Great Ideas Spreading…

It’s cool to see how great ideas spread from one region to another! Just this week Arnie Comer wrote about how he’s running MysteryQuest Regions in his area and Roxanne just posted about the Texas History Mystery she and Angela Conrad are running. It’s neat also how much we all keep contributing and growing the ideas. I learned from Roxanne’s blog that Arnie made this cool script for running a MysteryQuest. This is Roxanne’s version of it. Great detail for those starting to run their own MysteryQuest type activities. A great idea gets better as we all contribute and grow in our use of a strategy.

Another example is the ASK program. Jim Wenzloff and Arnie Comer from Macomb ISD mentored me and other TWICE board members in the ASK program, then Polycom is using an ASK Deluxe format (Jim’s idea!) with The Ultimate Gift videoconferences, and now Roxanne is working towards ASK for Texas too.

What great ideas do you have that you could be sharing and growing??!!

More Student Reflections on RAP

Thanks again to Google Alerts, here are some more student reflections on Read Around the Planet. These are from 6th grade students in Edmonton Public Schools. Middle school reflections are more in depth and you can see how they tied their videoconference experiences to content they were learning in class. Both classes presented plays, and the students reflected on their performance compared to the other class and what they learned from how the other class presented. This is a great evaluation activity and it’s neat to be able to peek into the classroom and listen to the students’ thinking!

Thanks Room 22 for sharing your thoughts & reflections! If you enjoyed their reflections, leave them a note on their map here. It’ll be a great geography lesson for them!

Printable Content Provider List

Here’s a little treat for you. I’ve just added a Printable Content Provider List to our VC Program Database linked on TWICE and Polycom. It pulls directly from the our database, so each time you print it, it’s the most up-to-date information we have at the time. At this moment, it has 219 providers and prints in 38 pages! Yikes! I wish it was even shorter for printing, but I don’t think you want the font even smaller! If you have any suggestions on this, I’m all ears!

This is the beginning of updates to several workshop tools and resources that I hope to update in preparation for summer workshops. I’ll be sharing them here so you can use them too!

Women in Aviation

Today Marcellus Elementary is connecting to NASA Langley for their Women in Aviation program.

This program ties in learning about famous women pilots, learning about the importance of math and science, and actually creating a kite.

Several visuals are used throughout the program, including this picture of a kite one of the presenters made to celebrate women in aviation.

The presenters tell stories about the different women and their stories and accomplishments.

After making a kite and playing with it a bit, students have an opportunity to ask questions. This class had many great questions prepared and so they got the full benefit of bringing an expert to their classroom.

NASA programs are free, easy to schedule, and high quality content! Thanks NASA for yet another great program!

Faith in the Workplace

Here are some articles on Faith in the Workplace that I want to keep & refer back to.

Is she a robot?

Here’s a really funny story from today. I was doing a test call with a school for Michigan Exchange, and one of the students in the library said, “Is she a robot?” He’d never seen a videoconference before! It’s pretty funny to think what kids expect. It’s the second time I’ve gotten that type of question from a student. The other time was, “Are you a computer program?” Chuckles. Ah, we have to educate these kids about videoconferencing!!

Last MysteryQuest USA of 2007

Today we had some fun clues. Classroom A, Pennfield Central Elementary, Pennfield, MI, integrated their poetry unit into their MysteryQuest USA presentation.

All of our clues are going to rhyme
And we’re all going to have a great, great time.

Goods are not just imported by train,
They are also imported by semi and plane.

The population is more than eleven.
But a whole lot less than one thousand seven.

In addition, they shared their guesses in rhyme, and the correct answer too! Great examples this year of how to integrate other content (poetry and math) into MysteryQuest USA sessions.  Hopefully you can join us in April next year!

Providing Simple Content for Your Schools

Guitar I’ve written before about the importance of educational service agencies providing content for their constituent schools. It doesn’t have to be something that’s as time intensive and complicated as MysteryQuest! It could be as simple as singing to the students! Check out this example from ESC 12 in Texas.

Great Clues from Alaska

How do you give a clue about the time zone of your state when it includes the name of your state? By giving a math problem!


EST -4; CST – 3, etc.


Notice the great background this school created for their clues! Snowshoes and airplanes give clues about the state.


Climate clue: Land + midnight + sun. Get it?


The presentation included rich visuals in many of the clues, especially the clues about the local Native American culture.

These clues are samples from Hunter Elementary, Fairbanks, Alaska, in today’s session of MysteryQuest USA. We’re always thrilled to have Alaska in our MysteryQuest USA sessions! We ended the session with a Q&A time, and then a snowball fight initiated by our Alaskan virtual friends. What a blast! Kids won’t forget this anytime soon!

Updated Favorite Field Trips Page

Today I updated the list of content provider program reviews from my blog (plus a few video clips from 2000) on our Favorite Field Trips page. Just thought you might want to revisit the list if you haven’t been back recently.