Author Archive

TEDx Finishing The Poster

We were continuing to make the TEDx poster, but this time trying to see if we could fit in any of the quotes we wrote down during the beginning of the lesson when we watched a video with the man who started the quest for a World Peace Day, Jeremy Gillie. My three quotes were:

  1. “This has to stop.” – Talking about violence
  2. “They were the people who believed in peace.” – Talking about Afghanistan
  3. “By working together we can create peace one day.” – This is the one I chose

We didn’t really talk to our partners about it but I do think that I needed to because I was really unsure about how I to add the quote in. Here is the presentation on my process in making the TEDx poster.

DP – Design Process

Today, we were making banners for our partner’s portfolio. We had to ask them what they liked and what colours they thought looked nice and then make a nice banner suitable for their online portfolio. While we were making the banner we had to document the process, so here is a presentation explaining what I did and why. Here is a link to the document where I wrote down Nicole’s hobbies and preferences: Client Specification

When I was giving feedback to other people on what they could do to improve their designs, I mostly talked about small things like not having to much detail in the background because then it looks messy, and try to make some fonts a little less bold so there isn’t too much contrast. Because contrast only looks nice to a certain extent.

Do you think I could’ve done more to make it more personalised?

English – Identity

During English, we watched an episode of Fry’s Planet World, which was called Identity. It talked all about theses different places and countries and how there are so many accents and languages that make you who you are.

In my opinion, your language or accent is part of your identity. If you had a Spanish accent, for example, and someone took it away, it would be as if you weren’t yourself anymore because you and everyone else around you knew you with a Spanish accent.

I think that language can be really exclusive or really inclusive. For example, in the video they were talking about how the French government didn’t want any other languages in France except for French, so they tried to ban all the other languages that lived in France. That shows that it can be really exclusive. But it can also be inclusive because if you speak the same language as someone else, you automatically connect because you can communicate in more ways than one and both of you would have lived the life as someone who can speak this particular language, so you could relate to each other. That kind of shows that languages can bring people together.

I think the one thing that everyone in every one of my classes has in common is that we are all different, and that brings us together and helps shape our class.

Digital Perspectives – Social Media Affects Our Generation

Today in class we were in groups of three and each of us looked at either a TED talk video, an article or three short videos on the topic of, “Has social media changed the ‘teenage experience’ for your generation?”

This was the article I was reading.

We had to write down three quotes and my three were:

  1. “Parents can’t wrench the phone out of teen’s hands and tell them to go straight back to 1985.”
  2. “Jeez you are the ones who pressured us into doing an insane amount of extracurriculars to get into college.”
  3. “We ingest so much material that it’s impossible not to learn something.”

My two other group members, Izzy and Bailey, and I recorded a conversation that we had about everything we learnt about from the sources we looked at during class.

ION-E_cover CommScope via Compfight

I chose this picture because it has a young woman on her phone. Most articles talk about how social media has negatively impacted how teenagers today live their lives. It’s tiring to hear how your generation isn’t perfect and how we were brought up was wrong. There are always things like ‘people who use phones aren’t as smart as people who don’t’ or other silly things like that. This photo shows a young, sophisticated woman who looks like she works in an office. And she looks very happy compared to what some adults say about how people who use phones aren’t as happy as they could be if they were spending time outdoors instead of looking at a screen.

Two questions I have from today is:

  1. Why do adults always say that we should go outside more and stop looking at our screens, when we were brought up in a society that told us that we should look at screens and if it’s a problem, why do we go to schools that teach us and encourage us to use technology?
  2. What would our generation look like and be like if we hadn’t been brought up with technology and whether we would be happier and smarter like adults say we would be.

English – Language & Assimilation

Here is a link to the article that we looked at during class.

This picture is basically people in the Irish language community protesting for their rights and to be treated like normal citizens which I thought matched what the article was saying. In the article it seemed like the author thought that your language is your identity and that you should embrace it because it makes you unique and see the world differently. I think that she thought that the world wasn’t so accepting of people who speak a different language and that she didn’t agree with it because people should have the right to speak the language that they know and have grown up with, no matter if it is different to the people around them. Should people be allowed to speak their own language and advertise it and do you think it is important to and why?

How Arlene Foster helped nationalism find its teethCreative Commons License Tiocfaidh ár lá 1916 via Compfight

Digital Perspectives – First Lesson

What do I value when working with others?

I value being respectful and listening to what other people have to say and their ideas and giving them consideration instead of instantly rejecting them. I also think it is important to share your ideas, even if people reject them, because they are worth listening to and sharing.

The #1 thing you can do to support me when we are working together is:

Listen to me and my ideas because usually when I am working with someone they will take control instead of giving me a chance to contribute.

When it comes to tech what am I good at? What do I need to improve on?

I am pretty good at finding my way around tech, I can’t really think of anything specific. I definitely need to improve my pages using skills. I use pages quite a bit for projects and I always get so frustrated because pages is so difficult. I’m also bad at researching.

What some people sometimes misunderstand about me when we are teamed together:

I know it seems like I’m just quiet and don’t do much but I have a lot of ideas, I just feel like no one cares enough to hear them.

I think of myself as more introverted, I’m quite quiet, I prefer:

I prefer it when I’m in a group where everyone works together and is considerate instead of one person who dictates.

English – Language World

Why do I speak as I do?

I guess it’s the way I have been brought up that affects the way that I speak. When I was younger, I had more of a British accent because I spent most of my time around my parents. But since I joined UWC, my accent has been slowly fading away from British and more American/International. Of course I still say things differently because I’m never going to lose that British part of me, but because I’m surrounded by people of lots of different nationalities and cultures, the way I speak has changed, and still continues to.

How does my language define me?

I’m not really sure how my language defines me. I’m just English and that’s the only language that I can speak confidently. I am currently learning Spanish but I have also learnt French and Chinese in the past. I do love where I come from, even though I have never lived in England and have never been given a chance for it to feel like my home. I am proud of being English and I’m sure I have a lot of traits that are common in English people but in terms of my language, I’m not really sure. Now that I’ve gotten older, and I write and read a lot, I have started to use more sophisticated language in my everyday life. Well, I like to think so.

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