Friday, December 17, 2010

Reflective Blog Entry

I came into the DLC with almost never using a Mac in my life. Now I mostly know how to successfully use Keynote, iMovie, etc. Also for the first month, I had to ask Ms. Bailin about everything, is this okay, how does that look, etc. It was not knowing how to use the programs, but it was also because I was insecure about what I was doing. After that project was done with, over the next few projects I started asking less and less questions. And now I’m pretty confident in my own work, most of the time, and make the decisions based on what I think, usually. I also used to take criticism very badly, now I have finally realized it is just to help me, they’re just giving advice, and sometimes very useful advice. 

I’m most proud about the Stephen Crane project. It was a group project but I had to do a lot at the end. I had to sit with my father for hours while we narrated it, fix all the timing, add things in, cut things, etc. As well as working on the rest of the project with my group. But in the end, the pictures, the movies, and the narration were great. And all together, the project turned out wonderful.

The most challenging project was probably the Thematic Causes of the Civil War project, only because I time managed horribly. I only did about half of it, then waited until the last night before the project was due to do the other half. Luckily it turned out pretty good still, but it was literally a last minute project. 

My hopes for 2nd semester is that we get to do Survivor, because I’ve heard a lot about it from the 8th graders. I heard that is was really fun, and exciting. I also hope that I do not lose the game. Not the game that you're thinking of, the game of DLC, second semester. 

My favorite moment in the DLC was when I was an evaluator and we were hanging out going through the groups scripts. There was one script I was grading that had a quote that was the size of half the page, and I didn’t want to highlight it perfectly line by line. So, I scribbled through it with a highlighter. Ms. Bailin picked up my paper, walked into the other room where everyone was, held up the paper and said, “This is what happens what when you give a gifted kid a highlighter!”