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Microsoft's Mouse Mischief is Good for Democracy in the Classroom

Johnathan Masters
Mouse Mischief
August 21, 2014

Microsoft's Mouse Mischief (for Power Point)

Being a man of Freedom and Democracy, a Web 2.0 Tool I would use is Mouse Mischief. I haven't actually used it yet, and since it's Microsoft, and I do not have the funds for it, I will have analyze the reviews for it. I stand corrected with Microsoft Power Point, since Mouse Mischief is a Power Point 2007 and 2010 product, which means it has to used in conjunction with each other. On Microsoft's webpage about Mouse Mischief, it boasts that teachers can “insert questions, polls, and drawing activity slides” into our lessons, and “Students can actively participate in these lessons by using their own mice to click, circle, cross out, or draw answers on the screen.” (Microsoft). There's so many tools being presented here. Every student has wireless mouses, and “questions, polls, and drawing activity slides” are presented to the class, and they can vote on the question, or point to the right angle, or circle the right answer, or write what they think is the write answer on the board. Or, like at BW3s, there can be trivia competitions, where everybody gets a score. We can have classroom quizes and exames in the same way. It can be used for practice up until the final game.

There's so many devices out there. Really I feel like a kid in a candy store, deciding what technology I would want in my classroom. The democracy I speak of is only incidental to the actual learning of the curriculum, and so my students will need to get used to using democratic tools, and how to peacefully and intellectually assert themselve. The democratic tools that Mouse Mischief adds is the ability to have polls. So the will of the students will reign supreme. Does the class want to do Activity A, or Activity B? By deciding which activity, they “buy into” the lesson plan, and become a part of it. This gives us greater retention rates. It's also fun for students, and it respects the student's individual sovereign autonomy. The class can be used as it's own focus group. They can learn what their learning styles are, and see if there's a pattern in the room, so we do more “hands-on” learning, or whatever method works best for most of the students. With democracy, we can also, with careful guidance of the general discussion from the teacher, work on lesson plans for the class in order to complete the state's required curriculum. The curriculum standards can be shown to the students, and once the student's sees the goals, then they get to decide how they want to get there.

Another great tool Mouse Mischief has, since it has the ability to poll, that means it has the ability to throw elections. Elections are the bedrock cornerstone to all functioning democracies, and therefore, this makes Mouse Mischief an invaluable learning tool.



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