Our First Mystery Location Call Using Google Hangout

Today we did our first Mystery Location call of the year. While most teachers use Skype for doing Mystery calls, we used Google Hangout instead. Mr. Krakower's class sent us a GHO invite and we accepted it and joined his hangout. We had several groups that we worked in as we participated in the Mystery Location call.

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. **

Let the Good Times Roll

I'm so excited to announce that my 4th graders with be sharing their Mardi Gras expertise with at least 14 other classes in the United States and Canada. While my students have been busy doing research, writing, creating Glogsters, writing blog posts, and gathering props to share during our Skype calls, I've been busy getting our Skype call schedule set.

My part was pretty easy. First I decided which days we could Skype. Then I created a Google doc to have others sign up, and tweeted about it on Twitter.

Viola, in less than 24 hours we had 14 eager participants. My students will also be back channeling on our Skype Collaboration group in Edmodo. If the other class wants to join in on that activity, I will share the code to join the group with them.

I will be adding updates to our blog as this awesome activity unfolds. So stay tuned.

Our First Mystery Skype Call

On Friday the students in my 5th period math class got to participate in our first Mystery Skype call this year. Joan Young, a 4th grade teacher and member of my PLN (personal learning network), and I planned our call via Twitter and email. We used this post and this post to help us learn how to do a Mystery Skype call.

About half hour before the Skype call, Joan sent me an IM on Skype reminding me to remove my city and state from my profile. I quickly did so. The Mystery Skype call would not have been much fun if I had placed the Skype call and Mrs. Young's students could see where I was located. This is how my Skype profile looks now. (Click on imagine to enlarge.)


We decided which students would be greeters and questioners, and which students would be researchers and helpers. Then the call was placed and the questioning began.

Mrs. Young's class graciously let us go first. We asked if they were located in the United States. Yes, they answered. Are you located east of the Mississippi River? They answered no, and I was so caught up in the game that I forgot a no meant our turn was over. As we tried to ask another question, Mrs. Young reminded us of the rules. So it was their turn. They asked if our state touched an ocean. We answered no and got a turn again. And so it went back and forth.

Mrs. Young's class asked such great questions, they were quickly able to determine that we were located in Louisiana. It took us a little longer to discover that they are located in California. We tried to extend the activity by trying to figure out the city each other is located in. Again, Mrs. Young's fourth graders beat us and zeroed in on New Orleans rather quickly. My kids kept commenting about how well they played and how smart they were.

Mrs. Young's Class Cheer Their Victory

We thoroughly enjoyed the experience and learned some important geography skills along the way. We can't wait until our next Mystery Skype call.

If you are looking for a class to connect with to do a Mystery Skype call check here or here.

Happy 200th Birthday, Mr. Lincoln

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Ninging in the New Year Part II

Well my baby is three weeks old and like a proud parent I'm showing her off to everyone (even my non-educator friends). My baby is my Ning that has 23 members so far and a lot of collaboration going on. I check on "her" often during the day to see what new activity has been added.

Several of the other teachers at my school were upset that it was only for fourth grade teachers. Since they seem interested in collaborating with their teaching peers, I decided to set up a Ning for every grade level in the school system. Hope to have it finished over our long MKL Birthday weekend.

I learned how to set up Google Alerts. I set up three: fourth grade, 4th grade, and elementary math. Once a day Google collects and delivers to me any articles or blog posts with those tags in them. Great way to quickly see what's going on. I also added a few more RSS feeds to my Google Reader. It's nice to have all new posts put in one convenient spot to read. Delicious is helping me get all my bookmarks organized. Now I don't have to worry about which computer I add a bookmark to, because my Delicious account keeps track of them all. I have access to my bookmarks from any computer.

It is getting late and I have spent most of today building my PLN (personal learning network). Read many posts, collaborated with others, watched videos, checked out new technology, and checked all three of my email accounts several times today. I am feeling tired but definitely better informed.