A Mystery: Finding Vivian Maier

Skye discovered an intriguing movie trailer. There is a censored bad word in it, but we still think it's a great trailer to share.

Skye will be organizing an evening event where we can meet and watch the film with our families. Kate has offered to meet us and do some street photography before the film.

Mystery Skype Reflection

Last week we had two super quick, back to back Mystery Skypes. We got to meet students from Ms. Nochumson and Ms. Nim's classes. Ms. Nochumson teaches a class of girls at a private school called Sacred Heart in New York City. Ms. Nim teaches a class in Delaware.

It was a very interesting process and we experienced a mix of emotions throughout!

Today, the students in Room 209 reflected on their experience.

Here is what they wrote:

Questions we could ask next time that would help us narrow the options down more quickly:
-are you on the eastern side of the world? (Camden)
-are you in the northern hemisphere? (Thomas)
-are you north of the equator? (Hunter)
-does your state/province border another country? (Pat)
-are you on the border of your country? (Mollie)
-does your flag have a specific colour on it? (Thomas)
-are you surrounded by ocean? (Vickie)
-are you in a coastal city? (Hunter)
-does your state/province begin with a certain letter? (Pat)
-do you have three or more syllables in the name of your country? (Jack)
-is the first letter of your country in the second half of the alphabet? (Jack)
-has your state/province/country ever fought for independence? (Pat)
-are you affected by all four seasons? (Hunter)
-is your country in the United Nations? (Hunter)
-do you have a queen? (Mel)
-do you speak in a different language at your house? (Fin)
-do you live in the capital city? (Fin)
-do you constantly get droughts? (Fin)

Things we learned (facts and/or elements of the Mystery Skype process):
-doing Skype on Isaac is very hard because the volume does not go high enough. (Thomas)
-communication is really important because everyone has to be on the same page (Pat)
-I learned that Lady Gaga went to Sacred Heart in NYC. (Thomas)
-I learned that Mystery Skype is very fun. (Thomas)
-I learned that you need to pay to get in to a private school! (Vickie)
-you always have room to improve (Pat)
-137 countries have red in their flags (Hunter)
-I am really good with Google Maps (Hunter)
-Mystery Skype is very overwhelming (Sophia)
-people in the U.S. are a lot like us! (Camden)
-you can find someone somewhere else in the world pretty fast; under half an hour (Camden)
-Americans are nice! (Camden)
-Skypes don't normally have very good vision (Jack)
-there are lots of schools in New York (Jack)
-I love taking pictures (Madi)
-I'm OK at typing and I like typing (Madi)
-I learned that our class works quite well together. Sometimes we don't, but I think this time we did! (Fiona)
-I learned that there was such a thing as Mystery Skype! (Fiona)
-I learned that Delaware was in the USA (Fiona)
-many continents start with an A (Mel)
-the Question Keeper job is SO hard! (Mel)
-I am a really fast typer (Fin)
-there are 50 states in America (Millie)

Things you think could make things even better next time:
-people in the background could be more quiet (Thomas)
-the Messengers should not put questions in the Inquirers faces (Thomas)
-we should use Pat's idea and have a Think Tank at each table (Hunter)
-give a secondary job to the Problem Solver becasue he/she doesn't get much time doing their job (Jack)
-ask better questions, because the questions that people asked could have been a lot better (Jack)
-everyone gets a turn to ask a question (Madi)
-I think it would work better if there was just one Answerer and 1 Inquirer, because I found it was too hard with two of each (Fiona)
-spread the Skypes out instead of having them right after each other (Mollie)
-maybe, Messengers only talk to Inquirers when the other class is speaking (Mollie)
-people should work hard not to yell out names (Vickie)

Things that went really well:
-everyone worked well together (Thomas)
-we got the cities relatively fast (Pat)
-people went to their jobs quickly (Sophia)
-people worked quickly and well with each other (Camden)
-half an hour was the perfect amount of time because on the first Skype, we both figured out each other's cities within half an hour (Jack)
-I think the back and forth went pretty smoothly (Fiona)
-we asked really good questions and got it pretty fast (Mollie)
-most people worked hard and started very fast (Vickie)
-I think it went really well how everyone was focused with a job! (Erika)

Skype Mystery Call - Jobs

Job	Location	Description
Greeters	Near Isaac at beginning	Say hello to the class and some cool facts about our class - without giving away the location.
Inquirers	Near Isaac throughout	ask questions and are the voice of the classroom
Answerers	Near Isaac throughout	question answerers - should know the facts pretty well
Think tank	At a table near Isaac with Clue Keepers	sit in a group and figure out the clues based on the information they knew, whiteboards came in handy for this.
Clue Keepers	At a table near Isaac with Think Tank	work closely with Think Tank, answerers and inquirers to help guide them in their questioning
Question Keepers	At class computer lab table with Google Mappers	type all of the questions and answers for us to review later
Google Mappers	At class computer lab table with Question Keepers	on Google maps and CIA World Factbook studying the terrain and piecing together clues
Atlas Mappers	At a table near Isaac with Clue Markers	use atlases and our wall map to also piece together clues
Clue Markers	At table with Atlas Mappers	work with paper maps and cross out any countries/provinces/states that don’t fit into the clues given
Messengers	Around the classroom, looking for raised signals	move from group to group relaying information.
Photographer	Moving around classroom	takes pictures during the call
Problem Solver	Moving around classroom	helps students with any issues they may encounter during the call, getting supplies and resources
Closers	Near Isaac at end	end the call in a nice manner after guesses have been given

 

We got some great help from this website, and a LONG class discussion (we were all exhausted by the end of it!), but I think we're sorted for our first Mystery Skype!

Planning for Mystery Skype

Tomorrow we are going to be doing not one, but TWO Mystery Skypes! We will be virtually meeting two different classes in different places via Skype! We will be playing a game with them in which we will ask only "yes" and "no" questions and try to guess where they live and go to school!

We prepared a lot for this today and we are all very excited (with a somewhat nervous teacher) for tomorrow!

We watched a video in which a class did a Mystery Skype and got lots of great ideas.


Here's what we came up with:

Mystery Skypes TOMORROW!

We watched a video of a Mystery Skype

We noticed:

-a lot of people going on the Internet to look at maps and looking at maps around the classroom. -Daniel

-that they were using white boards and searching a lot of places in the world for what people were saying about where they live. -Sophia

-they were using real maps out of paper (in atlases, some printed maps)-Lauren

-they had different strategies to find where the Mystery Skype class was. They were looking up maps on computers, they were writing down guesses on computers and whiteboards. -Vickie

-some people were a bit silly. -Mike

-it was hard to hear the questions because other people were making noises. -Lary

-they had a bunch of resources to use – a map, someone typing up questions, google. They had them all set up. -Fiona

-they were using elimination. - Madi

-they were cooperating really, really well. They were talking nicely to the people next to them and trying to figure things out. -Pan

-there were a lot of electronics – google maps, Microsoft Word. –Ethan

-all the questions were “yes” and “no” questions. -Lary

We should:

-have some people typing to write down what we learn. – Mel

-switch jobs each time we do a Mystery Skype. – Mel

-we should print up a bunch of maps, we should scribble out the places where they’re not from. – Fiona

-we should ask them what time it is right then and look at a time zone map. – Pat

-keep the background of our class quiet so we can hear the questions clearly. -Thomas

-work together on the computer, one searching, one writing. - Gabby

A plan for our game:

-Introduction (hello, sing our class song?)

-Start game

-if a team gets a “yes” answer, they keep asking

-do we need to have jobs?

-What if they ask us a question we don’t know the answer to?

Questions ewe might ask:

-Are you in the northern hemisphere? -Lary-

Are you in the southern hemisphere? Thomas

-Do you have volcanoes where you come from? Mel

-Is there still polio in your country? Sophia

-Does it snow where you come from? Madi

-Is it morning right now? Pan

-Are you a poor country? Mollie

-Are you on the east side of the world? Fiona

-Do you have all four seasons? Gabbs

-Do you border an ocean

-Are you near the Pacific Ocean? Kaleigh

-Do you border another country? Laryssa

-Do you live in Europe? Jack

-Do you live in Holland? Jack

-Do you have any jungles? Mike

-Did you see any wild animals? Mike

-Do you live in Asia? Ethan

-Do you live in Moscow? Ethan

-Is it hot there? Vickie

-Are you in a large country? Camdonian

-Do you live near Brazil? Kay-Kay

-Do you have any endangered animals? Camden

-Do you have multiple languages in your culture? Pat

-Is one of them English? Pat

There's a BIG Tiny Surprise Tomorrow

Boys and Girls of Room 209,

  I cannot wait to see you tomorrow morning! Today, I went shopping and picked up something tiny that will be a BIG surprise for you tomorrow and will hopefully give us a lot of joy. I think you'll like it, because there was another shopper selecting a similar item and she was a grade 4 student, just like many of you.

  Do you want a little clue? I've had to carefully protect the little item from Ap and Trixie.

  Want another? I had to buy a container of dried bloodworms (which sound pretty gross) for the item.

  I hope you're all having a lovely weekend. Can you guess what the surprise will be?

Shauna