Classical koto/shamisen/shakuhachi trio – Eghigo Jishi
Shakuhachi solo – Honkyoku
Koto/shakuhachi duet – Kaze no Uta (Song of the Wind)
Koto solo – Gensokyoku (Fantasy)
Koto/shakuhachi duet – Deep Forest

On these different instruments techniques were used. On the koto techniques called pressing to change the note, sha sha, atoshi and shan The koto was tuned in a pentatonic scale, which is a scale of five notes.

I think that my favorite piece was the Deep Forest, which was an original song written by the koto teacher and our visitor. They told us the song was based on there hiking trip. As they were playing the song I thought of going through the forest in the fresh air and coming out feeling refreshed. This song reminded me of a hiking trip that I had been on which I really enjoyed.

I liked the shakuhachi instrument the best because it was a new instrument to me and I enjoyed  learning about it. The visitor showed us the different sizes and the change of pitch in each size. I was surprised at how hard it was to blow into the shakuhachi and how much the positioning of the lip affected the sound that came out the instrument. I was also surprised that the shamisen notes were played with feeling its place other than having positioning. I think that the sound the instrument made when he slid his hand down the neck of it. I think that the scale of the instruments made it sound japanese. The tuning also had a big affect in this, but what I thought made the music sound really japanese was the buzzing sound that the instruments made. I really enjoyed this introduction to our new unit and I think that it has really helped me to experience a new kind of music.

Art Line Drawing Reflection

In Art class our recent unit has been ‘Make your Mark’ and we have been working on our final line drawing for this unit. Our unit question was, ‘How can we communicate visually?’. The significant concept was, ‘Line can be used to convey shape, texture and tone’. The line drawing had to be of a picture that we composed digitally using two or more pictures, to create the picture that our line drawing was based on. I used a photo of fields with a fence going through them. I tried to use a picture that clearly had a foreground, middle ground and background.

There were a lot of different techniques that I had to choose from and could use. I tried to pick the techniques that fit my drawing the best. First of all I started by drawing the fence because it was what intersected with the composition of my drawing. As I drew it into the distance I tried to make the lines smaller, but I didn’t hold the pen properly so the lines came out thicker than I anticipated. After I finished the fences, which I also did first because it outlined the grass area, I drew the grass. At the front the lines are thicker and closer together and as the grass is further I tried to make its smaller and more spaced out, for the grass I used stippling, strokes and some small circles. I then drew the hills. I decided to use a different technique from the grass to represent it is further away, but although I used the technique cross hatching I did make it to big so it didn’t look as far away. For the mountains I used long strokes and made it darker in one place than the others. After getting some advice from Mr. Welk I made my sky lighter than the ground. I think that this was a good decisions because it showed the sky was lighter, higher and further away than the ground.

This is one of the first line drawings that I have done and there are a lot of improvements that I could make. I think that next time I need to make sure I am aware of the value of my drawing, to make the items in the back smaller and lighter. I also need to use line techniques that represent and show the objects in a realistic form.

In conclusion I think that this was a good experience, I learnt different line techniques which I can apply to other line drawings that I will do in the future. I think that in this unit my work has improved. I have enjoyed this unit because I have never had the opportunity to do a line drawing and this unit gave me that.

My Best Speech Reflection

In drama our recent unit has been speeches  We did two speechs, one of them was a give topic and the other was a chosen topic. We did the chosen topic speech first and the given topic second.

This is my chosen topic speech:

7B Drama: 1 Min Speeches from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

Modulation

Volume- I think that I was loud enough for the people in my class to hear me, but i didn’t have very good projection. If I was presenting to a bigger group of people I would have to be louder and have better projection. Pitch- After I took a short pause I started my sentences with a higher voice and then continued the sentence with a lower pitch. I think that my pitch should have been a bit moe consistent, because this topic was not a very serious topic I didn’t have to change the pitch of my voice frequently. Pace- I think that I had pauses in-between my lines, but I rushed the sentences to much. To slow down my pace I think that I should stay calm and remember to think about what is next so I can set out my speech and know when I want to end. Pause- As I said before when I was commenting on my pace, I used pauses in between my sentences. I could have used pauses more affectively, Example; if I wanted to give a dramatic pause . Projection- Because of the small space that I was presenting my speech in, my projection was ok. I think that if I had to present in a bigger room, then I would need to use projection better and is a skill that I need to develop. Emphasis- In my speech I used a limited amount of emphasis. Emphasising a word helps to show that it is important. If I had used it in my speech I would have been able to show what is important and what is less important.

Physically

Posture- Because the video camera is crooked, I cant really tell whether I was also standing crooked. But I think that I kept an uprite position through most of my speech. It is important to stand straight because then you are able to project better. Gesture- I didn’t use enough hand gestures to help describe what I am doing. I touched my hair a few times which was distracting and not necessary. Facial Expression- Through out my whole speech I didn’t have a good amount of change in facial expression. Next time I present a speech I would like to change my facial expression to fit with what I am saying.

One main point that I have to improve on for next time is to try not completely remember it. In my video you can see that I look to the left corner while I am trying to remember it. Over all I think that I gave a good and prepared speech, but could improve on it next time.

This is my given topic speech: 

7B Drama: Given Topic Speeches from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

I think that I did a better job in this speech, which is why this is my best speech.

This speech was my best speech because even though that I made mistakes while I presented it, I used feedback to help improve the details.

Elements we cant live with out!

In science class we have been learning about elements. For this project we had to choose element and research wat it is used for. I used this document to help structure my poster: Science grade 7 Elements Poster

This is My Titanium poster:

Titanium Poster

What are you proud of in your poster?

I think that I included good information and made good points. I did all of the required points. I am really proud about the information I collected because it was really hard to find what titanium was used for that was bad. I also included sources.

If you were able to do this again what would you do?

I think that I would choose what information I would put on my poster more carefully  because I possibly have to much information considering I needed to add a flap. If I could do this project again I would change maybe some of the sources that I used, because they didn’t give me as much information in one.

I hope you enjoyed looking at what I did. Thank you, please comment on my work and give me feedback.

Bullying

In tutor class we have been looking at bullying. These are some questions that I answered…

1. What is bullying?

I think that bullying is using strength in a physical or verbal way. It is when someone intimidates another person, in some cases forcing the person being bullied to do what they want. Bulling is unwanted aggressive behavior.

I didn’t actually use this website, but I found out some good information on it: Website

2. What are bullying forms?

Some main Bullying forms:

• Physical
• Verbal
• Cyber bulling:
• Through Facebook, such as setting up a Facebook page
• Email
• Chat
• Social

I found some bullying forms on/from this website: Forms of Bullying

3. What strategies do you have to cope with bullying?

Most parents and adults tell you to just try and ignore the situation, but sometimes It is too hard to ignore when it affects you so much. I would talk to my friend about it. The last thing that I would do is talk to my parents or teachers because then they would talk to the students parents and that person being bullied originally would be bullied even more for telling on them.

Bullying is an hard situation and some people dont cope with it very well. I think that If you cant cope with it the bullying some people would move to a different school or place

Minecraft Big Ben Reflection

In humanities class we were learning about the time of the Renaissance. The Renaissance is the period of time in italy (and then soon spread across europe) that came after the middle age period. It was when all the artists, scientists, architects and more people discovered many new things, such as discovering the world wasn’t flat. I think that it was especially a good time for artists because they became a bit more appreciated and well-known. Renaissance in italian means re-birth and that is what that time in history was. We did some projects before ending the unit, but the very last project was a minecraft one. In a group we had to build a building from the time of the Renaissance. My  group built big ben. Then Individually we had to create a script and screen recording on the building.

The sources are in the description.

I think that Big Ben was one of the easier buildings to build because of the shape. Because there isn’t any main round areas which made it a lot simpler. I think one of the hardest things to deal with was when our building was griefed. For example at one point  it took us over two hours to fix big ben. Once again recently (right after I finished screen recording) The Big Ben was griefed, which I found really annoying because we had just spent a lot of time repairing it and we had to repair it again. I think that the hardest thing for me was trying to deal with fixing Big Ben. One of the easier things was creating the pillars because they were simple, being just a stack of bricks. I think that my main strength was being able to cooperate with my group members even outside of school. I think that this is a very important skill because with cooperation we wouldn’t be able to make a good building. My main weakness was researching and reflecting. Usually I find researching a bit easier, but it was harder this time because I was trying to connect it to the screen recording and the Big Ben that my group built. My favorite part of the project was being able to see what we had created as soon as it was finished because I could tell that everyone had done a lot of hard work and that the ideas we have done turned out well.

Except for the fact that there were some problems with people destroying other peoples buildings. I think that using minecraft for this project was a very good idea because we could reconstruct the building and at the same time learning the history. On top of learning more it was a really great skill using minecraft. Because we have started to use minecraft at school using this in humanities class has helped me developed a new skill that I will be able to use in new and upcoming projects. I hope that you enjoyed listening and reading about my project.

As i said before the links to what I researched are in the description of my youtube video. If you want to read more please use those links. Thank You.

What makes a good musician and/or song

This is the 2CELLOS playing smooth criminal:

I think that they are very talented. Especially because they play songs on cellos which you usually wouldn’t expect be played on the cello. I think that they are very good musicians.

Mime plan & Performance Reflection

This is a mime video that I did with Siavon, Krysta and Helen. Our place it was set was a picnic are and our senareo was a broken chair. I hope you enjoy:

7B Drama: Group Mimes from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

Digital Story reflection

I have just finished a unit in tech class that included creating a digital story. Not only did we have to create a digital story, but we had to go through a process. That process included 4 areas, Investigate, Plan, Create and evaluate. This is the design cycle we used:

The Design Cycle

My final product was created by using this design cycle. This is my final product:

I hope you enjoyed watching My digital story called ‘Old Times’.
The first step in the MYP cycle is the investigate section. Before we even started the unit we discussed different types of media to use for a digital story. We then created a digital story notes page. On this page was where we were going to keep all our notes and thoughts for the unit. The first thing that we did in our notes was watch three different digital stories and comment on the key features and story structures. I learnt a lot from watching them. It helped me think about what my digital story should be like. The next thing we did was learn about the seven different important aspects for storytelling. We filled out different parts of information and discussed things in class. That was most of what our investigate stage was.

The second stage in the MYP cycle is the plan section. We investigated tools, brainstormed and created a storyboard. We started brainstorming some digital story telling ideas. We had to figure out which tool would work the best for each idea. I chose my story topic based on these ideas. I thought of all the best options of tools to use for my movie. I ended up just using iMovie even though I was planing to use iMovie and doozla. Once I was ready to start thinking about my digital story concepts I started to create my digital storyboard. It became harder to create my storyboard without a script so I decided to create my digital story telling script. After I had created my script I finished my storyboard. I made a plan of a layout of time and a plan of all the equipment that I needed. At first I worried about gathering my props, but then I decided to make them and everything was okay.

The third step of the MYP cycle was the create section. The create section was by far the most fun. I got to try different camera angles and settings. The create section was all about using the information that we have learnt to create what you wanted to create. I filmed all of my clips in one day and then started editing them. I added music from a solo I played for music class. It was a really fun experience and I learnt a lot from it.

Strengths and weaknesses                                                                                                                                                                           During this design I have had many different strengths and weaknesses. I think that I did very well in the plan section. My storyboard was easy to follow and it really helped me with creating my story board. I also managed to have a helpful plan layout for my time, so that was another one of my strengths. My weaknesses were in the investigate section. Particularly our first task. I wasn’t very specific and I didn’t show much detail and dedication into this piece of work.

Areas to Improve                                                                                                                                                                                                             Although I think I have done reasonably well I still would like to go back and improve. If I could do this project again I would make sure I had gathered all the props in time. In the investigate section I had a chance to improve what I had wrote, I did, but I still could have made it better and more detailed. I think that this would have been easy to improve if I contributed more ideas with other people, that would have helped me more I think. The next thing that I could have improved in is the filming. I asked my friend Mihaela to help with the filming, but most of the clips were shaken up. I should have looked at them before I decided the clip was ok. Overall I think that most of my steps were standard.

I remember going through a process like this last year, but I really enjoyed this unit and am excited for the next unit.