When I was introduced to the task of writing a dramatic scene, I was unsure how to start. I had never written a dramatic scene before, and I had only ever performed scenes in past school drama classes, and assessments. I knew I had to start somewhere, and that was to form a group with people I knew I would be able to work with well. This task gave me the opportunity to collaborate with, both people I have worked with before and those I hadn’t. Throughout this task I displayed many capabilities, including communication, collaboration, problem solving and organisation, just to name a few.
As a group, we needed to come up with an idea that we wanted to create a scene about, so we chose to write about wealth inequality in the justice system. We needed to communicate with each other about who was doing what, so we divided up roles so that some people were looking into court language that could be used and others were creating the framework for the script. We all collaborated with a shared document so we could work on the script together at the same time. Collaboration and communication were key components in this task, as we needed to make sure everyone knew what they were doing and when it needed to be done by.
Towards the end of the project, organisation became crucial, as we needed everyone to finish their section of the script and for all props and costumes to have been organised. We needed to problem solve, as we realised that on the day of the performance one of our group members wouldn’t be there, so we needed to find someone else from our class to stand in and read their lines. In the end we managed to organise everything, and our performance went very well. Overall, this task has helped to further develop many skills, including communication and problem solving, which I will be able to use in the future.
Throughout Semester 1, I did an outdoor education elective called Wind Waves Water. The activities which I participated in were sailing, stand-up paddle boarding, synchronised swimming, and diving. Many of these activities involved teamwork and communication with people that I didn’t know too well.
My first activity that I participated in was sailing. This was a great experience as I have never done it before. We learnt all the parts of the boat, how to steer it, control it, and use the wind to move. At points there were times where we didn’t have much movement because there was no wind and times where we were moving at quite a bit of speed. The times where we weren’t moving much provided an opportunity to teamwork and find ways to solve the problem. On each boat, there were two or three people. One person would be the skipper, another person would be controlling the ropes, and the third person would be the lookout. If you were the skipper of the boat, you would basically be controlling it. It gave me a great opportunity to improve my communication skills and improve my overall sailing skills. The lookout would have to be clear and always attentive. We took turns rotating through the roles and this enabled me to improve lots of different skills, including communication, awareness, and knowledge of how to read wind patterns. Overall, I feel sailing helped me in not only just boat skills, but also everyday skills like communication.
The second activity I did was stand-up paddle boarding. Though this was a lot more independent, it still required a lot of communication and teamwork. We worked in pairs, however predominately only one person was on the water at a time. We learnt multiple paddle strokes which allowed us to move forwards and turn. I didn’t realise how much technique was involved in just standing properly in stand-up paddle boarding. When I was on the board individually, I still had to communicate with other people to make sure that we didn’t run into each other. On a few sessions towards the end of the lesson, we went on the board in pairs. One person would be standing and paddling at the back and the other would be sitting at the front. This was actually a real challenge as balancing was a lot harder. Teamwork and communication were both key concepts when we were doing this, the person at the back would have to tell the person at the front whether they needed to move to balance the board correctly and the person at the front would be looking for other boards to make sure that we didn’t run into them. I thought stand-up paddle boarding was really fun and I learnt lots of different techniques which I didn’t know I would need.
The last two activities were synchronised swimming and diving. Diving was very much individual but was a very fun experience as I have never done it before and we were able to jump of springboards and different heights of platforms. Synchronised swimming definitely required teamwork as we worked in groups of 3 or 4 when first learning the different positions used. Throughout the sessions, we would learn little routines and practice and perform them. Towards the end in groups of 4 or 5, we choreographed a routine with everything we had learnt and chose music to go along with it. Teamwork was heavily required for this as we had to decide what we would do in the routine and would need to count at first to synchronise our moves. I found it really fun as I had never done synchronised swimming before and learnt a lot of new things about it.
I feel that all activities which I participated in throughout the Wind Waves Water elective where great experiences as I have never done many of them before. Also, they allowed me to work with people I haven’t previously worked with and improve my communication and teamwork skills.
I took a personality test at 123tests.com to find out who I was and how I might react in different circumstances. Some of the results I did expect but some did surprise me.
My personality test showed that I have a strong work ethic. I agree with this because once I start a task, I want to finish it to the best of my abilities. It also says that I am well organised. I feel this is me as I like to have a plan about what is going to happen and have everything organised before hand.
However, it also says that I am serious, quiet, and avoids direct leadership roles. I do agree that I can be shy when I meet new people, but I do enjoy taking leadership roles and feel that, even though I can be serious, I like to have a good laugh and am cheerful.
It also states that I am prone to feelings of anxiety. Even though I do get anxious when doing things I have never done before, I am able to cope with the stress and not let it drag me down.
I feel that this personality test was a great way to find out what type of person I am, and what areas I could improve on.
On the 27th of July 2020, half of the year 9 cohort, including myself, embarked on a journey to the unknowns of Kalbarri. When I first arrived, I was dreading the week to come, thinking it would be hard and tiring and not much fun. I was right on two of those things, it was hard and tiring, but not at all boring. I did things I thought I would never be able to do and saw sights I never thought I would be able to see.During the week, we did a lot of things I rarely do, including, setting and packing up tents (everyday!), abseiling and rock climbing, swimming in gorges, and hiking. Although I didn’t enjoy the hiking as much as the other activities, it was still a great experience, which I will probably never get to do again. One of my favourite things to do was the swimming, even though the water was ice cold. I normally swim in swimming pools rather than natural bodies of water, and I found it really fun to jump off the rocks, it was also a great way to cool off, after the hike in to the gorge. Each night, we cooked our dinner with our cooking group on the Trangias. This was a great way to show leadership and responsibility, because we had to bring the Trangia with us and carry the food round as a group. Even though I struggled on the rock climbing, due to an injury, I still enjoyed challenging myself, and pushing myself beyond my comfort zone. On the night we were in 4-Ways campsite, we played some games after dinner, which I really enjoyed. It was a great way to unwind from the long day and have fun with my group mates, and learn a little more about them.During the week, we had different positions where we could show leadership; cooking, hygiene, environment, and leadership groups. In these positions, we had to instruct the group and lead the group in those specific areas. In cooking group, had to find a spot to cook and eat and put the methane spirits bottles at least 3 metres away from the flames. They also had to tell the group what food we needed. The hygiene group set up the portable hand wash and the ‘toilet’ when we were camping in the gorge. The environment group, made sure everyone was wearing sunscreen and was drinking enough water during the day, as well as wearing hats. They also carried the shelter with them, for if it was need. The leadership group, was the voice for the group and told us what we were doing that day and held group meetings for extra things we might want to do. Although, decisions about times, like what time to get up and leave for activities, were made as a group. I first started in the hygiene group and went through the different positions during the week. I did enjoy all the positions, as they gave me a perspective of the different types of leadership and the different ways you could be a leader. Overall, I feel camp gave me valuable lessons in leadership and experiences I will remember for life.
I worked on the Digital Scrapbook project for Nulsen. One of the main skills I have learnt from this is how to create a website and the different things you can do with computers. Coming into this project, I was worried that I would struggle with the technological side but within my group, we were all able to design a website which suited its function. We created a website which allowed the carers to design to suit the residents personality and for the families to be able to see what they did on a specific day. Even though there were features we couldn’t build because we weren’t as confident in coding, we were able to show the Nulsen representative what we hoped the website would look like with a little bit work to the features which required more skill in technology and coding. We wanted to add a feature of security and even though we didn’t have enough time to work specifically on that part, we again clearly explained what our intentions were for the project in the future. I have attached a link of our sample website that we worked on. https://editor.wix.com/html/editor/web/renderer/external_preview/document/b0d641db-a37a-46bb-97b4-9425d13af4dd?metaSiteId=1e9678d3-eaaf-45b8-8a46-19e8672e5ca2
