After a long and tedious effort, I’m still not done. Although we have gotten dozens of phones shipped out, there is still so much for us to do. We have worked tirelessly factory resetting, restoring, and just figuring out phones from different backgrounds. There have been times where I have stayed back for for hours trying to get things to work, but when I do, it’s one of the most rewarding feelings ever. Doing this project really invigorated my love for mobile phones, and I really hope to work with more in the future whether it be for school or for any external provider.

Now that we have been working through several mobile phones, my group and I have established a manner of working with them. Using an application on our Mac devices, we can place iPhones into recovery mode which allows us to factory reset them and get them shipped out to our service partners. This really speeds up the whole process, as we have many phones to work through, but not a lot of time to do so. Even though service trips are still not going on, we still have local service partners in which we can actually give these phones to and they can be used with them. We have worked with the Saint Johns elder care home, but only giving them PCs, not phones. I really do wonder how many services do need phones as they are quite cheap in Singapore and many second hand retailers do stock them.

In terms of group work we have worked tirelessly to get as many phones out of the door as we can. We have been working with iPhones mostly as they are the easiest to reset, putting them in recovery mode is fairly easy and specially with the Mac OS application that we have. As a bonus iPhones are not carrier locked which means that we will not have any issue distributing them around to different countries. This does mean that services in other countries can install services such as WhatsApp, Viber, and telegram to use for their communication needs. While this is still an ongoing project, I do hope to get much run over the door as soon as we can. It’s extremely fun, and I don’t doubt that we will still be working as efficiently as we can.

I’ve decided to embark on this project as it closely relates to my interests in mobile phones. I’ve always wanted to work with phones, but I’ve never really had the chance to do so, so this does mean that I will be able to form a group with some grade 10s or grade nines and begin working through the backlog of mobile phones that we had in storage. For now, I think we just have to evaluate what phones work and which don’t, as there are several which are in good shape but there are also some which have missing back plates, missing batteries, or broken screens.

I’ll probably divide up the phones by broken, working, or locked (as it can’t be accessed, but still works). Locked phones could probably not be donated but they can be used for spare parts hopefully, it all depends if the model is popular or not. I hope that this experience will be meaningful for me as it will give me the technical background to work with Android, iOS, and other feature phones which we deal with all the time.

While I have been playing ultimate frisbee for many years, it was not until I reached the IB when I really had to put some thought into strategy and stamina. Frisbee is a game with lots of running. And being able to balance your energy is extremely important! One of the many skills that I learned this year are not only technical skills such as catching, throwing, and knowing where to stand, but also knowing my own limits and knowing when to pace myself to not make myself tire out throughout the game. While it may seem trivial to many people, I’m not a person that does lots of exercise so in this case it’s extremely important for me to know myself and to not push myself to the brink of exhaustion because at that point. I will not be having any fun.

Although I am doing these reflections almost one year after playing ultimate frisbee, I can still remember the very first day I stepped onto the pitch. Ultimate frisbee has been a long passion of mine. Although I haven’t played a lot, I started in grade eight. Before the COVID-19 lockdowns, I used to go to every single session on Wednesday afternoons. It was one of those sports which I truly enjoy to do, and even though I might have been tired throughout the day, I always had the energy for frisbee. This really does demonstrate the attitude I put in towards frisbee, the fact that I was always ready to go when we had to play.

Well I may not be the most physically fit I pushed through and through so I could really get on par with the rest of the people that did the activity. I hope to one day play ultimate frisbee in university or in another small group. This is definitely one of my favourite sports, and while it does involve a lot of running, the team plays extremely important. Strategies, positioning, defence, attack, all of these are part of a good game of ultimate frisbee.

Techtinkers has been nothing more than a collaborative project since the very beginning. Techtinkers can be nothing without the team behind it to lead it forward, and this is a very clear example in the mobile phone division in which I was working in. Since I enjoy working with technology, and more specifically mobile phones, I found a good group of great 10s grade 9s to work with me in this. What we did was try and repair phones together, whether this be through charging them, factory resetting them, or trying any physical repairs. The latter was a bit harder to do since we didn’t have many parts on hand.

Being able to understand what we’re doing at any given time as a group, helps us coordinate what our next steps should be. For example, updating the log is something that we have to do together. The reason we do this together is to make sure that all my team members know what they’re doing, and they can know what they’re in putting in the log. Logging is something that is extremely important in the activity, because if it is done incorrectly it can cause many issues and delays when trying to get a product out of the door. I hope to continue working in the group that I am now, because mobile phones has really become a passion of mine recently. I do hope that with a bit more organisation the mobile phone squad can really be the best that there can be in tech tinkers.

What went well?

I believe that many of the points which I mentioned were valid, and I had evidence behind them to prove and connect the points for my two extracts. I had a good balance of ideas, and I kept the time between the two pieces to 5 mins each. The introduction covered the context of both pieces well enough (something I don’t think needs much changing)

How prepared you felt?

I did feel a bit anxious going in to record the IO, but I think that I could have prepared a bit better. I did have a script written for my first extract (Little Red Cap), but just long bullet points for Eli Rezkallah’s piece. If I had written a script for both pieces of work, I believe that I could have been more fluent in the presentation style and would have been able to add more evidences for Rezkallah’s piece.

How did you respond to the questions?

Poorly, as I did struggle with questions which looked critically into the micro analysis of both texts together. I did not prepare the questions beforehand (something to look at before my final IO)

What improvements you need to make over the next 10-14 days?

• Get a script done for Rezkallah’s piece
• Practice IO several times over (didn’t do this before (!!!!))
• Possibly build up more points for Rezkallah’s piece (was a bit lacking)

What mark you would give it and why?

Probably somewhere around 25-28. While I believe the points were solid, the presentation and the the depth probably wasn’t there. Language was quite stuttery, and ideas didn’t flow as well as I expected them to.

This photo was taken in a black-only school in Alabama in 1956 by photographer Gordon Parks, who documented inequality and discrimination across the southern United States during the enactment of the Jim Crow laws. This photo is a longshot, taken at medium exposure, and captured with early photo film.

Using a large Field of view, Parks captures the setting of the classroom, allowing the viewer to see the 3 walls of the room. The colour captured in the image is bleak and depressing-like, giving context as to what the students experience at this school. Going on with the student experience, the disorganisation in the students desk reveals that little to no learning can be done, with no tables to work from, and nowhere to store school supplies. It is in complete contrast to what the Western world considers adequate schooling. The rule of thirds breaks down the image into the roof (negative space), walls and an empty blackboard, and the disorganised chairs. The image gives off the sentiment of poverty by the fact that there isn’t a proper door to the classroom, the floor is dirty, the only source of lighting is the window above the doorway to the right, and that the only source of heating is the old boiler in the middle of the room.

What can I improve this time?

• Develop a thesis in the introduction
• Add and develop topic sentence to better fit the thesis
• Connect the points together (make the essay less disjointed)

Introduction: Langston Hughes was an African American poet, who was raised in New York. Growing up in Harlem throughout the 1920s to the 1960s, Hughes was able to see first-hand how racial discrimination impoverished communities and the social impacts which were caused by blatant segregation. His focus on the lives of black and white America, and focusing on black culture and identities are a key motif repeated in his poetry. His first and most iconic poem, “The Negro speaks of Rivers” drafted in 1921, speaks to the African American community, connecting it back to its roots and heritage in the African sub-continent. “The Weary Blues” written in 1926 encapsulates the Harlem renaissance by expressing the emotions and feelings that Blues carry.

ITP has been one of the most fundamental parts of my own learning, and it has all been done by my ITP teacher, Chris Haigh. Since Grade 6, he’s had to “endure” me through all the learning that I’ve done throughout the years. ITP has shaped me to be the way I am, not only by teaching me music, but by also teaching me consistent learning habits which I still apply to this day. Attempting the trinity exam the years previous was also a test and challenge which I had to undergo for a certificate. ITP has always been the most mentally challenging activity I’ve ever had to undergo, and I hope that I can take some of the skills (such as discipline and dedication) to other areas of my life, whether this be for university or future life.

The previous 3 months in Jazz Band have been probably one of the most grueling and intensive months I’ve experienced. New pieces and being able to play together as a band (FINALLY) have completely shifted the dynamic and mindset within me. Together with my ITP teacher, I’ve been working steadily and thoroughly through my pieces, bringing some light to the end of the tunnel. To me, Jazz Band is an activity which you continually learn not only in terms of the music piece, but also about your limits, and how you can go out of your way to overcome them. Ever since the beginning, Jazz Band has been a tough activity, and practicing has always been a must. My improvement has been immense in the past 6 years, as I’ve really seen myself develop in terms of my playing, and the fact that I’m not afraid to pull the occasional solo says a lot about me, which is atypical of my (normally) reserved self.

I hope that over the coming year, I’m able to push myself even further than ever before, and that one day, I’ll get to see myself do a proper solo, in front of the grade. 

My 3rd season of student voice has ended quite well, with me being quite pleased with the progress that we have done in the activity. One of my biggest tasks to date was to assist in choosing a location for the end of year Prom which was supposed to be hosted at the end of this year. My efforts in calling and getting as much information as possible for the events have unfortunately gone to waste :(, as the Prom was postponed to the end of 2021 (due to COVID 19 restrictions preventing us from having large scale meetups.

Irregardless, I believe that SV has helped me grow as a person and gave me awareness of issues that happen in school and in the greater world. One example of this was the increasing awareness of issues surrounding women and their experiences with sexual assault in the world. We brought this up as a point of discussion in one of our meetings, and we thought of ways we could integrate the topics into our PSE or mentor time curriculum. I feel that my involvement in SV can definitely help change the way the school discusses and teaches us current world events.