I found the exercise to be an excellent opportunity for exploring the purely pedagogical (as opposed to "subject-area pedagogical" or purely subject-area specific) aspects of question-answering. The following is a list of the particular suggestions and admonitions that stemmed from my observation and participation in the exercise:
"How do I get to Vancouver?": the instructor spent some time explaining how the student might find this information on the Web.
"When is the next eclipse?": the instructor might have mentioned that Almanacs generally list this sort of date-related information.
"How do I get to Vancouver?": the instructor pointed out that there is more than one (reasonable) choice of meaning for "Vancouver" in this context and forced the student to clarify (and also explained why the confusion existed -- geographical proximity).
"When is the next exclipse?": the instructor forced the student to clarify what kind of eclipse the student was interested in. This is an example of a question that might differ quite a bit in an astronomy class (where the community would have a much better and finer-grained understanding of what an eclipse is).
"When is the next eclipse?": the instructor asked the class what kind of eclipses we had learned about.
"Who was the first person to reach the South Pole?": the instructor not only gave the answer (Roald Amundsen?) but also mentioned excitedly that this same person was the first to reach the North Pole. This might pique students' interest in such an intrepid explorer.
"Why do you like the color green?": OK, it would be hard not to personalize this question. But let's say that the question had been about people's reaction to the color green in general. The instructor's response -- which was to mention that he was color-blind and describe how this affects his perception of the color green -- would still be appropriate as a lead-in and would engage the class.
"Which is better, cable modems or DSL?": the instructor asked the class what their opinions were (by show of hands) and discussed the question but then cut off with "I'll discuss that with you off-line." This was unsatisfying to the rest of the class because it was our question too by that point. If you must put of the question at this point, do it in a way that involves everyone (e.g., leave it to the next class period or have us all write a one minute paper on our answer to the question).
"Was mathematics invented or discovered?": the instructor hilariously answered this with a curt "discovered." In a real classroom, however, leaving it at this would clearly be counterproductive; students who disagreed would feel disenfranchised, and students who agreed (or just had an overdeveloped sense of respect for the teacher) would no longer be open to alternative viewpoints.
"Who is the best basketball player of all time?": the answer was "Michael Jordan." Most people would probably agree with this right now, but it's certainly more pedagogically valuable to admit the alternatives.. and even to discuss why we might make one choice over another ("OK, we all agree it's Michael Jordan, but can anyone tell me why they think it's Jordan over players like Wilt Chamberlain or Magic Johnson?").