Final CAS Evaluation
To start, I would like to bring up where I found myself at the beginning of this year, and add what I have done this year alone. I will then, after this, look at my entire CAS experience as a whole, from the criteria, and assess my development of skills, personal qualities, and physique due to my CAS.
After one year of CAS, that is to say at the beginning of this school year, I was here:
Action:
Gym magda- 4 hours
YogaX- 15 hours
Running- 4 hours + 5 hours
Swimming- 2 hours
Yoga Course- 30 hours
Mya Yoga- 1 hour
total: 25 hours + 31 hours
Final total: 56 hours
Service:
IVIK- 3 hours
Finnish Exchange - 10 hours
FeztFixare Fall Event (Project) - 16 hours
FeztFixare Spring Event- 7 hours
Wedding- 10 hours
total: 13 hours + 33 hours
Final total: 46 hours
Creativity:
Wedding- 10 hours
Hanna- 3 hours
Blogg designs- 5 hours
Project 1- 5 hours
Other photography- 10 hours + 5 hours
"Warrior" photos- 5 hours
FeztFixare Fall Event (Project) - 8 hours
"Candles" - 4 hours
total: 33 hours + 17 hours
Final total: 55 hours
In italics I have added what is new for this school year, and I have summed up the total hours below each category. As can be seen above, I have participated in a weekly yoga course throughout two semesters, and also an additional class outside of this, when there was an "open house" week at the new Mya Yoga studio here in Umeå. I also joined an independant "event-planning group" and assisted them in the planning, set-up, and clean-up of the event this fall, along with helping out at the event itself of course. We are also currently planning another event for which I have made a promotional poster, and helped with planning during a number of meetings. This is where I have dedicated my service time. I also took pictures at a wedding this summer and donated the photos to the couple, for which I also took service. For the creativity portion I chose to try and do something different this year, and not the same thing that I have always done. I tried new techniques, like taking picture from above, as in "Candles", and using my 50 mm and different angles and light tried to create dramatic and capturing photos in "Warrior". I also took random scatter photos with my new 50 mm and also my regular lens throughout the year, some of which I posted on here.
In total I have accumulated 157 hours of CAS over two years time. This is divided into 56 hours of Action, 46 hours of Service, and 55 hours of Creativity.
Looking at the criteria, I feel that I have accomplished almost all of these through my CAS. Below is an explanation of how I feel that I fulfilled ach criteria and my motivation.
1. Increased awareness of their own strengths and areas of growth: I believe that this is a very obvious statement, at least in my case. My mind first goes to my creativity portion of CAS where I feel that I have gained so much knowledge about photography. Not only about how to use a camera, what the different settings provide for the shot, or which setting is appropriate or what situation, but also the tools and techniques of editting photos to my liking. Since aquiring photoshop I have been actively trying to master the different options that it provides, by using actions, books, and experimenting. I have discovered that I have developed and come a long way tiwth my photography, especially compared to not only my starting point and the first few creativity posts, but also to my one year marker. From then I have grown even more within photography and I feel as though I am starting to know m camera "like the back of my hand".
2. Undertaken New Challenges: I think the largest challenge for me has been my own doing "Yoga-X" at home. Besides the program itself being Ashtanga-Yoga, one of the more physically demanding forms of yoga, the discipline required to continue doing it on my own without anyone encouraging me or pushing me to do it was a challenge. Photoshop was also a challenge for me, as I discussed above, with learing the new ways of changing different aspects of the photo, enhancing certain features, removing unwanted blotches, or simple things such as changing the size or readying the picture format for online use.
3 & 4. Planned and initiated activites & Worked collaboratively with others: I chose to combine these two categories due to the fact that I feel and they both relate to the same area of my CAS, so to avoid writing the same this twice and repeating myself, I will make them into one. Here I feel that my time with the FeztFixare- crew has its place. We together planned and initiated an event which included several different activites, food, music, and are currently in the process of planning another. This planning involved many hours of exchanging ideas with others in the group, brainstorming on a name, theme, time, price, and bands. We also had a budget that we had to maintain, and because of this we had to look at what was needed, what had to be bought, what we ourselves could contribute and who would be in charge of what areas. We had to set up for the events, both in the form of a stage, and also in the form of decorations and different areas for the various events. We also had to spread the world about the event through promotional fliers. Working together with a group involved compromising, being able to contribute ideas and materials/supplies, and a positive attitude.
5. Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities: This I see especially in my devotion to the art of Yoga. I have continued with yoga as my form of action for two years and gone in depth with my yoga. I feel that be staying with this instead of doing a variety of things, I have been able to really develop and engage in yoga, since I have a greater understanding of what yoga does for me, what I find in yoga, and how to find a calm in the storm, which I believe has been a usefull tool for me during two stressful and high tempo years of the IB programme.
6. Considered the ethical implications of action: Though I do not consider anything that I have done worthy of considering the ethical implications, I do feel that I am aware and attentive to ethical aspects of my insperational sources and I try to convey certain ethical dilemmas through my CAS. For example, the photo project entitled "Warrior" was my version of a war camoflage/ tribal face painting interpretation. I feel that war camoflage is related to so many of the world issues today, such as large power nations strive for oil control, leading to expensive, cruel, and unecessary acts of war. I connect camoflage mainly to this, and this was my intention when making these photos, to portray the "dark" sides of this ethically contreversial issue.
7. Devloped new skills: My new skills can be seen in places where I have put them to use, such as my blog designs for my personal blog, where I made use of photoshop and occasionally other photo editting programs to put together a collage of different colors, photos and text. Also the use of new actions and the use of different lenses is something that I have completely learned from scratch during this two year period. My knowledge of the concepts and ideas of yoga has also increased. I feel that I have a greater understanding with leads to a greater enjoyment and greater results from my yoga in practice.
These are the ways in which I feel that I hae developed over the two years that I have spent doing CAS. I am proud of all the accomplishments that I have made and the new skills that I have developed, all of which I will carry on with despite the end of my IB period. CAS has been a way to express myself and work together with other in order to acheive a common goal for others enjoyment. I have learned so many valueable traits and grown in both skill and mind.
After one year of CAS, that is to say at the beginning of this school year, I was here:
Action:
Gym magda- 4 hours
YogaX- 15 hours
Running- 4 hours + 5 hours
Swimming- 2 hours
Yoga Course- 30 hours
Mya Yoga- 1 hour
total: 25 hours + 31 hours
Final total: 56 hours
Service:
IVIK- 3 hours
Finnish Exchange - 10 hours
FeztFixare Fall Event (Project) - 16 hours
FeztFixare Spring Event- 7 hours
Wedding- 10 hours
total: 13 hours + 33 hours
Final total: 46 hours
Creativity:
Wedding- 10 hours
Hanna- 3 hours
Blogg designs- 5 hours
Project 1- 5 hours
Other photography- 10 hours + 5 hours
"Warrior" photos- 5 hours
FeztFixare Fall Event (Project) - 8 hours
"Candles" - 4 hours
total: 33 hours + 17 hours
Final total: 55 hours
In italics I have added what is new for this school year, and I have summed up the total hours below each category. As can be seen above, I have participated in a weekly yoga course throughout two semesters, and also an additional class outside of this, when there was an "open house" week at the new Mya Yoga studio here in Umeå. I also joined an independant "event-planning group" and assisted them in the planning, set-up, and clean-up of the event this fall, along with helping out at the event itself of course. We are also currently planning another event for which I have made a promotional poster, and helped with planning during a number of meetings. This is where I have dedicated my service time. I also took pictures at a wedding this summer and donated the photos to the couple, for which I also took service. For the creativity portion I chose to try and do something different this year, and not the same thing that I have always done. I tried new techniques, like taking picture from above, as in "Candles", and using my 50 mm and different angles and light tried to create dramatic and capturing photos in "Warrior". I also took random scatter photos with my new 50 mm and also my regular lens throughout the year, some of which I posted on here.
In total I have accumulated 157 hours of CAS over two years time. This is divided into 56 hours of Action, 46 hours of Service, and 55 hours of Creativity.
Looking at the criteria, I feel that I have accomplished almost all of these through my CAS. Below is an explanation of how I feel that I fulfilled ach criteria and my motivation.
1. Increased awareness of their own strengths and areas of growth: I believe that this is a very obvious statement, at least in my case. My mind first goes to my creativity portion of CAS where I feel that I have gained so much knowledge about photography. Not only about how to use a camera, what the different settings provide for the shot, or which setting is appropriate or what situation, but also the tools and techniques of editting photos to my liking. Since aquiring photoshop I have been actively trying to master the different options that it provides, by using actions, books, and experimenting. I have discovered that I have developed and come a long way tiwth my photography, especially compared to not only my starting point and the first few creativity posts, but also to my one year marker. From then I have grown even more within photography and I feel as though I am starting to know m camera "like the back of my hand".
2. Undertaken New Challenges: I think the largest challenge for me has been my own doing "Yoga-X" at home. Besides the program itself being Ashtanga-Yoga, one of the more physically demanding forms of yoga, the discipline required to continue doing it on my own without anyone encouraging me or pushing me to do it was a challenge. Photoshop was also a challenge for me, as I discussed above, with learing the new ways of changing different aspects of the photo, enhancing certain features, removing unwanted blotches, or simple things such as changing the size or readying the picture format for online use.
3 & 4. Planned and initiated activites & Worked collaboratively with others: I chose to combine these two categories due to the fact that I feel and they both relate to the same area of my CAS, so to avoid writing the same this twice and repeating myself, I will make them into one. Here I feel that my time with the FeztFixare- crew has its place. We together planned and initiated an event which included several different activites, food, music, and are currently in the process of planning another. This planning involved many hours of exchanging ideas with others in the group, brainstorming on a name, theme, time, price, and bands. We also had a budget that we had to maintain, and because of this we had to look at what was needed, what had to be bought, what we ourselves could contribute and who would be in charge of what areas. We had to set up for the events, both in the form of a stage, and also in the form of decorations and different areas for the various events. We also had to spread the world about the event through promotional fliers. Working together with a group involved compromising, being able to contribute ideas and materials/supplies, and a positive attitude.
5. Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities: This I see especially in my devotion to the art of Yoga. I have continued with yoga as my form of action for two years and gone in depth with my yoga. I feel that be staying with this instead of doing a variety of things, I have been able to really develop and engage in yoga, since I have a greater understanding of what yoga does for me, what I find in yoga, and how to find a calm in the storm, which I believe has been a usefull tool for me during two stressful and high tempo years of the IB programme.
6. Considered the ethical implications of action: Though I do not consider anything that I have done worthy of considering the ethical implications, I do feel that I am aware and attentive to ethical aspects of my insperational sources and I try to convey certain ethical dilemmas through my CAS. For example, the photo project entitled "Warrior" was my version of a war camoflage/ tribal face painting interpretation. I feel that war camoflage is related to so many of the world issues today, such as large power nations strive for oil control, leading to expensive, cruel, and unecessary acts of war. I connect camoflage mainly to this, and this was my intention when making these photos, to portray the "dark" sides of this ethically contreversial issue.
7. Devloped new skills: My new skills can be seen in places where I have put them to use, such as my blog designs for my personal blog, where I made use of photoshop and occasionally other photo editting programs to put together a collage of different colors, photos and text. Also the use of new actions and the use of different lenses is something that I have completely learned from scratch during this two year period. My knowledge of the concepts and ideas of yoga has also increased. I feel that I have a greater understanding with leads to a greater enjoyment and greater results from my yoga in practice.
These are the ways in which I feel that I hae developed over the two years that I have spent doing CAS. I am proud of all the accomplishments that I have made and the new skills that I have developed, all of which I will carry on with despite the end of my IB period. CAS has been a way to express myself and work together with other in order to acheive a common goal for others enjoyment. I have learned so many valueable traits and grown in both skill and mind.
A CAS Project
During the past few months, I have been working together with several other students in order to put together a halloween event at our school for the other students at the school. We have had meetings for a few months in order to plan the music, date, time, decoration details, games & activities, food, locations, sales, security, and other details necessary to pull off this event. We, as a group, contacted administrators, bought supplies, booked the locale, and discussed games and music.
On friday the 11th of November, we spent 11 hours setting up for the event by hanging fliers, decorating, setting up the station for sales, carrying sofas, cushions, and tables up and down stairs, and preparing sound and light settings. We then worked the event, taking shifts at the differnt stations, working through games, and selling refreshments. Afterwards, we stayed and cleaned the locale, put the furniture back into place, took apart the stage, cleaned up garbage, collected decorations and put all leftover refreshments in the Elevkår room for use at the next event.
I also took photos during the event that I later spent about 2 hours editting and fixing to post them for others to see. Since I was working and doing other things I did not take very many pictures, but I took a few that were usable. Since this was a halloween event the lighting was not very good, making it hard to take good pictures. I tried to use the night vision setting and play with the lighting to acheive interesting effects on the pictures. (Click to see large versions)
So, this task involved both creativity and service. Creativity in the planning and photography and service in the planning and the actual event.
Service : 5 hours planning and 11 hours events : 16 hours
Creativity : 5 hours planning, 1 hours of photography, and 2 hours of editting : 8 hours
Now we will move on from this and start working on the next event for spring.
On friday the 11th of November, we spent 11 hours setting up for the event by hanging fliers, decorating, setting up the station for sales, carrying sofas, cushions, and tables up and down stairs, and preparing sound and light settings. We then worked the event, taking shifts at the differnt stations, working through games, and selling refreshments. Afterwards, we stayed and cleaned the locale, put the furniture back into place, took apart the stage, cleaned up garbage, collected decorations and put all leftover refreshments in the Elevkår room for use at the next event.
I also took photos during the event that I later spent about 2 hours editting and fixing to post them for others to see. Since I was working and doing other things I did not take very many pictures, but I took a few that were usable. Since this was a halloween event the lighting was not very good, making it hard to take good pictures. I tried to use the night vision setting and play with the lighting to acheive interesting effects on the pictures. (Click to see large versions)
So, this task involved both creativity and service. Creativity in the planning and photography and service in the planning and the actual event.
Service : 5 hours planning and 11 hours events : 16 hours
Creativity : 5 hours planning, 1 hours of photography, and 2 hours of editting : 8 hours
Now we will move on from this and start working on the next event for spring.
One Year Marker
After one year of doing CAS I have counted up where I stand as far as the amount of hours for each of the C, A, and S och CAS, aswell as what I have accomplished and acheived by looking at my goals.
Action:
Gym magda- 4 hours
YogaX- 15 hours
Running- 4 hours
Swimming- 2 hours
total: 25 hours
Service:
IVIK- 3 hours
Finnish Exchange - 10 hours
total: 13 hours
Creativity:
Wedding- 10 hours
Hanna- 3 hours
Blogg designs- 5 hours
Project 1- 5 hours
Other photography- 10 hours
total: 33 hours
Looking at this I would say that I´m on a good track with creativity, where I have more than half of the required hours and feel that I have enhanced my skills the most. I feel that my level of skill as far as photography and photoshop go have increased greatly and I am getting better response from the people around me who see my photos, and also people who themselves are very talented photographers.
I have gotten about halfway with my action, which I still think is good, but I feel that I want to take more control of that this coming year and get a more structurized routine workout and acheive more of my goals that I have not acheived this far. I would like to build up more core strength and stamina, mainly through my yoga course, that will in the end also help me in other areas of exercise.
Service will however be the most important focus of this year for me. Since I have not had much the previous years, this year I have joined a group that will allow me to get service and grow weekly through cooperation, creative thinking, and party planning.
Action:
Gym magda- 4 hours
YogaX- 15 hours
Running- 4 hours
Swimming- 2 hours
total: 25 hours
Service:
IVIK- 3 hours
Finnish Exchange - 10 hours
total: 13 hours
Creativity:
Wedding- 10 hours
Hanna- 3 hours
Blogg designs- 5 hours
Project 1- 5 hours
Other photography- 10 hours
total: 33 hours
Looking at this I would say that I´m on a good track with creativity, where I have more than half of the required hours and feel that I have enhanced my skills the most. I feel that my level of skill as far as photography and photoshop go have increased greatly and I am getting better response from the people around me who see my photos, and also people who themselves are very talented photographers.
I have gotten about halfway with my action, which I still think is good, but I feel that I want to take more control of that this coming year and get a more structurized routine workout and acheive more of my goals that I have not acheived this far. I would like to build up more core strength and stamina, mainly through my yoga course, that will in the end also help me in other areas of exercise.
Service will however be the most important focus of this year for me. Since I have not had much the previous years, this year I have joined a group that will allow me to get service and grow weekly through cooperation, creative thinking, and party planning.
Planning
Creativity
For the creativity portion of my CAS, I am going to be taking pictures and editing them, along with reading about different skills and tricks for making photographs more intense or eye-catching. I will be utilizing various internet sites, identifing insperational sources (one of which is my mother, who is a very adroit photographer), and increasing my knowledge within the Photoshop program. I plan on taking both aesthetic and ordinary portrait photographs, and in the end of my two years of IB, I will put together an aggregate of all my photographs, to see how I have elaborated my photography.
Action
The action is the section of my CAS that I believe involves the least amount of planning, but it is also the most structural peice of my CAS. For the action I am going to go to the gym once a week, for an hour each time, with a friend. This is why is does not involve much planning, but it needs maintaining and I need to keep the structure so that I will aquire my desired results. I hope that this action activity will give me a power boost, and help me with my condition and my endurance level. I hope to be able to push myself much harder in two years than I may be able to now.
Service
I have a few different activities planned for my service part of CAS. First, I am going to help a peer with her math studies, since I have taken two extra years of math, and she has taken one year less than most of us have. I am going to help her when she feels she needs help, so I do not know exactly how many hours this will involve. I will also have a planned weekly activity, which will involve helping out at my local "open day-care". I will try to be there once a week and help out for an hour, and more during out break periods from school. Service is the section where you get to show your altruism, so I figured I will help out with the children, who may be especially eager in the morning.
- For now I´m going to allow this to suffice as a planning, but I will make smaller, more in depth plannings for the specific activities and various other things that I may include in my CAS that I have not included here.
- For now I´m going to allow this to suffice as a planning, but I will make smaller, more in depth plannings for the specific activities and various other things that I may include in my CAS that I have not included here.
