Hmmm, sounds to me like a Scooby-Doo epsoide where Scooby and Shaggy get in trouble again! 🙂

Actually, our class and a class from Wisconsin (taught by the amazing @marykreul) participated in our classes first Mystery Skype last Thursday. What is a Mystery Skype? Funny you should ask this, I’m about to tell you about it! 🙂

A Mystery Skype is just that, skyping into a classroom, a place you’ve never been or seen, and trying to figure out where this classroom is at while they are doing the same thing! We shared various clues and facts about our respective states, and eventually, because of those clues, both classrooms guessed correctly where the other was at.

I loved the engagement of both classrooms. Students who aren’t usually talkers were up and asking questions, some who weren’t usually active were doing some of the more diffcult jobs, its was awesome! The best part, both classrooms (her’s more then mine) did pretty much they were told. Her classroom blogged in real time (http://goo.gl/QoCHk) while mine did some real time chatting with each other in a Today’s Meet room. All the while, the kids were looking up facts, trying to rule out other regions/states, and making connections all the while!

Would do this again? Most defininatly! I can see the possibilities in social studies, but also in math, reading, writing, and problem solving too. It’s amazing how truly cross-curricular this kind of an activity this is! And not only that, the kids are asking, “when’s the next classroom going to skype in??” Sure there were a few bumps along the way, but for the most part, this ran well above my own expectations, to the point where I’m trying to set another one up!

All in all, a very good project, a wonderful idea, and something that I’ll continue this year, but certainly put into play much more next year!

Thanks for reading and making this idea worth while! 🙂

And if you want, I’ll be happy to skype with you too, just tell me a time and place! Only 7 days of school left though! 🙂

@aniowateacher