Mystery Hangouts in Ms. Rosenberg's 5th Grade Class - A Student Perspective

Back in the late fall Ms. Annie Rosenberg (@OMinEdu) approached me with an idea-she wanted to host a Mystery Skype or Mystery Google Hangout (GHO) with her 5th grade students. Through careful planning and facilitation, Ms. Rosenberg's 5th graders have had several Mystery GHOs across the US and one with an international school in Ghana! I have enjoyed working with this class and was excited when some of the students wrote about their experience. Below is the article they wrote about their year of Mystery GHOs and a video they created with their amazing teacher. 

Mystery Hangouts

By: Jackie, Megan, Parmida and Sid

What is a Mystery Hangout?       A mystery hangout is where two classes in the world connect using Google Hangout. Each class guesses where the other class is by asking questions. They can only use yes or no questions. If we had time we would figure out the city of the other class we are doing a Mystery Google Hangout with.       After we finish our actual hangout, we talk about what we did well and what places we can improve upon. We also share facts about our state, town and school. Jobs That We Have       For this activity, we have eight kinds of jobs. There are greeters, recorders, think tanks, runners, inquirers and lastly the reporters.       First the greeters, the people who go on the camera, greet the other class and fill in jokes on research time. The recorders are people who write down the questions that have been asked by the inquirers and the people in the other class.       Think tanks use the clues to find where the other class is. The runners are the people who transport the ideas and the plans from think tanks to inquirers to greeters. The inquirers are people who uses facts about the place we think the other class is in and make yes or no questions out of them, they also answer the other classes questions.       Finally, the reporters take videos, pictures and jot notes about what is happening. One of the reporters also tweet on Twitter about the mystery hangout on our class account.

Places We Have Traveled To We’ve had eight mystery hangouts so far: Plainsboro, New Jersey, USA Burke, Virginia, USA Kingwood, Texas, USA Portland, Oregon, USA Limerick, Maine, USA Kansas City, Missouri, USA Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA Ghana, Africa What Can You Learn From Mystery Hangouts     Mystery hangouts help us with the 21st century competencies and encourage us to be effective communicators and information literate researchers. Through communicating with other classes, we learn to speak clearly and with good respect, and we strengthen our ability to be collaborative team members by helping our groups and working together to find out the other classes’ locations. We also learn how to be literate researchers by using the internet and other sources to solve problems and researching.       Mystery hangouts are a great way to learn about states and countries, and teach us to be diverse and learn about different people, places etc. Finding places on the map enhance our skills to locate states and countries, as well as identifying landmarks like the Mississippi river and the four main oceans.       We are able to grow as students and we can open our eyes to learn about interesting places in the United States or even the whole WORLD using. This is what we call globalization, or becoming a globally aware citizen, and it will definitely help us in the future! A big thanks  to Mrs. Lindes and Ms. Rosenberg for teaching and helping and practicing with us to make this possible. Here is a video our class created highlighting our Mystery GHO experience.

This Week at Village 1.30.15

It was another great week at Village; I am a lucky teacher to be learning alongside such wonderful and committed educators!

This week…

• the computer lab was abuzz with Google Slide creations. Your students are learning the ins and outs of creating a presentation as well as the tools they will be using for their assessments in March and May!
• 4th Grade Special Education teachers attended a half day workshop to learn how to incorporate Google Apps for Education into their lessons. It was a great session for everyone involved! If you feel that you could lend a hand to these teachers, who are “newer” to the Chromebook experiences and the integration of technology in the classroom, please reach out to your colleagues. We all have so much to teach each other!
• I spent two periods with a wonderful 4th grade class as we logged into and learned the basics of Glogster! I was excited to hear that they are working on their optional assignment-an All About Me. This will allow the students the opportunity to learn about the program they are using without worrying about the content. I look forward to working with them again on Monday!
• I explored plickers with a small group of students in 5th grade. This “exit slip” assessment tool is easy to use and I would love to explore the possibilities with a few more classes. For more information, watch this video and email me for plicker cards! If you want to see plickers in action, it may be coming to your Spanish class soon!
• I am looking for a 4th grade teacher interested in doing a Mystery Hangout with students in Minnesota. Not sure what I’m talking about? Annie Rosenberg and I will be having a morning share in February. Please let Annie and me know if you would be interested.

Be On the Look Out (BOLO) for…

• Google classroom training, which will begin in February. I will be working with one 5th grade teacher and two 4th grade classrooms. If you are interested in learning more about Google Classroom, email me and I will be sure to add you to the list.
• a new Hapara platform, it will be launching in March for 5th grade teachers. I will be meeting with you during flex to review the changes. 
• Kaizena. I am looking for teachers (4th or 5th) who may be interested in exploring Kaizena. Kaizena is a Google app/add on that allows you to give different types of feedback on a Google Doc (voice recordings, typed comments and links to more information). If you would like to explore Kaizena with me, let me know.

As always, let me know if you would like to be included in any of these endeavors or if you have any projects you would like me to help you with. 

This Week at Village 1.23.15

Hi Village Friends,

This week at Village was a productive one and there is much to be celebrated! 

Here are some of the technology integration highlights:

• Teachers continue to join the Twitterverse. It’s not too late to to join in the learning. Check out the Tweet 10 Challenge. If you have completed the challenge, remember to send me a direct message via Twitter to claim your badge and your sticker once you’ve completed Day 5! Still not convinced that Twitter is worth it? Check out the #wwprsd hashtag and see what your colleagues have tweeted!
• A 5th grade classroom traveled to Virginia via Google Hangouts. It was a wonderful Mystery Hangout; the students were able to guess the mystery location in 7 guesses! What a great way to build geography skills and expand your world.

Ms. Rosenberg gets her greeters set
up for their Mystery Hangout. 

Students use their Chromebooks and laminated
maps of the US to eliminate incorrect locations.

This student is recording the questions her
classmates have asked. This list was referred
to often during the Hangout

These groups of students did research to help
determine where the other class might be located
and to help ask questions.

• The tech team met to start planning the February PD Day. Special Area Teachers, if you have an idea for content that we can facilitate and help you plan, let me know!
• The tech team also met to develop training for the Special Ed Teachers and their new Chromebooks.
• I met with a 4th grade teacher to discuss an upcoming Glogster activity. 

Here’s a brief look at next week:

• Virtual Debates are coming. I’m working with a 5th grade teacher to plan a Google Hangout debate using the new Social Studies curriculum. We will be debating population growth with 5th graders from Millstone.
• Symbaloo webmixes
• Twitter, Twitter, and more Twitter! Let me know if you still want to take part in the challenge. 
• YOUR project?!?!?

Please let me know if you would like to be included in any of these endeavors or if you have any projects you would like me to help you with. 

This Week at Village 1.16.15

This second week of 2015 the Tech Team introduced the Tweet 10 Challenge. It was nice to see so many new faces in the Twitterverse. If you missed the Tweet 10 Challenge, it’s not too late to join in the fun and grow your Professional Learning Network (PLN). Remember to send me a direct message via Twitter to claim you badge and you sticker once you’ve completed Day 5! Still not convinced that Twitter is worth it? Check out this article MJ Mucciarone sent me; she found it on Twitter!

Here’s a look at some of the awesome technology integration that took place at Village this week:

• Special area teachers are continuing their work on their blogs and Cheryl Glitz has created a stunning blog to keep her students up to date in all things music. Be sure to check it out!
• I met with wonderful teachers during 4th grade flex to continue working on their blogs. This week we added poll questions. If you are interested in creating a blog for or with your class, let me know and we can make that happen.
• Dan Gallagher and I spent several hours updating the iPad cart. All 14 iPads have the most recent operating system and all apps are currently up to date. In an effort to get Glogster out to everyone, we also installed the Glogster app on each device. Let me know if there are any apps you would like installed on the iPads.
• Karen Orlovsky and I met to discuss using Google Docs in lieu of My Lesson Planner. She and I created a template capturing the standards and she hopes to start using the template next week. If you have a template that you would like to share with the building, please do; we have so much to learn from one another!
• Eileen Beam and I co-taught a lesson about bibliographies using the digital tool easybib. For more information, here is a link to the doc I created with other digital bibliography tools.
• Mariel Richter and I participated in week two of our Twitter chat/book club for the book Teach Like a Pirate. 
• Holly Shemitz and I met to discuss her upcoming Colonial Billboard Project using Glogster. Be sure to take advantage of the school license of this amazing tool.
• On Tuesday the Teach Team gathered with educators from Maine to hear about their 1:1 initiative and there is much that we are looking forward to sharing during the February PD Day!
• Mariel Richter invited me into her class to see the great tech projects her students created! While I was unable to attend due to a conflict in schedule, I TRULY appreciate the invite. I love seeing what you are doing in the classroom. It helps me share ideas with our colleagues.

Once again, I can’t be everywhere and see everything, but I hope you will invite me into your classroom and I can spread the word or share the great things you are doing with your students.

Here’s a brief look at our shortened week ahead and beyond:

• Mystery Hangouts with another state
• Virtual Debates
• Twitter, Twitter, and more Twitter! Let me know if you still want to take part in the challenge. 
• Glogster
• Flex
• Google Classroom
• YOUR project?!?!?

Please let me know if you would like to be included in any of these endeavors or if you have any projects you would like me to help you with. 

Using Google Hangouts to Connect to Classrooms Around the World

I first read about the idea of the "Mystery Skype" or "Mystery Hangout" on Twitter when a fellow educator posted a Tweet about a global collaboration project.  After further reading, I realized that there are a ton of teachers participating these mystery location calls all over the world.  What a great way to connect classrooms and learn about different places!

After finding interested teachers at both Millstone and Village, Our experiment in global collaboration began by testing Google Hangouts out across schools. This first Hangout is what sold one 5th grade teacher on the idea and she started looking on Twitter for possible connections. So far, her class has connected with Iowa and Alabama and the class is loving it!  With each new Skype/Hangout, the class learns more about different places in the country/world and then reflects on the hangout itself so they can make the next one better.  Each student has a role and they use Google Maps and Google Forms/Docs to collect their data.  The students are also building on curriculum and competencies by:

• Using and reinforcing map and geography skills
• Practicing being effective communicators as they work together and share information
• Problem-solving as they analyze clues and create questions to figure out where the Mystery Skype/Hangout class is located
• Comparing and contrasting as they look at the differences and similarities between locations

Take a look at some of the pictures from the first few connections. Who knows where the next mystery location will be!

Here are some resources if you are interested in learning more.  Let us know if you would like to try a mystery location call in your class!

Mystery Hangout
Mystery Skype
Sample Notes Page
Student Doc