March 7th-14th ~ Windows of opportunities of Learning (WoL) Programme
S2S Marcus Lam
Speaking on behalf of the S1 and S2 cohort, I have to say that many of us were disappointed that the familiar and long-awaited WOW trip was canceled this year. But in turn, we were given another opportunity for learning to seize: the brand-new WoL programme. At first glance, I was apprehensive about my reaction to the WoL programme. However, keeping an open mind, I was prepared to experience it before passing judgement.
We can break down the WoL learning programme into a few major highlights: Programming and coding, Poetry slam, Ocean Park Math and Science trail, the Hong Kong heritage trip, and of course, the Finale! Exhibition.
The first highlight was the programming and coding activities. It was an honor having professional instructors from CIty University coming to SISHK to introduce us to a more advanced world of computer science. They opened our eyes to a new programming language: the popular JavaScript. The instructors shared with us, their renowned Chat Bot, called Nemo Bot (which you can discover on Facebook). Some of the games they created were Fish Flavoured Lollipops (based on their math game, the Nim Game), the Emoji Story (a click-and-choose story game based on the Movie, Emoji), and several others. We learned some of the basics of JavaScript and coding principles. Furthermore, we programmed our own calculator programs, Nim games, and even a 7 chapter long story game, all by utilizing the language of JavaScript. This would later play a major role in our Finale! Exhibition.
Learning about some famous equations, math principles, and coding language to be used in our game design.
The second part of the programme was none other than the Poetry Slam. Personally, this was one of my most memorable moments of the programme. The world-renowned theatre and poetry group, Faust, came to our school to perform and further our understanding of world of poetry. The day started off with a bang: the poetry performance “Poetry Splat!”, where the skits were based on selected pieces of poetry. The performance was enlightening and lively, with dramatic acting and empowering voice lines. After getting some inspiration from the performance, we broke up into our individual groups to create our own poem performances. My group created the poem, “Our Ode to Hong Kong”. By using body language, acting, volume and pace to enhance our performance, we managed to win the first round of competitions within our class, and move on to the grade poetry slam. Although we lost the final round, we definitely took a lot away from the poetry slam, especially building courage to perform in front of the entire cohort.
The following week, we went to Ocean Park for the trail. We did this in our individual groups where we ventured around the park in search of different landmarks and structures to solve the math challenges given to us. One challenge that I remembered attempting was to find the average speed of the cable car. I was pleasantly surprised that not only did we learn mathematics and scientific concepts in action, we also managed to experience the rides in the park. Overall, it was a fun day, mixed with nostalgic experiences and creative challenges.
Experiencing the cable car ride at Ocean Park
For our heritage trip, my class, S2S, went to Tai Hang (大坑）to discover some of the old landmarks, food, and culture. My favourite part of the trip had to be making the traditional local delicacy: rice rolls (肠粉）.
Making our own rice rolls
Finally, my favourite part of the whole WOL Programme had to be the Finale Exhibition. At first, we thought that this exhibition was too much work, but we found that this was an amazing bonding experience for our class. We learned how to coordinate and organize our class, and divide the labour to decorate the classroom (Different sectors: Art team, video team, tour guide team, ICT and Computer Science team). Furthermore, being a smaller team than the other S2 classes (almost half of our class didn’t join the programme), we learned how to be more flexible and resilient, and to make the most out of our manpower and materials. Our classroom was decorated immaculately. We had a mini movie theater in front to watch our highlight video, an art board at the back showcasing everything we learnt over the learning programme, a Pi exhibition (it was pi day). We even included an ICT and Computer science lab which allowed visitors to try out the games we made. After we finished our “tours” for the parents and teachers around our exhibition, the whole class took a step back. It was extremely satisfying to see our end product, and the smiles we left on most of the visitors that came in and out. We were ecstatic to find out that our class won first place (for best exhibition) in our grade, despite the shortage of manpower! We were happy that all our hard work paid off in the end, and that we could reflect on all that we’ve learnt over the course of the WOL programme.
Class decoration at the Finale! exhibition
As I said in the video that we showcased during the Finale! Exhibition, “we look forward to next year’s programmes” and other learning opportunities that come our way in the future.
