Mouse Mischief is a free plug in for PowerPoint 2007/2010 which lets you create quizzes and polls which the class can interact with via wireless mice.
Once installed, a new toolbar appears which lets you add different types of question to your PowerPoint presentation. Students can interact with these via wireless mice.
You can buy wireless mice quite cheaply (£10 or less) and get a powered USB hub for about £15. You can even chain several USB hubs together if you wanted every student to have access to a mouse. Alternatively students could do this in groups, with one mouse per team.
When you run the show, you designate one mouse as the teachers mouse. This lets you control the show. Until the show is run, any mouse can control the screen – so there is a risk of your computer being hijacked by a classful of mice! You might wish to not give out the mice until the show is running – or unplug the USB hub until you’re ready to start!
Mouse Mischief provides a lower cost solution to class polling than a full class set of voting handsets, although with more limited uses. The Microsoft site contains lesson ideas, downloadable presentations, and links to support resources and videos.
Download Mouse Mischief now and take a look.
Very interesting to engage group activities in the classroom. Thanks!
Intriguing idea. Would love to see this in action. Have you tried it? Is there a way to lock them into that page? As you say, could get a bit chaotic otherwise. Thanks for sharing this.
Johanna
Once you start the quiz – you designate one mouse as the controlling one. Until then it is a bit chaotic – would suggest using a USB hub with the extra mice and only plugging it in at the last minute
Does Mouse Mischief support Smart Responce? Or do you know of any good ppt plug-ins for Smart Responce
@Shane – Mouse Mischief is a different system to Smart Response so it wont work together.
But Smart Response should already have installed a Powerpoint plugin of its own – check under add-ins.