My ESL class recently connected with the class of fellow ADE Rachel Smith (who I had the pleasure of personally meeting last year in Texas) for a session of Mystery Facetime. Here the challenge was for each learning group to guess where the other class was.
Rachel Smith
Isle of Man
Rachel and I convened an appropriate time and procedure beforehand. Since my ESL class was practising asking questions in English, this type of activity was perfect for them. Each member of the class was assigned a role for the session, some asked questions, some researched online using iPads and the application Maps and others documented the answers for the others. We used an iPad that was wirelessly connected to the projector and connected via Facetime so that the whole class could follow proceedings.
The impact and outcome could be seen immediately. The classes were initially shy but after successfully guessing their locations, they were conversing and asking questions about hobbies etc. It was amazing to see how much teenagers have in common, even though they come from different countries. Some students recorded short messages using Clips to share with the others.
Connecting classes is so simple and straightforward, thanks to educational technology.
A few impressions can be seen here: https://padlet.com/aliciabankhofer/mysteryfacetime