The new Microsoft Mischief seems like an ingenious extension of powerpoint! I would love to see this technology being used in the classroom.

This product is being marketed as a tool for teachers in less unevenly developed countries.

One of the things that came to my mind was that other than the basic tools needed (computer, projector, stable electricity for at least 1 hour), do classrooms need to have desks/tables that are smooth enough for the wifi mouse?  Many of the classrooms that I’ve seen in under-served areas don’t even have a desks with a smooth surface. The picture on the left is taken from a school that I visited in Wuhan, China. It’s a school for children of migrant workers. Many of the desks were mottled with holes and missing pieces of wood. So I wonder how smooth a desk surface needs to be for mice to work on it? Or can this be easily remedied with a smooth binder as a surface area?

Regardless, this is a totally awesome tool and I can imagine it being useful in classrooms all around the world regardless of the income-level of the school or region.  And I like that this tool was built for a classroom with just one computer.

I don’t always think that more computers = more learning. One of the things that I’ve noticed in classrooms where each student has their own computer is that the computer can come between the student and the teacher. And if teachers want to control or monitor what their students are doing while they are teaching, they either have to walk around and look their students’ screens or use a remote screen where they can see every students’ screen. But by doing this, it interrupts what they are teaching.

Well I can’t wait to hear from teachers what they think of this tool.

Teachers who want to try this out should register on Microsoft Connect.

The developers recommend that teachers buy this mouse: Frisby Model #: M5096G 2.4 GHz Mouse, costs around $10.

There will soon be a site where teachers can upload their PPTs to share!

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Exceprt from the developer, Neema Moraveji’s site,

We put normal mice on each desk of a classroom and connect them to a single computer. We connect a projector to that computer so all the children using those mice are looking at the same large screen. The teacher controls (and creates) the social activities on the computer easily and scores of students can join in simultaneously.

From the student’s perspective, they are engaged with the teaching content because they can reach out and ‘touch’ it, playing with their friends on-screen and completing the activities. The children enjoy the fact that everybody can see everybody else’s on-screen avatar, making it a shared experience.

From the teacher’s perspective, she remains in control of the class but can easily switch on interactive activities that keep students engaged and allow once quiet children a voice. Mischief reads normal PowerPoint files and makes them come to life, so creating new activities is easy: just add slides and clip-art.

Paper: Mischief: supporting remote teaching in developing regions; authors: Neema Moraveji, Taemie Kim, James Ge, Udai Singh Pawar, Kathleen Mulcahy, and Kori Inkpen
April 2008