Mystery class in any time zone?

Skype, Google+ Hangout, and other live connections are an excellent way to motivate and personalize collaboration across town or across oceans. The mystery class game is an awesome way to authentically practice geography inquiry, develop communication and research skills, and cultivate international friendships! However, they are limited by time zone. For example, I would like to connect with schools in the Americas, but when it's 9am here in Japan, it's 5pm in California and 8pm in New York!

photo via gfpeck

My solution was to create this Google Document and share it with the other class' teacher. Feel free to make a copy and use it. We're just trying it out, but the plan is to add questions and answers each day until both classes solve the mystery. It's also a good way to introduce collaborative document editing to your class.

There is also the appealing notion of having an all-night, sleepover at school, worldwide Skype-a-thon... just sayin'...