The project is on its way to a close, and the end is near. I had a good time working on this project. I have started making a prezi presentation to pitch my finished product. I will start by putting in what my goals were at the beginning of the project, then progress into how I was going to accomplish this task, then go into the planning of it all. There was a drawback that had to be made because of time. I had to drop the club I wanted to do. My presentation will look aesthetically pleasing, so that it holds the attention of the audience a lot longer so that I can get my point across. A Prezi does this best because of the unique way that it transitions to different places. It makes a presentation more lively and gives it more depth to it. Something else I need to do is to make my spreadsheet viewable by every student. I will make a quick QR code that I can stick on some of the cork boards around the school on each floor. This will take less than a minute to do so this will be easy.
Now for the final act of this show. I will email the principal a request to use my spreadsheet as an official smart lunch tool and send him the spreadsheet himself. I will find a way to give him complete access if he accepts my request. The email would look something like this. Dear Principal Nicholson, After much planning, I have discovered that a universal smart lunch schedule for each individual teacher and their preferences works extremely well. I have went around to every teacher to ask them personally a couple of questions, two of which are important but were not found anywhere. Those questions were the following: If they would allow other students besides the ones they teach into their smart lunch, and if the teacher had to be notified prior to coming to the smart lunch. I am asking that the smart lunch committee would use the spreadsheet I have attached to this email. Please respond if you have any comments, questions, or concerns. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Luca Iacopi
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I haven't been able to write the emails yet because I don't know what I will write or how I will write it. However I am drafting one now and will send it out very soon. But that is no longer my only concern. Now I have to make a conclusion presentation (oxymoron, I know). I was thinking of starting with a picture of the final product as the first slide. Then I will describe every part of the project. I will then go into what all work it took to make this spreadsheet. I will make a QR code for the website, then have a physical paper with the code with text underneath it to distinguish it from others so that my classmates will know what to look for. I have been able to make an email to send to the teachers that I have not yet gotten to. Here is the email that I have written.
Dear Teacher(s) of the [insert subject] classrooms, My name is Luca Iacopi. I am currently a sophomore and I am working on an English Project in Mr. Barker's class called "Genius Hour." The topic of the project was whatever we thought was something that would make a decent impact on other people. I chose to do a project directed towards Smart Lunch. Right now I am creating a universal, color-coded Smart Lunch spreadsheet that has two essential questions: 1.Would accept students not in your class into your smart lunch 2.Would you, the teacher, have to be notified of one going into your Smart Lunch prior to that day. Attached to this email is a link to my spreadsheet where I ask that you confirm the days you are open and to answer these questions. Thank you so much There it is. There is the email that I will be sending 21 teachers. I did come to the situation of whether they open the email or not, because it is from a student they don't even teach, but I have a solution. I have at least one teacher in the different subjects who knows me well and can send a supporting email to the teachers that they should open my email and answer the questions. Now for more presentation planning. I have done a lot of walking and talking to every teacher that I could. I have not yet gotten the science department and some of the other teachers were not in their rooms when I went by them, so I still have a couple teachers missing. A lot of the CTE teachers need to be met with. The problem there is that there is a separate building for construction that requires a key card to enter, and plus I don't know what to expect when I enter the building. I won't know whether or not there will be classes or if it will be like a big warehouse. Other than that, the list looks really good and I am going to make a QR code for the spreadsheet website and print multiple copies. Once the entire chart is done, I will then post the QR codes around the school, on all floors, in multiple spots. I might even put a QR code in the main office for the school officials to look at. Hopefully my spreadsheet design and context will be used a lot more and more frequently updated. This blog is coming out a little late, so I have been able to do a couple more teachers. I am really disappointed in some of the reactions a couple teachers, as they came across as a bit rude and impolite. But I can see why that would be that way. I am trespassing on their territory at a random time, and it may be a bit inconvenient for them.
Now about the whole separate building issue. I have given it some thought, and I think I will just email them the questions instead of visiting them myself. Plus they might be too busy for any questions at my convenient time. I will go ahead and send the emails tonight so I can get a response as quickly as possible. I think maybe I could even finish off the rest of the teachers with emails. I will ask Mr. Barker what a good email starter for this would look like and base mine off of his. So... I have started going around and asking teachers the questions about their smart lunch. I was able to finish up the arts section of the list and grab a couple answers from the language arts section. As I went around to ask questions, one of the teachers, Mrs. Wisecarver, had told me her opinions on the whole smart lunch system. I will do my best to write it down, but I forgot to record what she had said and my memory is awful. Also, as of writing this post right now, I am feeling really sick and under the weather, so I apologize if this post seems shorter than it should be. The whole walking around the school during smartlunch didn't seem so bad, but it did take a while to get from teacher to teacher, and I would have to go during their open times so that I don't disturb their lunches, as I have learned. With thanksgiving coming up, I will have a shorter amount of days I can do this, and I still need to eat lunch, go to my club on Wednesday, and go to any teacher that I may need help from. But I should be able to get the spreadsheet finished and spread around school in time.
Now, on to what Mrs. Wisecarver had said. Or what she might have said. Again I'm sorry if I don't get anything, but I'll try my best. Mrs. Wisecarver had said that the way we are doing smart lunch is not the best it could be. The incentives that were put in place last year was just another class that was open and was just a hang out spot for the first thirty people. And the fact that there are some teachers would not even allow a couple of students in because they want to work with only a couple students that one day. But that's what some people need to do and we can't help it. Just how the administration is so controlling over smart lunch. We are stuck on a two lunch system, split between Freshmen and Seniors, and the Sophomores and Juniors. This can be an issue when a certain teacher is open on the opposite lunch that your are in. That wouldn't be an issue, if you didn't get in trouble for switching your lunch without telling a teacher, who then has to notify administration to let you switch lunch. She had also mentioned the incentive for juniors and seniors which let them go somewhere off campus once a week. She says that they should let them out every day or at least more than once, because if they are rewarded with the incentive for being responsible, they should be able to make the right choice about whether to leave or not. But we can't because by law, you cannot take away the school cafeteria's ability to make money. So that is a no, but I understand where she was going with it. Anyways, that's all for this blog post. I'm tired and I am NOT feeling well at all. I tried to put in all I could from the top of my head. Thanks to Mrs. Wisecarver for giving me a new light to smart lunch, and maybe even ways to help fix it. I am definitely going to present the spreadsheet and the ideas, maybe through Mr.Barker, to the smart lunch committee. I will update next Wednesday, because we are going on Thanksgiving break on Wednesday and I won't be able to gather data. See you later. The original spreadsheet is done. I have finally finished with almost all of it. Now comes the part where I need to ask literally every teacher three questions. These questions will be: 1. Is the smartlunch schedule listed correct? 2. Are you willing to accept other students not in your class? 3. Do you have a sign up system for your smartlunch, like the Learning Commons? Theses are the questions that need to be asked to 90+ teachers across three floors. I will have to do this during smart lunch as much as possible. That may be a little difficult because of other classes and club stuff. Homework will be an issue. So here is how this will be done. I will go to Mr.Barker's class for smart lunch, with a sandwich, and use his hall pass to go to teachers during both lunches and ask these questions. I will first say who I am, then I will proceed to ask these questions. If they ask why I need to know, I will state that I am doing a project with smart lunch, trying to make a more specific smart lunch schedule for both students and teachers. The color coding and extra questions will be a big help to everyone as it will eliminate any questions that the original spreadsheet. Now it is time for me to explain why this post is so late. Over the weekend my mom and I had to do lawn work. While she was doing some after I had started hurting really bad, she had done something to her back that made it to where she couldn't walk or sit up. She had injured her back really badly to the point to where she couldn't go to work for two days after Sunday. I was so busy taking care of her that I completely forgot about the blog post. That and the whole English play project was stressing me out because we had less than five days to write a whole script. I am sorry though. Now then, back to the smart lunch stuff. I will finish this project hopefully before December so that I have enough time to get my completion presentation together and polish up the aesthetics of the spreadsheet. Right now the spreadsheet is a little bland with the only colors being the color coding on the spreadsheet. The link below will show you what I have so far. If there are any suggestions to what I can add to my spreadsheet, please email me with the email provided. [email protected] I feel as if I could put some more stuff on it, but I don't know what to do. There is really nothing I can do right now bu work. I am going to get started on the Smart lunch door to door questioning Friday. I will let you know about the first few responses.
I letting myself far too far behind. I am going to have to scratch the club idea because I won't have time to make it become successful. I am regretting my choice a little bit in my decision for this project. But it is too late for that, and I am already this far in. It may seem like I haven't done much on paper, but the process is tolling. There is a lot of data that I need to retrieve, only to have to copy down later. These blog posts alone are getting harder to write because it is basically repetition at this point. I don't like how I have been working so far. This project combined with two other projects, weekly tests, extensive homework, and my life in general is really stressing me out. I have had to do last minute things because of other things I needed to get done. This semester just isn't really mine, I don't think. I am just really tired and want it to be over with. And I can't find good free photos to use in the blogs without having to download them off of google and then past them only to delete them later. I got lucky on that last one The point is that my work ethic is flawed, aren't we all, and I am running out of time to be comfortable with my progress. I don't know if I can just call this whole thing off, just be like "I'm done with this, I can't do it", but I know that I can, and I also just can't quit. I don't know why, but I hate life changing moments. It just doesn't settle with me that my normal routine could just end at any time, making me have to create a new one. I like my old routine and I would like to have it back. Modest amounts of homework, not a test every week, able to spend time with friends and with family, not stay up doing homework. These things were once normal for me, and now they're gone. I am not saying that I hate my new routine, I'm just saying that it's a little uncomfortable for me. This is to show how organized my old life was I know that last time I said what I would do, but as it turns out, I didn't do those things. I need a normal school week with a full five days, and nothing big due in a couple weeks or sooner. But that is never going to happen, so I will just make due. I still need to ask every teacher at my school who has smartlunch ( all 90 or more of them) the two questions that were not given in the standard chart. This is going to be fun. It is currently 10:03 right know so I don't know how much writing I can do. I try to squeeze in more. Couple things: 1. I need to get my s(chool appropriate word) together 2. I need to do it very soon 3. I need to organize when I will do what 4. Accept that I will no longer have any free time 5. Get s(chool appropriate word) done Disclaimer: The s(chool appropriate word) stuff is meant as an attempt at humor. I do not mean to offend anyone, and I mean stuff So yeah, this has not really been fun, but it has definitely been a learning experience. That is more important than fun, so I guess job well done so far on the moral of the project in a way. Anyways, good night everyone, and pray for me that I will get things done, soon. Like, VERY soon. Arrivederci!
How do I put this? I am not done with the spread sheet and frankly don't know when I will be. Life is really condensing my time to do things I need to do. And my bad habit of procrastinating isn't really helping either. I know I have a problem, but it is just really hard to overcome when every other option just seems better. The school spreadsheet that I am using doesn't have all the data I need anyways. This task seems a lot bigger than before and it might become the only thing in my project. The club just doesn't even sound close to becoming a reality at this point. But we will wait and see later on. This is emphasizing how tiring this is becoming So I guess I will have to go around the school after all, which could take a couple of weeks of smart lunch time to do. But that is fine by me. My next biggest concern is what I would write about in my next blogs about this process. To be honest, it feels as if all of my blog posts are getting shorter and shorter as the weeks roll by. I don't know if that is because my project is not good enough or if I am slowly declining in my ability to write details. Oh well. I guess I am getting a little lazy when it comes to my blog posts. I am putting in more pictures and also making them bigger than they probably should be. It is almost like they are just fillers to make the post seem a little longer. This is literally what I look like when I write these blog posts. I am going to have to ask for help on this part. Maybe I can ask a friend to get one half of the Academic tower while I get the other one, and maybe it could be done in about a week, gathering the data of course. Transferring the data will take a bit longer, as shown by the first set of data I have yet to finish transferring. But tomorrow is another day and a start to a new week. Who knows what will happen in terms of my progress. I will just need to wait and see. Until then, I will be putting in as much data as I can into the data base, although some of the data doesn't seem to line up with the list of teachers Mr.Barker let me use. It appears that we have reached an ending point to this blog post. I'm sorry that it was mostly negative news about my project, but this kind of stuff happens. What matters the most is that you push through and succeed or get really close and that you keep trying. I haven't given up on this, and I can't really because if I do I fail this major grade, sooo....
I just have to push on. It's the only thing I can do at this point. If you have any suggestions on what I can do to help myself out, please leave a comment on the blog. This is Luca, signing off until next week. OOHHH! Part 1's almost there! I'm sorry but I am just excited that I am almost halfway done. I have maybe 2 months left to finish and present the final project in Mr. Barker's class. The only things that are left to do is to finish the spreadsheet about smart lunch and then use said spread sheet to find a suitable teacher to let us use his/her room on Monday B. I was not able to go around the entire school during the smart lunch time because I would have gotten in trouble for roaming and skipping. Oh well. Thanks to Mr.Barker for providing me with the list that I will be using. The website should be almost done and the QR code for it should be going up all around the school very soon. This is not the actual QR code for the website Anyways, the next biggest priority of mine is to write down a proposal for the club and right down the rules and responsibilities. That should not take me time to do, but I don't know how to start the club exactly. I know that you would need a teacher and their room and a meeting date that fits into the schedule. I don't know how I can make the club official to the school because I have never done this before. I would need to ask my Mock Trial coach what all she did in terms of starting and proposing the club. I am a little worried about that. Just know that I will be coming in with a full suit and tie when I present my club to the school. I will need to get to work on transferring the data from the school database to mine, of course leaving any sensitive data out of my spreadsheet. I have all the names down and their appropriate room number too. I am kinda worried though because I don't know if I am allowed on there as it is a google spreadsheet and it shows when I get on. I will risk it though, if I am to help people find out where they can go. Until next week, when the other website will be done and will be going around the school. I will keep you guys posted on any drastic changes as like a little side blog, not the main weekly blog.
I think I might have just truly started on this project. It might have taken a while but the gears are spinning as I discover better ways to do this thing. I've got a list started with just teachers' names and those names divided by subjects, not just alphabetical. Now I will just need to go to every teacher and figure out, individually, when they will be open, who they will accept, and if they have a sign up thing for ahead of time. There is just one, uh... inconvenience to all of this, I guess. I have to go to every teacher, on all three floors of about 49 rooms each, and the other classrooms in the other building. But this could be good, as it will both look good on the blog and it will let me find a teacher who will host my club. It will also allow me to get to know other teachers that I wouldn't have ever known if not for this. I'm now kinda excited. Of course I'm saying this now, while at home drinking cranberry and vanilla tea and listening to calm and soothing music. This may change once I start going through the school during smart lunch hours. Oh well is all that I can say right now about it. The worst part of all this will be the transfer on data from the check list I will likely have to the computer for all teachers. But even this isn't bad because I'm helping other people and that is the most important part of all this. I am being a good person and helping people like me, students. That's what all of this is about. That and because it is required for a grade. But that doesn't mean that I am going to do just the bare minimum. I am going to do what ever is necessary in order to achieve my end goal. I know that is the motive for everyone doing their project but that doesn't make it any less true. Hopefully by the end of next week and before next week's blog, I will have accumulated and sorted the data of the teachers' smart lunch schedules completed or at most, still in progress of being put in the spreadsheet on my other website. That will be the goal for next week.
Wish me luck, I guess. I will see you guys next week with some more progress and a project closer and closer to completion. I'm going to be real with you, I have no clue how to do the things I need to do. This idea is a good one, but I am not educated enough in what is needed for this to work. I know I can do the things I need to do, it is just the how part that gets me. Also I'm sorry that the first blog post was so short.But I think I have a plan on how to not be stuck. I need a list of priorities, something to help manage what I need to do and when. Gah! So much stress. I think I will need something to help me relax and focus again. So here is a cute cat stretching.Next week I hope to have a full list of what will be needed in the club and maybe even have a teacher willing to take on the club. |
AuthorI am just another student, but I have my own purpose, different from everyone else. Archives
November 2018
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