Tag Archives: MysteryQuests

Notes from MysteryQuest USA

Today we had the first two of nine sessions of MysteryQuest USA in the next couple weeks. The first one this morning was really rough with just about everything that could go wrong with the technology actually going wrong. But the students weathered through it and had a great time presenting and guessing.

Here are two neat items from the presentations today.

First, one class presented all their clues from a car!

With the PowerPoint presentation behind, it worked out very well.

We’re starting to see more presentations projected on Smartboards, like this one. This class did very well with huge fonts and easy to read clues.

Finally, we had some game shows. My favorite was “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?” Very fun, considering that all the students participating today were 5th graders. The adult in the game show was….. guess…. none other than the teacher!

In the last session today we only had four schools, so we had some time for questions at the end. My two favorite questions were:

  •  Texas asked Michigan, “What is your air quality like?”
  • And, “What is the best part about living in Texas?” (asked after hearing that the temperature can go up to 110 in the summer!)

Great learning happened yet again today! Yeah!

LiteratureQuest: Need American Literature Class Partners

Interested in a LiteratureQuest? We need three high school American Literature classes to participate in a MysteryQuest-like LiteratureQuest. We’d love to have you participate!

One of my local teachers designed this activity last summer in the Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with VC workshop. And now we are finally implementing it! I look forward to seeing this model work in one class period with just two classes participating. I think it may be just what we need to increase high school use of videoconferencing.

Last MysteryQuest World of 2007

Today is the last session of MysteryQuest World Geography of 2007. No more MysteryQuests until MysteryQuest USA in April (still room to sign up if you want!)

Today’s MysteryQuest treat is having Grafton Elementary, Ontario, participate in our session on Europe. It did my heart good to see the huge Canadian flag in their introduction. Yes, I’m Canadian. It’s always a treat to have a non U.S. school in our MysteryQuest sessions, so we took time at the end to ask each other questions.

The Grafton Elementary class did a Lost simulation of the students on a class trip to Europe. The clues were woven into the skit story with what they had found about the country where they were lost. This is the first skit I’ve heard where the students really verbally and visually emphasized the clues within the skit. They had nice pauses after the important clues to write down as well. Great job Grafton!

Mata Intermediate, TX, also had a visual that worked well. Along with their news show was an easel with the category for that set of clues.

This session had the most technical difficulties of the MysteryQuests we ran this month, but the students weathered it well.

So that’s the end of this year’s world geography MysteryQuests. We have another set of U.S. geography sessions coming up in April. The slots aren’t full yet, so we’d love to have you participate!

MysteryQuest: Revealing the Answer

Here’s a neat visual from today’s MysteryQuest Western Hemisphere. Troy Intermediate, from Avon Lake, OH, used this creative background to reveal their correct answer at the end.

Here’s how their background looked during their presentation:

And here’s how the background looked after they revealed their answer.

Another great example of sharing information visually in a MysteryQuest session!

MysteryQuest with Nicaragua

Today we have a special treat for MysteryQuest Western Hemisphere. We have a class from Nicaragua participating!

We are also using the Polycom RSS in a unique way. My local school’s system went on the fritz this week. We don’t know why it quit working and the problem seems to be network related. MysteryQuests are impossible to reschedule, so we connected them in via a speakerphone for interaction, and then put the streaming up on a projector with the sound turned down so they could get the visuals. Maybe the most unique way a recording device has been used so far, but it did allow my school to participate successfully in MysteryQuest today.

Since we recorded it, this is one MysteryQuest that you could watch if you want. (Schools participating in MysteryQuest have collected parent permission forms before hand.) The program will play in Windows Media Player.

At the end we had 20 minutes of Q&A with the American Nicaraguan School. It was their first videoconference and one of the questions they asked the other schools was, “do you like videoconferencing with us?” Of course everyone shouted out YES!! Other questions were:

  • What do you do for fun?
  • What is your home like?
  • How far do you live from school?
  • Some questions were asked in Spanish by students in the Michigan schools. That was really neat for both classes.
  • What is your school day like?
  • If we were to visit Nicaragua where should we go?

It was a great connection and everyone enjoyed the research and interaction with the other classes at the end.

By the way, registration is open for MysteryQuest USA in April. We’d love to have you participate.

MysteryQuest World with Alaska

Today’s MysteryQuest: Western Hemisphere has two classes from Michigan, one from Missouri, and one from Alaska. Unfortunately we had trouble with the Alaska connection at the beginning, so we brought their class in via speakerphone. Sometimes you go with whatever method you can use to get the students to participate.

Another unique thing about today’s connection was that we had a group from an all girls school in Michigan.

Most of the schools had PowerPoints today, so while the presentations weren’t really exciting, they were easy to take notes on and that makes it less stressful for the students participating, especially when we have quirky technology problems.

The real highlight of today’s MysteryQuest was the conversation we had at the end with the students in Alaska. We talked about when it gets dark during the winter, school times, snow days, the reindeer herds, what the students eat normally, and many other things. It is always great to connect to places far away and Alaska is on our favorites list for sure!

International MysteryQuest

Well, here I am at work again on a snow day making a videoconference happen! All my schools are closed, including our admin building, and one of my local classes in particular is probably disappointed. I know the teacher is. Today was our day for MysteryQuest International, a special version of MysteryQuest where we have only one classroom per country.

We had 5 countries lined up, but due to weather and sickness, we ended up with only 3. Our Canadian school had a snow day too, but the kids came to school anyway and I was very glad we had at least one North American school participate. Those rugged Canadians!! 🙂

Our classroom in India lost power in the whole city for the first few minutes of the connection. They must have had UPS backup, because I typed the clues in Yahoo IM to the coordinator so they could get the first presentation.


Students in India gather in a conference room with maps, globes, and notetaking worksheets.


Students in Pakistan carefully listening to a presentation.


Students in Ontario, Canada present a skit with their clues. The class is lined up as a group of people on an airplane making an emergency landing in a mystery country. Notice the stewardess in the middle.

With international MysteryQuest, I also let the classes ask for as many clues repeated as possible. The different accents and fast speaking make it hard for the students to understand each other’s clues.

Also usually I prefer to keep the connection up during the research sections, but because two of the schools had to connect in via ISDN, they disconnected during the research sections.

Then at the end of the session, we always take time for question and answers between the classes. It’s always wonderful to hear the students interact with each other. Here’s a sampling of their conversation:

  • What kind of animals do you have in your country? (From Canada to India)
  • The Canadian students showed the snow out the window. It was -39C in Canada and 30C in India.
  • What time is it there? (8 p.m. in India, 7:30 p.m. in Pakistan, and 9;30 a.m. in Canada).
  • Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day? yes! They wished each other Happy Valentine’s Day.
  • How do you survive the cold? (From India to Canada)
  • Do you have snowball fights?
  • Do you wear a school uniform? Both classes in India and Pakistan had uniforms.
  • What do you do in your spare time?

What a fun connection and a warm way to start my snow day!

Cool MysteryQuest Backgrounds

Today we have the first MysteryQuest session of the year, focusing on Western Hemisphere. We have 3 classes from TX, and classes from MI, OH, and MO. MysteryQuests are one of my favorite things to do. Today we have 3 classes who have never done MQ before, and one of them went all out with their backgrounds. I’ve never seen such an elaborate, beautiful set up for giving clues. Great job Dew ISD, TX.



Presenting from the rainforest.


Presenting in front of a mine.

Another newbie class, Groesbeck Middle School, did an excellent job at waiting after giving a clue, so the other students could write down the clue. Groesbeck had excellent clear posters as well. Very easy to read, understand and take notes on.

Thank you to all the classes for their hard work in today’s session!

Snow Days & Test Calls

What lengths will you go to in order to make an international connection work? This morning I woke up to a snow day. After checking to see which of my schools are closed (all of them in Berrien County), I checked my email. There waiting in my inbox was an email from India regarding a test call for MysteryQuest International. Thanks to the magic of Qlock, I could look down at the time for Bangalore and realize they wanted to test in 10 minutes. Thankfully I have a desktop endpoint at home and I can web into my bridge. So voila, magical, successful test call.

I also met this morning with Roxanne Glaser to help get some classes for RAP leftovers. Our furnace fan motor is out too so I’m home in one warm room of the house. Roxanne thought I looked so funny I should put a pic up. So here it is. All bundled up and VCing.

The first snow picture is out the window of the back porch. Ok, back to work on the RAP leftovers. Unfortunately there’s quite a few. It may be the end of the week before you get your matches.

Still Room in Upcoming Events: ASK & MysteryQuest

TWICE ASK Sesssions
Join us for an ASK author interview. It is the best bargain in town. No here else will your children have a chance to speak personally with the uthor of the book they just read and all for only $70.00 or $35.00 for TWICE members. Go to http://www.twice.cc/ASK/index.htm for registration and to learn more about the ASK Program.

February 8 EST
Openings in 10:45-11:45 am and 12:45-1:45
Sue Stauffacher
Bessie Smith and the Night Riders
Best for Grade 5
Based on an event that took place in 1927 as seen through the eyes of young Emmarene. Bessie Smith, a blues singer, is performing when several Ku Klux Klan members try to collapse the tent. Bessie confronts the men, and sends them packing.

February 13 EST
Openings in 10:45-11:45 am and 12:45-1:45
Ethel Footman Smothers
Hard Times Jar
Best for Grade 3
Emma, the daughter of a poor migrant family knows that money from the hard times jar can’t be used to buy her a real book. So, she draws her own. Find out if she ever gets a “store-bought” book.

March 21 EST
Openings in 9:30-10:30 a.m.
Sue Stauffacher
Wireman Comic
“Wireman” comic series is designed to meet a need for literature that appeals to late, reluctant and non-English speaking readers.  It focuses on the 100 most common words in the English language-they make up 50% of all written English.

Openings in 10:45-11:45 am and 12:45-1:45
Harry Sue
11-year-old Harry Sue Clotkin, has no greater ambition than to get thrown in the slammer and be reunited with her incarcerated mother, who, like her father, is in prison. Unfortunately for Harry Sue, she has a heart, and it is not the cold heart of a criminal.

MysteryQuests
I still have room in MysteryQuest World coming up in February (middle school) and also in MysteryQuest USA (5th grade) for April. Click the links for details and registration.  Everyone welcome. IP or ISDN!