Peer Support

Posted on by Aaliyah Kadir

In semester one of 2022, I was given the amazing opportunity to gain skills working with the other peer support leaders and the year 8 Murdoch students as a peer support leader. Through the peer support program we as the leaders plan activities and discussions to run with the year 8’s that help them learn about and develop certain skills. For instance, we ran an activity called in the river out the river to help them understand the value of self-confidence. We then ran a discussion to help them relate this game to the message and work with them to understand how this applies to the real world. We also had some great chats with the students and it was such a good opportunity to talk to and get to know people we wouldn’t usually.

In order to make these activities run smoothly we would meet at recess every Tuesday to go over the activity for that week, any materials we needed, the discussion questions, and anything we could improve on from the previous week.

I think this was a wonderful experience for both the year 8 students and the peer support leaders. The year 8 students seemed to be more comfortable with us in the end which will hopefully make their transition into the vertical tutor group system less scary and more fun at the end of the year. It also gave me great experience mentoring younger students and keeping them engaged.

HASS+

Posted on by Aaliyah Kadir

The topic that we first chose to research was the economies of different civilisations through time. We each looked at one to two civilisations and its economy, and planned to turn it into a project that will highlight how they work in their own unique ways. After finishing our research we decided to move it in a new direction that would make it easier to present and more fun for the audience. What we’ve chosen to focus further on is the class systems in the different civilisations and we have each decided to focus on one civilisation and around 4 classes in each of these places.

Our main focus area is the class system and how they were like in different places. We will make characters from each class in these different places to show how they lived and what their life was like. The civilisations we have specifically chosen to look at are Imperial China, the Ottoman Empire, ancient Greece and India before colonisation.

The steps we have completed so far are that we first combined our cards which were economics and history into our project and brainstormed some ideas of how to combine them. The idea we came up with was focusing on civilisations in history and their money systems and currency. After we did that we all chose two civilisations each and started researching on them. We used this in the annotated research assessment. Through this research we decided to remove some civilisations and are now focusing on around 4. After that and through a group discussion we decided to change our idea to be focusing on the class system and lives of different individuals of different classes in different civilisations.

Our plan for continuing our project is to plan out our exhibition stall. Initial plans included some choose your own adventure type stall with cards, live market, or gameshow of some sort. Our plan is to have some form of presentation beyond just the retelling of information, and so powerpoints and walls of text are out of the question. We then split up and came up with as many presentation ideas as possible. Through this we came up with our final idea of immersing people in the life of around 16 different personas we will be creating across four civilisations and with around four different social classes in each of these. With these personas we are writing detailed summaries of what their life would have been like which we will print onto cards for the presentation. We would then make an activity with an objective different for each of the 16 personas. This would allow people to experience almost a moment in the life of these people. If they enjoy it they can try how 15 other personas would have lived. After we’ve made the cards we would come up with the activities and then get peers not in our group to try each of them out to ensure they are quick and easy to understand. We would then sort out our roles in each of these activities for the day so we can efficiently run through as many participants as possible on the night.

GenConnect

Posted on by Aaliyah Kadir

I participated in Genconnect in terms 2 and 3 this year. The experience was enriching and rewarding, and the interactions with residents greatly improved my ‘effective communication’ skills.

In my life I haven’t had as much opportunity to talk to people other than my family and friends. From my experience I learnt it can be a rare and wonderful opportunity to engage with those from different walks of life. Over the 8 hours we spent with each resident we built strong connections and improved our skills in active listening, persuasion, empathy, using appropriate language and taking in their feedback.

In Term 2 I worked with a lady who was already proficient in technology but needed assistance to enhance her connections with family in light of covid-19 risks. It soon became clear that she was already proficient in technology and seemed to get more value from us listening with empathy to her stories.

Later in term 3 we worked with a resident who said he needed help using his iPhone and Mac and had almost no prior knowledge. There were times he seemed resistant to learning, and wanted to quit but through constant encouragement and support he pushed through, and on the last session admitted that we had made a huge difference in his life. By teaching him to play music we had helped him connect with the sentiment and emotions attached to the music from his past.

We also became quickly aware that we couldn’t use technology terminology we were familiar such as click, cursor and search bar, which were meaningless to the elderly who hadn’t grown up with technology. To explain Google, we related it in a context the residents would understand. Google was the world’s largest library and the search bar was asking the librarian to locate books on a topic. We helped the residents understand technology through changing our language to be more relatable to their lives.

Large DOF

Posted on by Aaliyah Kadir

To get these photos we used a large depth of field and made the people stand far away to create a forced perspective. On the camera this meant setting our f-stop as small as it could go. The aim of these photos is to make funny situations by making people look smaller than they are in real life.

Some things I like about this photo is that the perspective actually looks right which is fairly hard to do with forced perspective photos. It howver could have been improved a bit by perhaps putting Sam farther back so it would be easier and more natural looking for Aleisha to step on her.

It would also have looked better if we took it on the oval because the lines on the court and the fence appearing smaller at the end show how we took the photo and it doesn’t have that surprise and mystery element.

Overall though I think we got a nice fun photo.

Mini People Photo

Posted on by Aaliyah Kadir

To take these photos we used a small f-stop so the objects closer to the camera were more clear and the background is blurry. We also used miniature people and objects to create interesting scenarios such as this one of the person coming out of the drain pipe on the canoe. We used plastic wrap to create the fake water coming out of the pipe.

I really liked this photo as it kind of mashes together something from normal life to a small person making it sort of fun and interesting. I love how cool it looks with the little canoe coming out of the drain pipe. I also think the blur in the background is quite nice and the rule of thirds used makes a nice composition.

One thing I would have changed is the background a little bit. While I do like how you can tell its a small person and the background places it in a more mundane normal location I would have preferred the background to be less distracting.

Light Graffiti Photo

Posted on by Aaliyah Kadir

I really love this photo.The lights give the model a very ethreal quality. It makes her look like a character in a fantasy novel with the wings, horns/ headress and also face made of light.

To improve this I would have liked the body to be darker so you could not see it at all and it would blend into the background. This would have created an even more mysterious quality. I could have done this by blacking out a bit more of the light and perhaps lowering ISO a bit. I would have also liked it if the headress wasn’t cut off at the top so you could have seen the whole thing.

Overall I really loved this photo and think it looks really amazing and quite different than other photos I am used to taking.

Levitation Photo

Posted on by Aaliyah Kadir

I really like the colours of this photo. The pastel and whimsical colours of the dress match with the deep emerald greens and pinks of the foliage in the background and give the photo a very magical sort of effect. I also like the story sort of aspect because with Sam being a fairy the levitation makes sense.

I don’t really like the shadows on the right as they are very obvious especially the one in the bottom right hand corner. They were much darker before though which detracted from the bright happy mood I intended the photo to have so I lightened just the shadows on Photoshop but it left a weird outline I couldn’t seem to get rid of. Another thing I would have changed is to raise the ISO a bit to give it more of a fairy/mystical effect.

Overall this photo is pretty good but with more Photoshop skills it could have been a bit better.

Capturing Kindness

Posted on by Aaliyah Kadir

I really like the colours in this photo. The common patterns between the mug and the plate create harmony and the hands handing the cup to the other person shows the caring and kindness that is the point of the photo. I like how the colour is only on the cookies and the cup and the hands of the person giving kindness to show how the kindness is being given and the colours are a symbol of that. It also roughly uses rule of thirds as the cup is in the top third and there is a plate of cookies in the bottom two thirds. The cup is on the right third and the other person is in the left third.

The only thing I would change is how busy the background is. I tried to blur it a bit to make it less attention grabbing but it’s still a bit unclear and doesn’t really have a focus point.

Overall though I think this is a pretty good photo.

Flat lay

Posted on by Aaliyah Kadir

Some things I like about this photo are the colours nd the composition. I like the contrast between the gold and the silver paper and objects of the opposite colour on each side. It makes it look a lot more harmonious. I also like the sort of theme as it is an artsy theme and I think the style of this photo fits that.

Some things I could improve are the light glare on the papers and on the sticker sheets. The glare makes it look not that great and the glare on the stickers is very distracting and detracts from the rest of the image. I would also add more space fillers if I did it again maybe some glitter or gems in either colour would be great or even pens.

Overall I really like the idea of this photo but I just think I could have implemented it a bit better.

Birds and Worms

Posted on by Aaliyah Kadir
Worm POV

I thought this was a really good picture of a worm POV photo. I really like the angle in this photo because it puts the people statues as tall and powerful. I also really like the colours and the contrast they create. The dark black of the statues against the grey and cloudy sky is very stark. I also like the bit of green from the tree in the corner for a bit of colour. It also uses the rule of thirds as the two front people are standing along the third lines. If I had to improve something I’d probably choose a different subject to more accurately portray the smallness of the worm.

Bird POV

I don’t really like this bird POV photo very much as its not very interesting. It was hard to get a birds eye photo in the school as there aren’t many tall areas or building as most of them are only one of two stories. I do like the colours though of the greens, red and the grey of the sky. I just think there’s too much going on. If I were to retake this photo I would probably stand on a balcony or next to a tall window and take a photo facing downwards making my subject something like a plant or tree.