Early Blog

So I know this weeks blog is a day early, but I have some time to kill. Soooo, this week we are doing PSA videos. Our teachers gave us these problems and we have to make a public service announcement video and then present it to the school. All of the problems are relative to the school environment and hopefully we can change some hearts while we are at it. My groups PSA is about digital wellness and we specifically chose to focus on self worth and social media. It is a problem where people try and define themselves by the amount of follwers and likes that they get as well as the flattering comments. If the picture doesn't meat their expectations on likes, they most likely delete. We want to inspire people to try and look to themselves to find self worth and also look to friends and people around them. Don't look for gratification from others to verify what you are worth. 

I was kind of dreadinig the PSA because I wasn't sure what me and my group would do. It seemed almost impossible to find an idea. Then, one day, I figured it out and proposed it to my group. It was great and then we got started and it turned out to be a pretty interesting idea. One of us was dedicated to the writing on the screen for the video. I was dedicated to making the music on garage band. Copyright free of course. And another person was focused on making the call to action website we are doing at the end. Hopefully this PSA will turn out to be good and impactful and not just silly.

Video Chat

Yesterday, our entire class did a videochat with this freelance photographer and documentary maker because a lot of what we do in this class, is similar to what he does everyday for his job. He does documentaries on social issues and on just jobs people give him. He has to make connections, reach out to people, and make him self known to people so he can get a job from people. That is similar to what I am doing. I had to reach out to a local organizations, make connections with people so I could make my issue recognized. He markets himself a lot through social media and I thought that I could use socail media to spread awareness for homelessness and also to post the youtube link of my interviews so people can realize what the organization is about.

Well I should say that I need to make more connections with people so I can further my project, however I am using my organization I used for the first half of my project. However I need to start promoting my project and get it out their. I made a lot of progress with my hoodie drive and if I could inspire more people to donate to organizations that would be incredible.

Kevin, the freelance photographer is an amazing person. He is a doer and a gogetter and always accomplishes his goals. If I could have that same attitude with 

Community Pitch

So, last night was the community pitch for our passion project and it went great. There were so many people that had such nice things to say. The community pitch was a presentation to the community of our project and our progress we have accomplished. A bunch of parents and friends and people came and learned about our project. It felt great to be complimented to so many people that my idea is good. It was an hour long and it went by so fast just talking to so many people. As I have stated previously in my blog posts that my project is about homelessness in my community.

Genius Time Update

Hey everyone. So far things are going really well and I am making a lot of progress with my project. I recently just did my interviews with the people over at my organization I am working with and I got a lot of great footage. I interviewed two women and one of them was an older women who has been there for 17 years and had a lot of experience. She was so knowledgable about the organization and gave me a lot of great footage. 

Also this is the last week of my drives for hoodies and it has been going great. I have probably about 150-200 hoodies and jackets. My school drive has gone so much better than last year and I have collected so many more this year. 

Next week I plan on washing all of the used hoodies and then bringing them to the organization. 

My progress and what I learned.

So the past few weeks I have accomplished a lot. I started my drives in multiple places, and I also scheduled my interviews with the organization I am working with this friday. I had started the drives in my neighborhood, and my mom's work and it will start at my school next week. The hardest thing for me to figure out was how I was going to do my interviews. I needed to figure out the audio as well as the camera angels because I am filming it. Soon my teacher showed me a microphone that she had that I can attach to my ipad and I aslo I have a friend that is going to help film with another camera. 

Torwards the beginning of the quarter I wasn't sure if I was going to complete the goals I had set for completing of my project. I then buckled down and got my head right and started accomplishing one thing after the other. I contacted people to get the drives started and I also had to schedule interviews. For me these things are kind of scary. I hate having to talk to people but this project has increased my confidence and comfortability with talking to people. 

Next week I plan on starting the drive at my school as well as editing my interview video. It is going to be a long and tedious process editing the video, but it is going to be worth it because it is going to be an amzaing video and a great way to raise awareness for my cause. 

Technology's impact on us

The question for today is will technology connect or conquer us. Many of the adults now- a-days feel as if todays youth have an unhealthy dependence on technology. In some respects that accusation is justified. There are many people that cannot go two minutes without their phone. However todays day and age has adapted to incorporate technology into it. Schools are using ipads and computers, you can now pay with your phone or smart watch, and you can also talk to someone of your family on the other side of the world.

I believe that technology will eventually conquer us, but not necesarily in a bad way. Different technology companies like apple are coming out with different ways to incorporate technology into peoples lives. I believe that we will be completely dependent on technology. I don't think that normal human interactions like face to face with family and friends will go away because we will all be using technology together. We will be able to be with eachother but be connected somewhere else. Normal human interactions will not be lost, just enhanced in a way.

We as humans have the innate nature of advancing in society and technology whenever possible. We cannot stop advancement. We have to adapt to it.

Genious time reflection

The past few weeks, we had a genius time project. A bunch of teachers from the middle and highschool had posters, flyers or banners they needed for a number of things. My project was creating small posters to put around the school for the three home football games left, and the theme of the games. Each game has a different theme. There was Pinkout, Neon, and Homecoming. My job was to create a visual representation of these themes while advertising the football game. This was actually a really fun project. While it took a while because I had three posters to create while others had only one, but I enjoyed it. To make these posters, I used two apps on my ipad. I used canva, which is an app used to make advertisements, posters and what have you, and I also used photoshop mix. It is basically just a photo editing app. 

I thought that I did a really great job with the posters. In class we had critique sessions. We had two of them actually. Our designs would go up on the projector and everyone would critique them. They would give suggestions and compliments to help you make the best design. It felt good to not only help the teachers and the school, it also was a period of growth. Getting constructive criticism, while sometimes it can sting, it helps you grow and learn to become better.