In-Depth Intro Post

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Ronan Dickson

Intro blog post

2021/01/06

For my in-depth project this year, I am going to be working on video editing. I chose video editing because it’s something that I’ve been doing for the last few months. I really enjoy editing videos because I find it very satisfying to put together a video and I love to watch the videos after, especially if it’s a good video that I spent lots of time on. So far most of my experience with video editing has been with mountain bikes because that’s what I love to do, and I find that mountain biking videos generally come out better because it’s a fast-paced video with cool features and usually nice forest and mountain scenery to go along with it. This year I want to try making some other videos as well especially because I can’t ride a bike for a long time now and to gain experience working with other kinds of videos.

By the end of this project, I should get a general knowledge of how to edit videos, figure out what the easiest way for me to make videos is and figure out how to hook people in with my videos. I will try working on different kinds of videos such as compilations and stories and with different content, not just bikes. I want to learn a bit about how I can get my videos out there a bit more and how to make videos that people would go out of their ways to watch, because why should people watch it? It’s 5 minutes out of their day so it has to be something interesting that will hook them in as they are watching it and through the title and thumbnail.

Over the in-depth project, I will be posting the videos that I make on YouTube. At the end of the project, I will compare the views, new subscribers, and watch hours that the videos got in their first 28 days. Hopefully, by doing this I will be able to answer the question of what kind of videos people want to see on YouTube and what you should be posting as a new creator on YouTube. I also want to try and find some tips and tricks you can use if you’re making your first video because I know that would have been helpful to me when I was making my first video instead of just sitting there, trying to figure out what to do with these videos and how to add music to my video. I will also talk about how hard it is to make videos and how long it will take after I finished the project.

I will do this by spending the first two weeks learning about video editing and getting used to it. Then in the next four weeks, I will learn about getting photos and videos and spend a lot of time practicing by taking at least 75 photos/ videos. My cast is only on for six weeks so after that I should be able to do more, start skiing with a wrist brace and everything else will get much easier. First, I will make a nature video and then I will make a skiing video in those four weeks. I’m hoping that by then I can ride a bike by then and I will make two mountain biking videos in the next four weeks.

I am going to be graded on five videos that I make. The four videos that I just mentioned will be graded out of 20; 8 points for the interest of the video because I think that is the most important thing, 6 points for the quality of the video meaning that the transitions are all clean, everything is in a part of the video that makes sense and that there are no glitches in the video, 4 points for the choice of visual media meaning that the photos and videos are good quality and it’s clear why I chose what I did, 2 points for the audio meaning that the audio choice makes sense, it’s clear and it works well in the video.

For the final challenge, my mentor is going to give me a bunch of videos of their choice and they are going to give me an amount of time like an hour or two to make something out of them. The final challenge is going to be marked out of 40 because it will prove that I have learned from the four months with my mentor, but I think that the other videos are more important because, in a real-life situation, it would not be like this. I will have the same criteria for this challenge as for the other four videos, however, this challenge will be worth twice as much overall as a single video or worth half as much as all the other videos combined. How this is going to work is, my mentor will choose some videos for me to work with and they can be completely random. With these videos I will have to make the best video that I can within the time limit then when the time is up, I will stop. My mentor will then watch the video and decide how well I did with the task.

I will be posting all of my videos on YouTube and my blog to get feedback as well as from my mentor. On my bi-weekly blog posts later in the year, I will also be including a short reflection. In the reflection, I will summarize what I learned in the last two weeks, what I did well on in the last two weeks, and what I will try to improve on in the coming two weeks. I will do a blog post after the four weeks where I’m practicing taking photos and videos to share some photos and videos and a short summary. I will do a small blog post after my celebration ride to share some photos and videos and do a very brief recap of the last few months. Finally, I will make a full recap of my in-depth project on a website and I’ll be posting that on my blog a couple of weeks after the celebration.

 

 

 

 

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Core Competencies Assignment Nov.18, 2020

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  1. During Quarter 1, what went well for you? Explain. Examples: being back in the classroom, having only two courses, seeing my friends, keeping up with homework, playing volleyball, improving math, helping plan a virtual assembly, becoming more fit. 

 In quarter one I liked the pace that we learned everything because we were going really fast but it wasn’t too fast that I couldn’t understand what we were learning. I also liked the two classes I had because having Spanish in the morning was fun and not very hard then in science it was way harder but I also learned way more in science class. I liked in science how we would be taught a long lesson then we would do a lab or an activity to help us remember and I found that very effective especially when we were doing mitosis and meiosis. 

 

2. During Quarter 1, what did you find challenging or disappointing or stressful? Explain. 

 At the start of the quarter, I wasn’t used to the workload, so I was still in the habit of procrastinating a bit but throughout the quarter I got way better at the doing the work right away.  It was also challenging coming from getting 15-20 minutes of homework to having a few hours of it on some nights. 

 

3. Think of ONE thing you really want to improve in Quarter 2 (and Q 3&4). Examples: a school subject, a sport, time spent on homework/studying, playing a musical instrument, leadership skills, a language, photography, a relationship, general fitness.  

 One thing that I would like to work on in quarter two is my grammar because it’s super helpful later in life and I know that I could be much better at using proper grammar. 

 

4. What are two specific actions that you can start doing every day to get closer to your goal? How long will you spend on this action each day? What part of the day? 

4. a)

I can pay attention to the grammar that the teachers use in emails and in class and take mental notes of that. 

 4. b)

Every time that I write something for an assignment, I can run it through Grammarly until eventually by the end of the year hopefully I won’t even need to check it anymore. 

 

5. If you experience challenges, what might you do to work through them? Examples: ask help from a friend or parent; break the task into smaller chunks; “google” how other people may deal with similar problems. 

 If I’m facing a challenge with my goal then I can ask a teacher to help me with the problem and they will be able to show me how I can do it. 

 

 

 

 

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How to be a REAL success assignment

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How to be a REAL success

Relationships:

The relationship rule that I will focus on how to add value to people is to follow the golden rule. The golden rule is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. What this means is that you treat other people how you would like to be treated. An example of the golden rule is that if you want people to respect you or to keep respecting you then you should respect them. I chose to apply this rule to my life mainly just because I’ll be able to use it when I’m teaching at my Taekwondo to make it more enjoyable for me and for the kids that I am teaching. Like in my first example, I need the students to respect me so that they will listen to me and do what I ask right away. A better example of the golden rule that I can use is rather than just teaching them the boring curriculum, I can try to have fun with them and try and make it easier for them to remember things by giving them tricks that I used to remember everything because that’s for the most part how I was taught when I was younger and for sure how I would have wanted to be taught. I know that if I use this rule when I’m teaching it will make me a better more respected leader in Taekwondo and once I’ve gotten good at using it in Taekwondo then I’ll be able to use it outside of it as well.

Equipping:

The equipping aspect that I’m choosing to work on is, not doing everything by myself. What this means is that I try to work with a team more often, ask questions more often and that I need to ask for help when I need it instead of spending a long time trying to figure it out on my own. For example, if there’s a project where you have the option of working with a partner but you have to do twice as much work then usually I’d work on my own because I think it’s easier but I could get my project done better if I work with a partner because we’d be able to check over each other’s work whenever and we would also be able to help each other. John Maxwell kept saying that you cannot be successful on your own, you need a team. So working in a team for projects and asking for help when I need it could first of all help me get better marks on the project but secondly it will be good practice to apply to life later when I’m trying to become successful. The first way that I will do this is by not being afraid to ask my parents or peers for help when I’m stuck on homework. The second thing I will do is, next few times that we have an assignment where we are allowed to work with a partner, I will take that option and work with someone else.

Attitude:

The attitude rule that I will be working on is responding to excessive demands on my time and my energy with a positive attitude. This means that when someone is telling you to do something that uses some of your free time and your energy to do you don’t think of how hard it’s going to be, why you shouldn’t have to be doing this, or that you can’t do this. You have to think of what you’re going to get out of it, maybe you get stronger, maybe you’re going to get paid, maybe the person who told you to do the task will respect you more or maybe you’ll just get experience but the point is whatever you’re doing there will be a positive takeaway from it unless you say that it’s too hard or something like that and don’t do it. I want to use this rule in my life because I think that it will improve my overall attitude and it will m make life in general easier once I’m used to using this rule because whenever I’m working I think of what good I’m going to be getting from it so I’ll have more motivation to complete the task and probably do a better job at it than someone else who’s doing it without motivation. I will apply this to my daily life by finding one good thing that I can get out of the task that I’m doing until eventually, I’m used to finding something positive from the work that I’m doing

Leadership:

The aspect of leadership that I will write about is challenging the process. Challenging the process means that you are trying to find problems in a process and trying to find methods that don’t work then you’re trying to fix the problems in the process. Challenging the process means that you must take risks by asking questions about the process to find the problems with it and you need to experiment with solutions to fix the problems. For example, at school, if there’s a math formula that the teacher is showing you and is saying that is the best way to solve the problem but you know there is a faster more effective way of doing it then you ask the teacher about why they teach that way and they are most likely right but say they’ve never heard of it then you can try that formula out a few times and show it to the teacher and they might switch the way of doing that question. In that example you’re not happy with the process so you question it, then you experiment with it and then you fix the problem. I want to apply this to my life because it is good practice stepping up and it could definitely help improve my confidence and my leadership abilities because I’m taking charge when I’m questioning a process and fixing it. This is going to be a bit harder for me to use in real life because I’m going to have to constantly look for issues mainly with things that are being taught to me when I’m at school and Taekwondo or if I’m doing anything else where I’m being taught.

Ecological Footprint

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Ecological Footprint

Water Use

Shower: +40

Toilet: +15

Washing the car/ watering the garden: +30

Water Usage subtotal: 85

Stuff

Household cleaners: -5

Pesticides: 0

Garbage: +30

Disposable Stuff: +20

Money: 0

Stuff subtotal: 45

Shelter

Rooms in house: 11

People in house: 4

Rooms per person 2.75

Rooms per person: +70

Turn off lights/ appliances: -20

Shelter subtotal: 50

Transportation

Bike: +5

Transit: +30

Car: +100

Time in car: +20

Cars owned: +40

Size of car: +100

Transportation subtotal: 295

Fun

How much land has been changed: +60

Computer: +70

Gear: +40

Fun Subtotal: 170

Food

Where food is from: +20

Organic food: +20

Compost: -5

Food thrown away: +15

Non-organic beef: +40

Non-organic pork: +15

Free range chicken: +5

Wild fish diet: +40

Free range eggs: +20

Fruit: +20

Vegetables: +20

Food Subtotal: 220

Totals

Total points: 865

My ecological footprint is 8.65 hectares

 

My comparison to others:

7.9, 12.16, 7.9, 6.8, 15.6

Average: 10.072

My ecological footprint is lower than the average from the people that I compared with however it was still higher than the average Canadian ecological footprint.

 

 

 

10 things that increased my score:

  • I eat a lot of meat
  • Ride in a car and I take transit
  • I don’t try hard to avoid disposable items
  • I take too much food sometimes and have to throw some of it away
  • Skiing and mountain biking require a lot of land to be changed
  • I eat wild fish even though I don’t like it very much
  • I don’t pay attention to where my food comes from
  • I put new clothes on everyday
  • My family usually uses a fairly big SUV, but we also have a four door smaller car
  • I don’t always use the compost for food waste

 

5 things that I can try to do to decrease my ecological footprint.

  • Try and avoid using disposable items when I can.
  • Pay more attention to how much food I am taking and taking less then I need instead of more
  • I won’t eat fish often
  • Reuse pants and sweaters if I can
  • Try to take the bus and skytrain instead of a car when I can

I basically chose all of these because they’ll make a big impact and they are all pretty easy for me to do so I should actually be able to do them all.

  • I’ll avoid using disposable items by using a container instead of bags, avoid plastic straws and if I’m buying something to eat or use, I will try and avoid stuff that are in a container that will be thrown away.
  • When eating at home I’ll take a bit less then I think I’ll eat then I can get more after if I need. I’ll also try to eat leftovers from the fridge more often so that doesn’t get thrown away.
  • I’ll try my best to avoid eating fish which should be very easy, the only exception I’m going to make is sushi because I do like that and we still only have that around once a month.
  • At the end of the day if my pants or my sweater is still clean and doesn’t smell bad then I can wear them the next day, for example one of my shirts has something called Polygiene which is supposed to keep it smelling good and cleaner even if it’s worn for a couple of days.
  • To avoid using the car I will take the bus or sky train when ever I can but I can’t always do that especially after it’s dark.

 

Reflection:

The easiest change to make was not eating fish because that isn’t really something that I like very much anyways, and I didn’t eat any over the last few weeks. It was also easy for me to take less food once I got used to taking a bit less. It was harder for me to avoid using disposable items because they are everywhere and I definitely could have done a lot better at that, but I still made an improvement. It was also really hard to avoid using the car, but I still took the bus to and from school everyday and to a few other places and I also rode my bike to get around quite a bit. One of the obstacles I faced was when it was raining in the morning my mom offered to drive me down to the bus stop and I have to walk around 2 km to the bus stop so it was really tempting but I still walked. Especially when it was raining it was hard to wear clothes for two days in a row because they all got wet and dirty. The last obstacle I faced is that we went to Whistler for a weekend which took a lo of driving and I know I used a lot of disposable items there like bags, paper plates from restaurants and snacks. In the future I will try to keep doing all of these because they are all simple and I can keep doing them. Overtime I can start to use the car less and avoid more disposable items because I’ll be getting used to not using them.

Digital Footprint Assignment

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1. How might your digital footprint affect your future opportunities? Give at least two examples.

If I made an inappropriate post or comment without thinking  then that could come back to me later in my life when I’m trying to get a job. On the opposite of that if I had said something positive or something good related to that job then that could possibly help me to get accepted.

2. Describe at least three strategies that you can use to keep your digital footprint appropriate and safe.

Don’t overshare your personal life, don’t give people every detail about you. Don’t post just because you feel like posting, only post if you have something important or interesting that’s still appropriate. Personally I don’t have any spam accounts but, some people use them so that they can post what ever however those accounts are still yours and will be traced back to you if you say something that you shouldn’t have.

3. If you could go back in time, is there anything that you would do differently online? Think of what advice you would pass on to your younger self or other students.

I don’t remember doing anything that I would change as my younger self but I would warn my self to be more cautious and not to believe everything that i see on the internet.

Training Post

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You are now going to create your very first post. In a separate tab or browser window, go to your Dashboard on the left and go to  Posts -> Add New.

1) Title – Create a title for your blog post. Your title will be: Digital Footprint Assignment

2) Body – This is where you place your content of the post – text, videos, pictures, etc. Follow the instructions on the Digital Footprint Assignment page to see what questions you need to answer here.

3) Tool Bar – In your toolbar you can “Add Media” and “Add Documents” into your posts, this is the best way to create visual representations. You can also change fonts, hyperlink, etc.

4) Publish – Here is where you control what items are public and private. You can also control when they are published to your website.

5) Categories – Here is where you choose where you want your post to go. This is your digital binder with all of your subjects. Make sure to categorize each post with the relevant subject. E.g. Categories -> English

6) Tags –  Here is where you tag posts with one or two of the most readily applicable Core Competencies. These tags can help you find things quicker on your blog and help you stay organised. E.g. Tag -> creativethinking

7) Publish – When you are done, simply “Publish” it. If it has been edited, press “Republish” to update with the latest version of the content.