One group used our netbooks and were logged into a collaborative Edmodo group called Flattening the World, that we will be using this year with many other classes. This is known as "backchanneling". Gabby wrote a welcome message to Mr. K's class.
Another group were using the atlas in our social studies book to figure out what yes/no questions we should ask Mr. K.'s to help us discover where they are located. They also had a paper copy of a US map and were crossing off states as our questions were answered and some states were being eliminated.
A third group of students were the ones who sat in the "hot seat" in front of the webcam and asked the questions of Mr. K's class. They had to use the previous information and the work of the researchers to come up with the next question to ask.
In the end Mr. K.'s class guessed our location, right before we finally figured out their location. I love that my students cheered when the other class was successful.
As we ended the hangout, our students were commenting on how much fun this activity was. They really enjoyed the "learning" call and improved their geography skills, research skills, writing skills, and speaking and listening skills too.
Thank you Mr. Krakower. We enjoyed meeting you and your students today, and look forward to more collaboration with you during the year.
Have you done a Mystery Location call? Do you prefer using Skype or Google Hangouts?
**Update - I edited this post after writing this one since I am now using the term Mystery Location call. **
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