Nikki's 2 minutes reflection

Karen Estanislao Nikki Shannon

On me and my partner's first draft we were kind of in a rush because we put it off until later but we knew that this wasn't our final draft so we could do better in the final draft. The comments from my class mates were really helpful because they told us some spelling mistakes that we couldn't have found by our selves. They also gave us positive feedback like telling us how are music made them feel and what pieces of information that really jumped out and wanted them to make a difference.

We found our expert during the spring break by searching "Contacts for poverty in Israel" and contacted at least 7 people. Instead of calling them we e-mailed them asking if we could have their number so they can talk to us about real issues in Israel. We got a response around the end of the break and eventually contacted her about 2 weeks later.

I was really excited to get the video over with and the most exciting part of making the whole movie had to be choosing the music. For me it was really hard because I love all the music types and choosing it was just fun. I think that the music we choose wasn't very common and really fits into our topic.

I got really frustrated because Karen and I procrastinated until the last few days to be honest and it was hard to out days and days of work all into 2 days. Some skills we used was to be quick and still do a good job. We couldn't waste out time only looking at the music or one picture, we had to be quick because of the deadline. Luckily we took more time for the final draft.

In my opinion this project was very effective on each and every one of us. With 4 classes making a difference is huge. One person can make a large difference, but this project got almost 140 students making a difference.

I will make a difference in the future to keep sponsoring my sponsor child Monster Mohammad. One he is old enough to live without our help we will probably sponsor another child because if I was in any of those children's positions, I would want somebody to sponsor me. It just feels good to know your doing your part to make a difference all around the world.

Karen's 2 Minutes 2011 Reflection

Google Docs

First Draft

Final Draft

The biggest change we made about our video was the information, we added, removed, and changed some information about our topic. My group also added the phone call from the interview. We added some more pictures, changed font colours so they are seen better, changed spelling mistakes but also made other spelling mistakes. Our video project had many, changes, almost everything had small touch ups. The feedback given was very helpful because it helped us have an idea of what to change for our video. Feedbacks were very helpful and has helped us make a better video by doing some changes.

We found our expert from our research, we researched about poverty in Israel organizations and we found a few. My group sent them all emails asking to have a call with them to answer our questions. The best organization we found was Yad Eliezer because it really focused about Israel's poverty. No one else replied to our emails except for Yad Eliezer, so we were very thankful. We learned some things from the phone call we had made like:

• Even wealthy societies also have people who don't have enough money.
• Home issues affect the children's learning.
• Families who can't afford the basics has always been around.

The greatest success of out group is our sponsor child, the fact that we took on a responsibility to change one's life with our money, also that we were committed to him. It was his birthday a month ago and we were very happy for him. To this day we will keep on sponsoring Montser. I think helping people out will be an on going skill for me in the future when I get a job. This project had made me want to keep helping people, another skill is presenting visually, I am for sure to use that in the future.

The frustrations in our project was the lack of information. We started with some false information, we did more research and ended up having too many correct information in the end. My group wanted to put everything in the video which was very hard due to the 2 minute time limit. We managed to add our interview, take out our false information, and add more information by editing over and over again.

This 2 Minutes to make a Difference project was important to grade eights because it has shown us how lucky our lives actually are. The comparison of our lives with others lives has changed the way we think, it made me feel selfish therefore I felt like giving back. Harbeck and Ms. Hay, and Ms. Wilson spread the word to us, and some of us did the same to give back. It was like the Pay it Forward movie, the growth of giving back. The project has changed the way we think and while we learned we also got to change some people's lives. Our teachers do their part while they make us aware and then we did our part, then people who we've involved in our projects like donators or the video viewers may have been aware now too so they might somehow help out.

For the future I plan on helping out organizations. I will donate to them so they can have enough money to make things like water pumps in villages. Those things are very helpful because some have to walk just to get water, and the water sometimes is not very clean, and the walks are far and dangerous. If I am successful enough I plan on travelling and going to the villages to help out, so I can experience people's lives. I want to physically compare my life to others and help them out.