We went on a trip and my group went to Beijing.  We did a lot of fun stuff while in Beijing, but the best thing that we did was hike on the Great Wall.

I think that this really shows my risk taking skills, because I like to hike, but I don’t think that hiking paths and areas in Hong Kong can really compare to the Great Walls barren and broken roads.  It was a really cool experience and I hope to hike more, also on different paths in Hong Kong, and to maybe go back to Beijing and do it again sometime soon.

Another really interesting thing that we experienced on the trip was the food that we ate.

I think that this shows that I am open-minded, because this is definitely not the kind of food that I normally eat, but I tried it, and it was actually pretty good.  I tried to embrace all these unfamiliar cultures and I tried to try everything to really experience their cultures as well.

I think that this trip has definitely improved the way that I think about our mother Earth.  On the Great Wall the sights were unbelievable, so I thought that if this land or the land near it would be taken down or replaced, it would be a huge loss and it would hurt so many people and animals.

The Community service that we did also really improved my knowledge and the way that I think about people.  We went to a center for mentally challenged kids and adults, and they were poor and living in bad conditions, but they were still so happy.  I think now that even if you are in a bad place, or you don’t have enough money, you can still be happy, if you make yourself happy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In English class we’ve been doing a unit on a novel called ‘The Other Side of Truth’.  From this unit we had to make an iMovie project using a thick question that we developed throughout the process.

What did you like/dislike about the novel?

I thought that it was a very interesting novel.  I liked how it was a first person story in present tense with some aspects of past tense in the flashbacks.  I also liked the uniqueness of the story itself.  It is a subject that not many people write about, and I think it was written quite well, and showed what emotions and feelings refugees can go through.

For the project, what skills did you learn or apply in a different way than you had before?

I used iMovie in a few different ways than I had before.  For instance, I used audio and visual effects to manipulate the effect that it was an old radio signal or television program.  I also used a lot more Voiceovers than I usually do, because we wanted a more visual effect than an aural effect.

What did you like/dislike about the project?

I liked how we had to do it in an iMovie instead of doing it live.  Almost all of our presentations that we did are live Keynotes, so I liked the way we changed it.  I also like the aspect of working in a group, because there are more ideas and more opinions.  I think that a group can also be difficult at times, especially in a group of three, because it might get too messy and hard to communicate.

Overall I think that it was a really fun project and I wish that we do more in late projects.

In math class, we have been doing a unit about fractions, decimals, and most recently percents.  This reflection will cover how I felt about it, and what I liked and disliked about this unit.

Stress Levels:

We had a math test last week, and it was covering fractions and decimals and all that we have learned in this unit.  From the scale from 1 to 5, I think that I was at about 3.5, because I was somewhat prepared, and that was what was freaking me out the most.  I ended up with a pretty good grade and I was pretty happy about it.

Easy and Hard:

Our unit also included percents, so I thought that it was very easy to convert a decimal to a percentage, because you only had to move the decimal place two places to the right and add a percentage symbol.  Even though that was easy, I had difficulty switching the fractions to decimals, because I haven’t fully memorized the table of fractions, which comes in handy when you have a number that does not go into 10, 100, or 1000.  I think overall it was a pretty easy unit.

Effort:

Sometimes I think that I put a lot of effort into class, but other times I don’t, because some parts I found very difficult, and I think that I didn’t try hard enough.

Activities:

We did a lot of activities in this unit.  The majority of them were to finish graphs, tables, and worksheets, but all of them helped us through the unit, because all of the questions were similar to the test questions.

I think that overall, it was a challenging unit, but I think that it was necessary to do, because it is very useful in other areas of math and in real life.

T.A.P. stands for Teacher Advisory Program.  this takes place every Wednesday in between periods 2 and 3 (or 6 and 7).  TAP is a way to get to know a teacher and different students from the entire grade in a 10-20 person group.

Pros:  I think that TAP is very helpful, because you can get to know a teacher and then you can ask them for advice or help.  Also, you can meet new students and ask the same of them.  TAP is also really good, because you can catch up on important events, or Battle of the Grades events, because TAP is mostly centered on that and the Areas of Interaction.  It also takes away 10 minutes of each class you have on that day.

Cons:  I think that sometimes TAP can make the day feel longer, because it is an extra period.  Even though it makes the day feel longer, I think that TAP could be longer, because it sometimes takes a while to touch important subjects in what we are talking about.

Suggestions:  I think that TAP could be a little bit longer, and I think that maybe we should meet a little bit more often.  At the same time, I think that TAP could be shorter too, because in class we have to reach a certain point in the concepts that we look through.  I also think that the TAP groups should be smaller, because then it’s more personal for the students and teachers.

C.A.S. stands for Community and Service.  Upper School CDNIS students are required to help out in the school community and our personal communities.  So far, I think that I have done quite a few things.  At school, I am a student and digital ambassador, so that lets me help out in things like the new student orientation at the beginning of the year, and the SEASAC Arts Festival, where we got to help visiting students get around the school and such.  I have also helped out in minor things around the school, such as helping to set up booths at the club fair.

At home and around my personal community, the main thing is that I help out at church, with things like confirmation and giving hymnals and bulletins to people.

I think that these things are very good, and I hope to help out more people and at more things in the future.

Watch this blog (especially in Design and Humanities) for process on a documentary for the 1881 Heritage Fire Station in Hong Kong.

Check out my website here.

Check out my Groogle (group Google) Doc here.

Today, we had our first D.E.A.D. day in a while.  D.E.A.D. is an acronym for ‘Drop Everything And Design’.  Our Design Cycle this time around is for Humanities, and we are doing a documentary on cultural buildings in Hong Kong.  My group is going to the 1881 Heritage Fire Station for our documentary.  Today we met up with our groups, decided roles, and we created a couple of links for our group.  So far it’s been pretty great.

I liked how we got into our groups and had lots of time to work together and get accustomed to each other.  I also enjoyed how we got used to where we were going to go and learn a little bit about it.

I wish that we had a little bit more time with our groups and to research, because the whole day seemed a little bit rushed to me.

What if we knew our groups and locations before the D.E.A.D day?  I think that it would be an okay idea, because then we could get more research and maybe meet with our groups ahead of time.

Here is a link to my Digital Process Journal for this Design Cycle.

In Math class, we’ve been doing a unit on Patterns and Algebra.

I enjoyed this unit, because I find that my best sub-subject is finding patterns and rules.  I disliked this unit, because we had two tests in one week and we somewhat rushed through the unit.  I learned a lot more about graphing this year, because I hadn’t originally learned it before.  I only learned input output tables and finding rules in number sequences previously.  Patterns are good to learn, because you will encounter them in real life.  They don’t even have to be numbers, because you can do arithmetic without numbers.

As you can see in the picture above, this is some homework that we did and I had none incorrect and received the sticker ‘Awesome Job’.  I wasn’t very confident in my algebra at the start of the unit, but this shows that I have improved since then.

In Math we are studying patterns and algebraic patterns.  I am looking at Human Ingenuity as an Area of Interaction because algebra is a form of math that has been created and improved by humans over the years to solve problems.