Q: How does it work?

A: You take a bunch of wired or wireless mice. You connect them to 1 computer in the front of the class.

Q: What activities do the kids do with the mice?

A: All the activities are driven by the teacher and the PPT - so she is always in control. She controls when the students are on-screen and when their cursors are disabled. The number of activities is theoretically limitless. So far, we've seen: multiple choice, anonymous answering, fill-in-the-blank, many games, collaborative jigsaw puzzles, matching games, drawing, and more.

Q: Where does the content come from?

A: PowerPoint. Teachers create normal PowerPoint files and use our add-in to add interactive objects into slides.

Q: What's the maximum number of students that can use the system?

A: Our current design supports around 40 mice for all activities, some activities support more.

Q: When can I get it?
A: Here!

Q: How does anonymous answering happen?

A: Students use combinations of mouse buttons to correspond to answer choices (e.g. Right-click = "B"). They see on-screen visual feedback when the system has detected their secret answer. The legend describing what combinations correspond to what answers can be on-screen, on the wall, or on their mousepad.

Each student in the classroom gets a mouse and they interact on a shared display at the front of the room.

The teacher is in control of the Mischief application.
Imagine interactive PowerPoint slides where students can do activities on PowerPoint slides designed by the teacher.
Mischief reads PPT and PPTX files but requires the interactive elements to be inserted by the teacher using the Mischief PowerPoint add-in, which has Office 2003 & 2007 versions.

Q: MightyMice / MED / Mischief?
A: They are all the same project. The original name of this project was MED (Mouse on Each Desk). It has changed to Mischief but is also known as Mischief.

Q: Mischief = MultiPoint?

A: No. MultiPoint is an SDK. Mischief is an application that uses the MultiPoint concept.

Q: What is the estimated cost of a 1-classroom deployment?

A; Varies. Estimated at:

computer: $300

monitor: $100

projector: $600

mice: $30 (wireless add extra - each 2.4ghz mouse costs ~$15)

hubs: $50

wires: $40

power strips: $20

Total estimate: $1140 for one classroom, more or less

Q: How many students are supported in 1 classroom?

A: We have tested up to 30 students but the system supports more. If you have over 40 students in a classroom, we suggest each pair of students sharing 1 mouse. Soon, we should have a solution where all students can use Mischief together (100+).

Q: Are there license fees?

A: Mischief runs on 1 computer. So right now it only requires 1 Windows license.

Q: Which schools are good candidates for Mischief deployments?

A: We have tested elementary school, middle school, and high school. At this point, we suggest middle schools.

Q: What subjects is it good for?
A: Theoretically, any subject can be used. Math, Science, History, etc. We have a number of example slides that demonstrate the interactive activities.
The teacher would create some PPT content and the training team can make it interactive for her using the Mischief add-in.

Q: What is Mischief’s history?

A: It began as a research project at MSR Asia in Summer 2006, was an incubation project in the MS Education group, and is now part of Neema's work at Stanford. Neema Moraveji began the project at MSR Asia and continues to lead its research in the US.

Q: What's next?

A: Neema Moraveji is working actively on this project. If you have any suggestions or feedback, please email him at:
[his_first_name] @ [his_last_name].org.