When the mail announcing Mouse Mischief from Microsoft arrived in my inbox, I said to myself - Ah ha! Finally, a software with a cool name. The last cool name I heard was YawnBuster. But you know, I'm biased.
The idea of the Microsoft product is real simple. The teacher creates a PowerPoint presentation which contains questions, surveys and drawing activities. The cool part comes when you play the presentation. Up to five hundred (!) students in the classroom can be connected to your presentation via their mice, and they can simply start answering questions, completing pictures or filling out surveys. The presentation displays the aggregate of all students' activities. For example, twenty students answered "Yes" and ten others "No".
There are several good things about Mouse Mischief. It does not require proprietary hardware - which can be prohibitive to procure and a pain to maintain and distribute in class. Two, it integrates nicely with PowerPoint. Three, it is free.
The underlying concept of Mouse Mischief, namely, using commonly used hardware and software for fostering interactivity in learning, is appealing. It is heartening to see Microsoft doing something in this space.
Mouse Mischief has certainly presented some appealing concept. Some questions come to mind though: a) it is free but what about the cost of the mice? b) is it time consuming to manage logistics for distribution of mice to students? c)can this be used in corporate presentations / conference sessions?
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if there is any technology which does not even require mice but can facilitate this by using even more commonly used hardware - may be a mobile phone or some such device?