Where in the world is Groton's superintendent of schools?

Groton - It's 10 a.m. on Tuesday and Paul Kadri, the superintendent of schools, is quizzing Gail Dion's third-graders.

Georgia's state fruit? The peach.

Florida's nickname? "The Sunshine State."

But while Dion is standing in her classroom at Catherine Kolnaski Magnet School, Kadri is sitting in his car, which is parked just off Interstate 95 somewhere in South Carolina. He has spent Monday and Tuesday driving to Bonita Springs, Fla., where he and his co-pilot, a Wheaten terrier named Bunker, will spend Christmas with family. From each state, Kadri has logged on to Skype, a computer program that lets its users video chat, and talked to Dion's third-graders.

"It's a little corny, but it's a lot of fun," Kadri said.

Once Kadri logs off, the students get to work to find answers to his latest question. Dion and Karen Bryer, the school's technology coordinator, are teaching about resources like Google Earth and online databases they can use to find the answers.

In class on Tuesday, Kadri and Dion asked the students to find out the distance from the capital of Florida to Kadri's final destination, Bonita Springs, and then find out about the different animals that live there.

Breaking into groups of four, the students logged onto Apple laptops and searched for answers. Using one program, they found the capital (Tallahassee). Another helped them find the distance from the capital to Bonita Springs (321 miles). A third told them about the area's wildlife (diverse, but alligators get top billing at a local wildlife preserve).

In Pennsylvania, Kadri asked them what person is best known for crossing the Delaware River (Gen. George Washington, whose men crossed it during the Revolutionary War). In North Carolina, he quizzed them on what made Kitty Hawk famous (the Wright brothers flew the first airplane there in 1903).

Dion had the students write the answers on the Promethean board, a high-tech whiteboard that connects with a projector and a computer. As they wrote, their words appeared on the screen.

The Promethean boards, which retail for about $2,600, have been installed in the district's elementary schools and are set to be in every classroom in Groton by the end of the school year. Teachers can create interactive lessons, save notes written on the board for future use, show video or set up live chats like the one between Kadri and the third-graders.

"This offers so many tools for education - it's incredible," Dion said. "You could do so much with this. We're working on planning some virtual field trips, where we will talk with some experts from here in the classroom."

Students are using the lessons outside the classroom, too. After learning to use Google Earth, a computer program that lets users zoom in on nearly any spot on the planet, third-grader Kyle Egan installed it at home.

"I showed my dad how to use it last night," he said. "We used it to look at the North Pole. It was really cool."