Creativity Discussion Follow-Up Assignment

So on Friday, we had a class discussion on whether creativity was a good or bad thing. (For more info on this, click here)

 During the discussion, one of our classmates made a good point. He said that everyone could be compared on a "bell curve" for adapting innovative ideas. So for example, the people at the starting end of the bell would be the ones that would agree and easily accept change and innovative ideas. Then there were the people on the curve who were the average, and it would depend whether they would accept the change or not. Then the people on the bottom end of the curve would be the ones who wouldn't really agree to change.

So for our assignment, we would have to decide where our we, our school, our school district and our teacher (yes.. our teacher) was on the bell curve. Also we have to decide what is one thing that we would change about our education system or our own educational path so far, if you could, and why. If we would not change anything – explain our reasoning as well.

For me, I think I would accept innovative change, but not easily and not right away. I probably wouldn't accept it right away, I would have to think about it and ask myself  "Is this really better or not?" 

I think that our school is pretty easily acceptant to innovative ideas... I mean just look at all the different electives we have. (and don't forget innovation week)

I honestly don't know that much, if anything about our school district. (But I do know it's a group of important people..) So I can't really answer this. 

And for our teacher..... 
I think she is on the side of accepting new things pretty well. She's always open to new ideas and it seems like she accepts them pretty well.

If I could change anything about our education system, it would be that the number of people in each class would get smaller. I find that sometimes it's hard to get help from teachers because there are lots of other kids in the class who also need help at the same time that I need help. Also I think it would help me focus more in class because sometimes, the class gets pretty noisy because there are lots of people talking. They may not be making a lot of noise, but because there are lots of people in the class, it gets pretty noisy.

April 22st to 25 Project Reflection

So this week was just another normal week. We did not have class on Monday because it was Easter. On Tuesday, we worked on commenting on Mr Solarz's class projects. We had pick one of the projects the students did and comment on it. (For more info on this assignment, click here.) We did not have class on Wednesday because of the block order. On Thursday, while Jarrod drew out the main character in the story, I cut out all the handles we would use to show our painting. We made these handles out of cardboard and because one strip of cardboard per handle would be too flimsy, we would used 2 or 3 per handle. So in total, we needed 22 cardboard strips. After that, I had a bit of time left in class so I started my proposal for my second project. Sorry, but I can't tell you what it's about just yet :). On Friday, we had a class discussion on whether being creative was better than being conformative. We watched a few video's and then started discussing. (For more info on this, click here.)

In overall, I thought I could have worked better and got more things done this week. Also next week, I will have to start painting the backgrounds for our painting.

My Comment on Mr Solarz's Class Project

Click Here to View Comment

April 14 to 17 Overview

So this week was just another normal week at our class. We were able to work on our projects the whole time. For the whole week until halfway through Thursday's class, I worked on finishing the story, while Jarrod drew out the backgrounds. Once we were done what we were doing, for the last little bit of class, we used photoshop to create what our individual parts of the painting would look like.

Overall, I thought I worked well throughout the week. I focused well and didn't get distracted much and as a result, I was able to get a lot done.

April 8th to 11th Overview

This week all we did was continue to work on projects..

On Tuesday (April 8th), we worked on our story plan by planning out the paint layers, objects and backgrounds that we are going to create. In our story, we need this one crucial object and we couldn't think of that object... So we decided to think of the object by scribbling and observing what we could make out as objects in the scribble...

Yes this is what we really did, we weren't just fooling around...

On Thursday (April 10th), I started writing out the story while my partner started to draw out the backgrounds. Since it was a double block day, I actually finished a good part of the story. I also thought I worked really well that day. 

On Friday (April 11th), I continued writing the story while Jarrod finished up drawing the backgrounds.

Overall throughout the week I thought I focused well and I thought I was really productive. My partner and I were able to get a lot done and hopefully we can work this well next week. 

Redesigning the Classroom!

  This week in PDD class, our teacher got us into the "back to school" rhythm by giving us our first Challenge Task. This took the whole week and that is why there are no reflections on my project... we had no time to work on them. For the group I was in, our task was to redesign the room. We could either be a part of this or be a part of promoting the PDD class because we need more students to participate in the course for it to run next year. So basically we were "professional architects" and we had to redesign our room for our teacher because we have a new thing in our room called a "Smart Board". Anyways, for more info on the task itself, either go to Ms Lee's blog (link on the right of the page) or click here.

 We have to do both a individual and group reflection for this task. This is my individual and the group reflection will be at the bottom of the page.

 For the first step, Identifying the problem, I would give myself a 4. For this stage, I rated myself on more like understanding the problem, because our teacher already "identified" the problem. I understood the problem well but at times I would have to ask my peers or my teacher when I didn't understand something. For our second step, we brainstormed / researched or gathered information to break down the problem. I'd give myself a 2 or 1 cause cause our group (and I) didn't really do anything to break down the problem. We didn't really think of a floor plan at first, so our original model wasn't even to scale. Our third step was to redefine or clarify the problem or gather more information. We didn't really have to redesign or clarify the problem cause our teacher, as the "stakeholder" came up to us and said she wanted some things changed and added, so that basically redefined and clarified the problem. Our next task was to decide a plan of action (“Dream It” / “Design It“ Stage). At first we did pretty bad on this because our first design wasn't even to scale of the room. So we redid our design and actually measured every major thing in the room so we had a scale in our design. Then the next day we drew out the design and we made the major things out of cardboard paper to scale of what we measured. Even though I got distracted a little bit, I think I did well on this stage so I would give myself a 4. The last step was to actually carry out our plan and physically redesign the room. On this stage, I would rate myself a 4 out of 5. Honestly, I don't think it was my very best performance because during the stage where we actually moved all the furniture and things in the room, I got distracted at times and I would go off task. Otherwise, while actually designing the room and on the other stages, I was on task for the most part. I think I understood the task pretty well and I was actively engaged and participated in the task. I think I can improve next time by not getting distracted and going off task so much and maybe focusing a bit more. From this problem based challenge, I learned that designing a product that fits a problem can be very difficult. I experienced this first hand while working on this task.

For a video of the group reflection, click here.