MultiPoint Mouse Technologies
By: Nasha Fitter , Senior Product Manager
Tags: application, MultiPoint Mouse, skills, Student, teachers, technology, Windows
26 January 2010
No matter where I am, there’s one thing we hear that’s always the same: educators the world over want access to affordable, secure, and easy-to-use technology that gives them the tools to increase quality and variety in delivering their curriculum.
These tools can help them and their students to be better prepared for success in the real world. We listened to this feedback when developing our shared resource computing technologies, our MultiPoint solutions, which give policymakers, teachers, and students access to such technology at an affordable and competitive price point. Today, we’re introducing two new MultiPoint solutions—Windows MultiPoint Mouse SDK 1.5 and Microsoft Mouse Mischief.
Why? Well, for starters, publishers and education ISVs need a solution to help create new software that can harness the opportunities presented by shared resource computing scenarios. The Windows MultiPoint Mouse Software Development Kit (SDK for short) helps developers create interactive applications allowing up to 25 students, each with their own mouse, to interact on the same PC. It’s a simple but powerful solution that lets more kids use shared computing resources—and a great collaborative tool. MultiPoint Mouse SDK 1.5, is available worldwide for download at www.microsoft.com/multipoint/mouse-sdk. Any education, casual gaming, or other ISV that would like to develop a product using the SDK can download it free from MSDN.
Finally, To empower teachers to create their own content that can inspire and excite students, Microsoft developed Mouse Mischief—a new, free state-of-the-art MultiPoint-enabled tool that they can use to create interactive PowerPoint classroom presentations. With Mouse Mischief, students can use affordable, off-the-shelf USB mice as clickers to answer multiple-choice, yes/no, and matching questions – which teachers can insert in their presentations. A free beta download is available now at www.microsoft.com/multipoint/mouse-mischief, and a full version of Mouse Mischief is expected to be available in the first half of 2010.