Constructivism: I am jumping of joy !!!!!

Yesterday was our first lesson during which the social studies students have been presented with Myportfolio. It went quite well for most of the students. Our main objective of the lesson was to familiarise ourselves with Myportfolio and create a new page.

Of course there were some students (boys !!! ) who were more interested to see who was online and who they could become friend with (typical!!!!) but 90% of the class was quite engaged and asked relevant questions. I wanted them to try to figure out by themselves how to use Myportfolio’s features which they did well and independently. I mean independently of me, as they were actually asking each other for help. YES !!!! they were working collaboratively

I gave out simple rules of online

behaviour, like “do not change your name and/or username, do not bully people and do not put inappropriate picture for your profile”. The boys thought it was quite cool they could put a picture of a motocross for their profile =) and some girls put pictures of koalas and squirrels (typical !!!!)

I was quite impressed when a boy who is not the most academic boy in the class, asked me if he could start doing his homework on Myportfolio as he said he would rather do it online than writing on a piece of paper. He even added that it was quite exciting for him and that he could not wait to start. I am not sure if he said that just to make me happy or if he really speaks the truth, only time will tell. Anyhow, even if he just wanted to please me it is still very sweet of him =)

What was even more surprising was this little lovely girl who is also in my French class (2 periods after the social studies class). As she was writing her French project about her family, she asked me the permission instead of doing it on a poster if she could do it on Myportfolio. I was so happy that she could not only see the potential of Myportfolio but also that she took responsibility of her own learning.

My next move with the Social Studies class is to ask them to start on their project itself and reflect at then of each period using the “journal” feature of Myportfolio.