Mystery Skype

This week, we participated in our first "Mystery Skype". It was amazing! I wanted to reflect on this experience, because I would LOVE to do it again in the future.  Some notes...

What worked:

• We practiced questions beforehand and the kids did a great job. Possible questions:
• Do you border an ocean?
• Are you east/west of the Mississippi River?
• Do you border another country?
• Do you border a great lake?
• Vis-a-vie markers worked great on the laminated maps. 
• We discussed the objective: practicing map skills. However, we need to focus more on the social skills aspect.

What didn't work:

• Having an assigned speaker. We had one assigned speaker. Next time, have a rotation, give all of the children an opportunity to speak to the mystery class.
• Kids were sitting at desks. This was great to control movement, but could not see all of them on the computer screen.
• Someone asked the kids what the name of their school was...only one student answered and they answered incorrectly! They kept saying, "Northland Pines School." Not totally incorrect, but they did not include Eagle River Elementary School. Go over geographical information with students more regularly. We did this in the beginning of the year, but need to revisit it more. Our school is... Our city is... Our county is... etc.

To do in the future:

• Beforehand, make sure to go over the objectives with students. Why are we doing this? 
• To practice map skills.
• More importantly, to practice social skills.
• Practice marking on a map, show students what a small dash/mark looks like. More modeling of this. Also, show students how to circle a region to eliminate the rest of the states. For example, if their state borders a great lake, then circle the possibilities. This eliminates all of the other states without having to dash/mark them out.
• Students practice speaking. Look into the computer, do not start talking until you are completely seated, introduce yourself, and speak in complete sentences.
• Have the kids sit in front of the smartboard, have the other class crowd around their camera and take a "group picture"! Other class did this, great idea!
• Create a list of questions for the other class to ask about their city/region/state and come up with some fun facts to share about Eagle River and Wisconsin.
• Research Skype for Education website and see if there are more detailed lesson plans or formats to follow.
• Start IMMEDIATELY at the beginning of the school year. Ask students' families if they have family members with school aged children in other states that they would like to share our contact information with. Set a goal to Mystery Skpye with all 50 states!

I am very excited to do this next year, no matter what grade I teach! This activity lends itself nicely to differentiation; for example, more extensive questions, more detailed information about each state, etc.