I utilized Canva to create my posters. I heavily considered different demographic and what would be useful for different demographics before designing my posters, and I took a lot of care to make sure the designs were very simple yet meaningful for the audience that I wanted to show them to. I used characters from Disney films, leaning heavily into character presentation creating my Big Hero 6 poster. However, for my poster about recovery from alcoholism, I wanted to go for a somber, emotional approach. I was able to identify the stages that come with marketing and how each advertisement targets a specific stage, with the aim to slowly but surely persuade the consumer to buy into the product or message of the advertisement.
Core Competencies
My strategies for collecting relevant information for specific tasks include examining content that acts as a real-world example of the task I am working on. I’m able to collect information from the real world by observing different advertisements, posters and issues. This helps me figure out my focus on my task and the message I want to convey.
An example of where I built upon someone else’s ideas is when I created my recovery advertisement. This advertisement was inspired by many other recovery posters I had seen in Vancouver. Recovery and healing are things that are important for most, if not all of society, but some people believe they are too far deep into their addictions, and I thought that making a poster like this would help raise awareness and bring hope to those who are struggling with such addictions.
One strategy or activity that stimulates my imagination is listening to music while I work. Often times, music drowns out most of the background noise in my classroom, allowing me to focus on myself and my work. Instrumentals and some lyrics from songs also help me immensely, allowing me to formulate new ideas based off of what I’m hearing.
The game I played was MINESWEEPER. To play, you have to click on all the squares that do not contain mines. If you hit a mine, you have to restart the game. The numbers in the boxes will tell you the number of mines that are in the boxes surrounding them.
I usually started with the corners, trying to clear as much ground with them as possible before going towards the middle. Afterwards, I began using the numbers in the boxes to try and rule out potential areas where the mines would be located.
I believe that this game uses deductive reasoning. The strategy I used specifically worked based off of this logic: “if there’s two bombs around here, and one bomb around here, then one bomb can’t be here,” and so on.
Q: Choose one of the figurative images from your power point assignment and explain how you chose that image, and how that image supports the meaning of that particular slide.
A: The figurative image in my artifact (see image above) was chosen because I believe it fully represents a punishment. While in the story, neither Frankenstein nor the Wretch are bound in chains at any point in the stories, they are punished. Handcuffs are often used in prisons, and serve as a reminder of the prisoner’s punishment. This slide is all about punishment, and how each film’s punishment for the characters differs. The cuffs only enforce that fact more.
Core Competency Self-Assessment
Q: How did you select images and words to create meaning? What this easy for you? Why or why not?
Selecting images and words was somewhat easy for me. The reason for this is that while I was constructing my powerpoint, I thought about themes from the film that would be easy for me to symbolize. These themes included rebirth and punishment. The more I thought about my themes, the more images came flooding through my head, along with words and quotes that backed up my meaning. It made the construction of my powerpoint go a lot smoother than I thought it would.
I was able to demonstrate my communication skills during the strawberry DNA extraction lab that we did for biology. Me and my partner worked really well together, listening to each other and being engaged during the project. However, me and my partner, despite following proper instructions, were confused. When we looked around the room, we weren’t getting the result everyone else was getting. We were talking about the project and communicating the steps to each other correctly, but our test tub was different than everyone else’s. I was able to communicate to other people that there might’ve been a problem, and everything turned out alright in the end.
We didn’t really have a good description of Mr. Matthews, so we took the vision of an abusive father and went with it. All of our other characters were made with the design that Andrea came up with in mind. Our plot points where moments that we felt were most important to his character, as his actions have definitely affected others, despite not being as present in the story as others, such as Garvey or Cole. Our setting was the city of Minneapolis, where Mr. Matthews resided throughout the first half of the story, in contrast to his son, who spent the first half of the story isolated in nature. His son grows and changes, while he remains the way he is.
The word ‘mood’ means a temporary feeling to me. We selected this specific track because we believed that it fit the mood that we wanted to set. It wasn’t supposed to be extremely intense, but it was supposed to invoke a feeling of danger and uncertainty.
Core Competency Reflection
An example of where I built upon someone else’s ideas is when I was creating one of the avatars for the movie. I wanted to go for similarity, so I took the look of one of my group members’ avatars and used that as a guideline, in a sense. I appreciate feedback on my writing and analysis and prefer it comes in the form of constructive criticism. If I’m making mistakes or have something that could be improved, I want to know what I need to work on. In discussions and conversations, I help to build and extend understanding by referring back to text used in the material we create things based off of. When there’s some sort of disagreement, I try to look for hard facts to settle it.
These scones were a blast to make! When creating them, tools that I had never used before were needed, such as a pastry blender! And there were also new methods that I had to learn, such as cutting cold fat (in this case, we used butter) into our dough and folding it over in order to get those fragile layers that make scones so unique! When we made our blueberry compote, we made extra sure to crush as many berries as we could so some excess fruit wouldn’t go to waste. I even made it at home for another lab, and I had a little container to keep all the extra sauce! My parents used it in other meals too, and that made me feel really happy. Usually, I share lots of food with my family. They always really enjoy what I cook!
Core Competency Reflection
When I need to work collaboratively with people I don’t know well, I try to make sure that the instructions are clear to everyone. I occasionally check up with everyone I’m working with, and together, we all make sure we’re on task. The ways I communicate while cooking differ from how I communicate at home in these ways: I’m always asking more questions. I get to communicate and collaborate with different people. I show that I value feedback from others in my group by making a mental note of it and adjusting my performance if it’s needed. Peers should learn from each other as well!
Original Logo DesignLogo Scaled Down (Scale Factor: 1/2)Logo Scaled Up (Scale Factor: 2)
This was a math project in which we were tasked with creating a logo. Once we made our logo, we had to redraw it at a scale factor of 2 or 3, and then redraw it at a scale factor of 1/2. For my Logo, I decided to draw a crown. (I know the pictures suck. Give me a break.)
Core Competency Reflection
In this project, I demonstrated some Core Competencies. Specifically, Creative and Critical thinking. It takes a while for good ideas to come, obviously. So, when ideas don’t come to me right away, I look for some inspiration through music. After I listened for a while, my logo idea just popped up in my head. I demonstrated Critical Thinking when I was trying to figure out how big I wanted my original logo to be. I had to be open-minded when looking for an alternative solution when it came to the size of my logo. Honestly, I used to think making a logo was easy. After doing this small project, however, I realized it’s more difficult than it’s chalked up to be. This was like a mini-exploration, almost. I do want to find a way to plot a more complicated design that’s a little kinder to scale. I feel like if I asked for some feedback, I could bounce off the ideas of other people a little bit.
We want to have enough money to pay a down-payment of 15% (minimum) for a house. The places that we’re looking at all cost around $800,000, so we need to save up $120,000 for the down-payment. The house market has stagnated, so the prices aren’t expected to change in the next three years. We already have $80,000 saved up for a down-payment, and every year, we make an additional $10,000 to add to those savings. But, even with the additional $30,000, we’re still short of our goal. So, what can we do do get there?
Our options include a 1 year annual, non-redeemable GIC with an interest rate of 3.5%, a 3 year non-redeemable GIC with an interest rate of 4.2%, and stock investments. Of course, we can also use a standard savings account to help reach our goal. We can divide the money however we want, as well.
So, keeping our options and our goal in mind, this is my solution. During the first year, we can put $60,000 into a 3 year GIC. Then, we can put $20,000 towards stock investments. The interest rate for the 3 year GIC is 4.2%, so by the end of our first year, we’ll have $62,520 from the GIC. Now, let’s say that the stock market isn’t doing so well during the first year. We’re losing about 6.9%. So by the end of our first year, we’ll have $18,620 from our stock investments. We also earned ourself an additional $10,000 to add on. We’ll just keep that in a savings account. So, we have a grand total of $91,140 at the end of our first year. Obviously, we’re short by quite a bit. But now for the second year. The $62,520 should be going up because of our interest rate, so now we have $65,145.84 saved up from the GIC. The stock market’s doing better now, so we’re gaining 7.5%. So, by the end of our second year, we have $20,016.50 from our stock investments. We have another 10,000 to put into our savings account, giving us another 20,000 dollars, and bringing our grand total up to $105,162.34. And now for our third year. We have a total of $67,881.97 from our GIC. And this year, the stock market’s still doing quite well, so we now have $21517.74 from our stock investments. And at the end of our third year, we have another $10,000 to add to our savings account, bringing our total from our savings account up to $30,000. Add all of that together and you get our grand total of $119,399.71. We’re less than $1000 short of our goal by the end of our three years.
Visual Representation (Numbers = Years Passed); Made using Excel
My Justification
I thought this solution would work out, even though it’s short of our goal. Why? Because this is only one outcome. Stocks aren’t all that predictable, after all. It’s hard to tell whether or not they’ll go up or down, but if they go up, then the risk is really worth it, in my opinion. After all, you can still earn a bit of money to reach your goal relatively quickly if you have less than $1000 left to acquire. And if the stock market’s doing very well, you might be able to make some extra money to keep.
Collaboration With my Group
Working with my group went pretty well. I’m honestly kind of surprised that I found it kind of nice, considering the fact that I normally don’t really enjoy group work all that much. My group members helped clear things up when I was confused or didn’t completely understand what we were doing. Most of us shared our jobs, too. Sometimes, I would calculate, sometimes another person would calculate, while someone else wrote down the calculations. We all contributed and brought up different solutions and ideas. I didn’t use any of the solutions that my group proposed, though. The solutions that we brought up all worked pretty well, but I wanted to try and come up with a solution that was unique to me. If I were to rate my ability to collaborate with my group members, I think I’d give myself a 3.
Core Competency Reflection
I can advocate for myself. When we were talking about making up our own solutions, other people took the lead. But, I also brought up what I thought was a good idea.
I can take on roles and responsibilities in a group. Everyone shared different roles while we worked. I was able to take my own role and be responsible while we were working together.
I can work with others to achieve a goal. When we were doing group work, we were all coming up with ideas and trying to make sense of the problem. I think that we all bounced off of each other pretty well, and that helped us reach our goal quickly.
I can reflect on my thinking. After the group work was finished each day, I often thought about what I had brought up and what I had done. I often thought about how I could’ve done things differently, and where I might’ve went wrong. I actively tried to understand what we were doing, and I actively reflected on my previous thought process when it came to the assignment given to us.
Made on canva.comMade on canva.comMade on canva.com
Work Cited:
Hickey, Chelsea. “Teenagers: Why You Should Care About Your Digital Footprint.” Social Media Club, 22 May 2013, https://socialmediaclub.org/blog/from-the-clubhouse/teenagers-why-you-should-care-about-your-digital-footprint/.
“How to Protect Your Digital Footprint (Expert Tips).” Cyberpedia, https://www.bitdefender.com/cyberpedia/how-to-protect-your-digital-footprint/. Accessed 20 Sept. 2022.
Protecting Your Online Identity and Reputation (for Teens) – Nemours KidsHealth. https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/online-id.html. Accessed 20 Sept. 2022.
What Every Teen Needs to Know About Their Digital Footprint | Net Nanny. https://www.netnanny.com/blog/what-every-teen-needs-to-know-about-their-digital-footprint/. Accessed 20 Sept. 2022.
Personal/Social Competency Reflection
I know that my Digital Footprint can have a negative impact on my life. If I say something without thinking, that can easily be taken out of context. If I post something without thinking, it can be screenshotted before I’m able to delete it. Once I say something, or once I post something, it’s going to be there forever. I can’t get rid of it. So, I’m going to be making an effort to always make sure that I’m thinking logically and taking a breather when I feel it’s necessary, so I don’t say anything that I can’t take back.
You always have choices when it comes to the internet. You can choose to be anonymous, and you can choose to show yourself. Showing yourself is always a bad idea on the internet, however. I always choose how I want to present myself on the internet, by choosing and changing my screen name. I also make the choice to not comment on any posts that I might come to regret later on in life. It’s always my choice, and that’s how it’s going to be.
Honestly, I’ll admit that some of my hobbies have come from the internet. A part of my interest in art does come from what I see online. The talented people that put effort into their drawings really makes me want to try and be like them. But, at the same time, I’m always remembering that I have to be myself, and not model myself into other people, or a ‘more ideal’ version of myself. The internet can really make people think they need to change, when they really don’t.
When I need to collaborate with other people that I don’t know that well, it becomes a lot harder for me. Since I’ve never really taken the time to meet and get to know other people, it’s a lot harder to work with them. So, my goal for this semester will definitely be to step out of my comfort zone a little bit, and try to meet some new people. Maybe try to work better with other people that I don’t know as well. It’ll definitely benefit me, so I’m willing to try.
Personal Awareness and Responsibility (┳Д┳)
I don’t advocate for myself all that much, surprisingly. Of course, I SHOULD be doing that, because it’s good for me. But at the same time it feels kind of wrong to do so. So, this semester, I’m going to try and advocate for myself more. It should’ve been something I was doing in the first place, but I was self-deprecating at certain points, so THAT’S MY EXCUSE.
Creative Thinking °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
If you were to ask me whether or not I thought I was creative, I wouldn’t have an answer for you. Some could CONSIDER me creative, but that’s about it. Personally, I want my ideas to be more unique. More original. So for this semester, I’m going to try and find something that can light up that creative part of me, so I’m more satisfied with my ideas.
