Skip to main content

What are Mystery Locations & Why?

Mystery Locations is an educational game where your class uses GHO or Skype with another class somewhere else in the world. The goal is for each class to determine where the other is located using critical thinking, collaboration and geography skills.

Why Mystery Locations?
According to Paul Solarz (2013) “Reasons to Do a Mystery Skype” are numerous:
  • Geography Skills
  • Critical Thinking Skills
  • Listening & Speaking Skills
  • Student Directed
  • Student Resourcefulness
  • Collaboration
  • Global Community of Learners
  • Future Partnerships
  • Authentic Purpose for Research
  • Supports and links to the Curriculum
  
Connecting Classrooms around the World
Whilst this video is promoted by Skype it gives educators a snapshot of the educational benefits of Mystery Locations.


Ways to Play
Within my educational context I have used 3 particular styles to play.
  • 20 questions - recommended for beginners and younger children.
    • Students prepare 20 questions and 5-10 clues.
  • Clue Drop - recommended for intermediately experienced classes.
    • Statements like: we don’t have… we are not… we don’t live near...
  • Yes or No - recommended for more experiences classes.
    • Classes are only allowed to ask yes or no questions.
Mystery Locations Jobs
  • Greeters - Say hello to the class and give some cool facts about the class without giving away their location.
  • Questioners - These students ask the questions and are the voice of the classroom.
  • Answers - They are the students who answer the other classes questions about their location.
  • Runners - These students run from group to group relaying information.
  • Google Mappers - They are the students that work with Google maps/earth studying the terrain and also piece together the clues.
  • Globe Hunters - These students use atlases, pull down maps, country maps, paper maps, globes and time zone maps to piece clues together.
  • Supervisor - Oversees the entire operation and takes notes on what worked and areas to improve on. They also lead the post-call debrief.
  • Note Takers - These students type all of the questions and answers for review during the call and assists to develop the post-call blog.
  • Reporter - Takes pictures/video during the call and assists to develop the post-call blog.
After the Mystery Location has been Identified
  • Share information about country, state, city, and/or school
  • Compare & contrast communities
  • Make plans for future projects
  • Share common projects
    • Global Read Aloud, Maths Challenges, NPHCBlogIT, etc.
  • Traveling scrapbook/journal
  • Add Mystery location to Google map and/or wall map.
  • Reporters write about event for classroom blog or twitter.
  • Continue to make connections with class via Twitter, GHO & Skype.

        How to Get Started

            References
            Paul Solarz (2013) Becoming a Global Educator through Mystery Skypes

            Comments

            Popular posts from this blog

            How do we Build a Culture of Inquiry and Data Use?

            School systems have a shared responsibility to improve student learning outcomes. Likewise, for staff there is an obligation to provide extended opportunities to build on what they already know. High quality recording methods that ascertain growth mapped over time can identify trends and highlight threats allowing organisations to predict implications of applying a learning initiative or intervention. This can become complex and messy due to competing agendas and a variety of interpretations. For this reason, organisations have an obligation to develop a fair, ethical and shared understanding how data will be used and interpreted (Stoll & Fink,1996). A strong and user-friendly data system when properly implemented, empowers teachers to discover value in functions that bring student data to their fingertips (Brunner, Fasca, Heinze, Honey, Light, Mandinach & Wexler , 2005). Therefore, teachers require adequate learning support if they are to use data to improve practice

            Managing the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the classroom

            As educators, we all understand the importance of ensuring that students submit their own work and are not cheated of their success by others. However, with the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom, it can be difficult to ensure that students are not cheating on assignments. Fortunately, there are a number of measures that educators can take to minimise the possibility of cheating while still using AI to their advantage. Here are a few tips to help you manage the use of AI and minimise cheating by students on assignments. 1. Set Clear Guidelines The first step in preventing cheating is to set clear guidelines about the use of AI and make sure that students understand the expectations. Make sure students are aware that AI-generated work is not permitted and that any work submitted must be their own. 2. Monitor Student Activity Monitoring student activity through AI can help you identify any potential cheating. AI can be used to detect plagiarism and other sign

            What does a post-industrial class look like? Part 2

            This post is the second part of a series that I have been working on to identify what  does a post-industrial class look like? In my previous post , I looked at using video, collaborative discussion, grouping and student-centred learning. Why a large display and one to one? The large electronic display is used as it offers many benefits to a given lesson; these include demonstration and modelling as the teacher could showcase the application or video from the board (Moss, et al, 2007). It is easy to show the important features of particular web-based activities and have students interact with the material on their own devices. The board can accommodate different learning styles (Herrington & Harrington, 2006). Interactive boards can help tactile learners by touching and marking the board. Audio learners can have the class discussion and auditory multimedia, visual learners can see what is taking place as it develops at the board and it offers multimodal learning which can b