The MOUSE Squad Wire

Update - mousesquad.org beta is live. All new MOUSE Squad Wire articles will be posted on mousesquad.org Please update your bookmarks and RSS feed readers.

Over the last year, we’ve experimented with lots of tools to support our MOUSE Squads–we used a blog for announcements, mailing list software, and surveymonkey for surveys. We also introduced the MOUSE Squad Certified Technician program so that we could guarantee a consistent high-quality student experience–and the quizzes required for certification were paper based.

We heard from our community that you wanted to be able to keep track of things online–the new beta site is our response.

What is a beta? Well, it’s software that’s still being worked on. The new MOUSE Squad eLearning site is very much a work in progress. Over the coming months (and years) we’ll be adding content and new features. Our goal is to make the certification curriculum come alive online–for students, teachers and trainers.

The first version of the site includes the most basic features–like student quizzes for MOUSE Squad Certfied Trainers but also has a tool so you can check your knowledge on a range of tech skills and then compare them when you re-take it, to see how you’ve progressed and identify areas you still want to improve.

As the new eLearning is migrated to the live site, www.mousesquad.org will be unavailable on Monday, October 1st, 2007. Once the site is live again, users will have to recreate their accounts in the eLearning system to ensure integrity of their information. You’ll still be able to register for trainings and view the program calendar by visiting the Wire.

We’re approaching building this site iteratively, which is a fancy way of saying that we’re going to be making lots of little improvements over time. We will need your help to make this site better–if you spot something that’s not right, have an idea or a suggestion please send a email to help@mail.mousenetwork.org

Update - new site is launched!

Tags: blog, elearning

Got Ideas?

Are you always being told that you’re creative or have an outgoing personality?

Do you like expressing your opinion or readily contribute to online surveys, forums and polls?

Do you just have a lot to say?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may be a good fit for the MOUSE Squad Advisory Board. We’re looking for a few good students to act as the go to source for feedback on MOUSE programs and services.

This is a unique opportunity for MOUSE Squad students to not only have their voices heard, but provide direction and ideas for everything MOUSE offers, including field trips, technology, prizes, training and internships. Everyone has an opinion–now you can make yours count.

The MOUSE Squad Advisory Board will meet monthly and consist of up to 10 middle and high school students. These students will be the first to try out and explore new hardware, like our stunning HD video equipment or mobile training Macbooks. They’ll also get the inside scoop on what’s new at MOUSE HQ like e-Learning 3.0 which will allow students to certify online.

Interested?

If so, send an email to JB at jimmy@mouse.org

Greetings all 8th and 9th graders! For those of you who are new, welcome to the program and we hope you have a really great year. For those coming back to us, thanks for taking the time and interest to return to Mouse Squad and congratulations for coming this far!

We have a really fun opportunity for you. MOUSE is hosting a pizza party/research group for about 15 of you to come and hang out and talk about technology, school and well, life in general. In New York, the party will be on October 16th at 4pm at the Puck Building (295 Lafayette St), and in Chicago, we will be announcing the date and location shortly. Participants will receive pizza and refreshments and— best of all– a $50 gift certificate to Best Buy!

If interested, please email me, Nishanthi (nishanthi@mouse.org), with your name, age, grade, and school you attend.

Hope to see you there!

P.S. We even take care of your Metro card!

Tags: best buy, focus group, students

MOUSE is offering a novel new training for educators, technical professionals and Faculty Advisors, the MOUSE Trainer Certification (MTC).

The MTC workshops are designed to prepare participants to deliver the MOUSE Squad Technician Training locally, in schools.  This is ideal for schools and Faculty Advisors who often find it difficult to make MOUSE trainings because of time or distance.  As a MOUSE Certified Trainer, you can train MOUSE Squad students in your school, on your time.
To attend the training, you should have also taken Faculty Advisor Certification this year or in the past and have a fair amount of experience with help desk management and/or related technical skills.
Register for MTC this fall:

MOUSE Trainer Certification - October 10th, 2007 10 AM - 4 PM

MOUSE Trainer Certification - November 7th, 2007 10 AM - 4 PM

See you there!

There are all sorts of explanations out there about how to make the most of “Web 2.0″ technologies. One of the most exciting developments on the Web is the ability to have information from websites come to you instead of you going out to websites to see what’s new. I use Google Reader to keep track of about 40 websites–not just the sites themselves, but sections that interest me. For example, I get headlines about Education from the New York Times, eSchool News, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy and my tech news from the Unofficial Apple Weblog and the Official Google Blog. My point? It’s like your own personal daily newspaper–but better, because from within a single website, I can email things to friends, save clippings and post to my own weblog. Here’s a great video on how to set things up. Are you using RSS? A fan? Afraid? Sound off in the comments, oh and of course, you should subscribe to the Wire’s feed.

Tags: rss, subscriptions, tech, tips, web 2.0

MOUSECORPS, the program that takes students far beyond the limits of their schools walls, is back!  And it wouldn’t be a MOUSE program–if there weren’t tantalizing new additions.

Each High School student that joins the MOUSECORPS program receives

1. A paid summer internship with one of our corporate partners.
2. Free admission to the new MOUSECORPS Field Trip.
3. Video Game Fest.

Interested?  You should be.  But hold on, Although we’d like all High School MOUSE Squad students to apply to the program–it isn’t for everyone.

This year, the MOUSECORPS returns to its roots: It requires a full-year commitment.  Once accepted into the program, members will participate in Shadowships, p2p Training and Advanced Training.  If you’re the kind of student that’s also involved in the baseball, basketball, drama and/or other time intensive activities, it will be hard to do everything!

Click here for applications for the MOUSECORPS program.  Make sure you complete the entire application or it will not be accepted.
Read about the amazing things MOUSECORPS students did last year here or run a search in the Wire.

Tag: mousecorps shadowship students

My name is Jonathan Bettencourt, and I’m a senior in college attending Polytechnic University. I’ve been working with Mouse as an intern for a year now, and I’m responsible for all design and development on the Mouse Squad Locator - which was recently made available, here on The Wire. As a Computer Science major, I understand that there are many students out there who wonder what it’s like to work on web-to-database project like the Mouse Squad Locator. What I’d like to do is briefly describe what that process was like for me.

In the beginning, I met with my supervisor – Ted Bongiovanni – to figure out a set of needs, wants, and goals for the project.

We used these requirements as a guide to develop building blocks, or rather, “steps” I would work on every week. These steps were recorded as case files in “FogBugz”, a system we use to track progress on particular steps. Ted would create the case file, and I would respond to it with my data for that step. The next week, I would meet with Ted to discuss my progress on the current cases, re-evaluate the project’s needs, and adjust my workload as we saw fit.

After setting up this framework, it was my job to actually accomplish the cases, using web development technology. In doing so, I found that I was doing much more than programming another piece of code; I was designing the code on an architectural level, documenting changes, trying out new approaches to tasks, recording results, analyzing results, and researching info on various programming languages and code. Most importantly, I was developing using “iteration” – which means, I was creating something small, then going back and revising it, or adding more features to it.

The Mouse Squad Locator in and of itself was created through iteration:

	Build 1, New York City only with minimal features.
	Build 2, New York City only with borough search features.
	Build 4, National view.
	Build 6, Modified National view w/ additional search features.

Now that the maps are live, I look back on the Mouse Squad Locator’s progression and realize that designing and developing it was an exercise in learning how to learn. It’s one thing to attend college – or any school, for that matter – and learn a particular subject, but I believe that using different skills together is what’s needed for professional work in any tech field today.

Tags: faculty, google, maps, mouse squads, students

Welcome back, MOUSE Squad Community!

The MOUSE Program Calendar has already been updated with this year’s activities and workshops. Official registration for all trainings and events begins on September 4th.

Click here to register for MOUSE Squad Certification for Faculty and Students. You will receive a confirmation email after registration and a reminder email at least 48 hours prior to any training you sign up for.
Please do not make placeholder registrations unless your are ABSOLUTELY sure you will attend. You can always register closer to the day of a training to be sure.

Read below for the 2007-2008 Training Catalog.

---

Faculty Advisor Certification
Description: This training is required for new MOUSE Squad Faculty Advisors. MOUSE covers the essential elements of starting a squad in your school including student recruiting, setting up and managing ticket-tracking and creating buy-in amongst teachers and staff.Prerequisites: MOUSE Squad Information SessionAvailable Dates:

• September 20th, 12:00 PM to 3:30 PM
• September 25th, 3:00 PM to 6:30 PM
• October 2nd, 3:00 PM to 6:30 PM
• January 17th, 3:00 PM 6:30 PM

Location: MOUSE, 295 Lafayette Street Suite 501, New York, NY 10012

---

MOUSE Trainer Certification
Description: This training is for technical professionals, teachers and other individuals. Becoming a Certified Trainer is an option if you cannot facilitate student participation in MOUSE-led training and have the resources to deliver the training in-house. MOUSE covers the delivery strategy of the MOUSE Squad Student Guide and the activities and strategies used during MOUSE Squad Training. In-depth coverage of the MOUSE Squad Technician Certification Process is also covered.
Prerequisites: Familiarity of level-one troubleshooting and help desk strategies. Firm knowledge of computing environments, networking basics, Mac and Windows OS and modern PC composition. This is not a beginner’s course.
Available Dates:

• September 18th, 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
• October 10th, 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
• November 7th, 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Location: MOUSE, 295 Lafayette Street Suite 501, New York, NY 10012

---

MOUSE Squad Technicians Training – Part One
Description: This one-day training is required for all new MOUSE Squad students and faculty advisors. A day long session designed to introduce participants to the MOUSE Squad help desk operations, the relationship between problem solving and troubleshooting, the basics of PC maintenance and configuration of Mac and Window’s OS. Covers key elements of MOUSE Squad student Guide modules 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6.
Available Dates:

• Saturday, October 13th, 9:15 AM to 4:30 PM
• Sunday, October 14th, 9:15 AM to 4:30 PM
• Saturday, February 9th, 2008, 9:15 AM to 4:30 PM

Location: JHS 167 Robert F. Wagner, 220 East 76th Street, NY, NY 10021

---

MOUSE Squad Technicians Training – Part Two
Description: This one-day training is required for all new MOUSE Squad students and faculty advisors. Starting where Part One ends, this day long session is designed to strengthen MS students’ confidence and skillets. Participants gain a firm understanding of how computer systems form networks and the underlying pc components from a viewpoint efficient troubleshooting. This sets the stage for students to become trusted and talented technicians. Covers key elements of MOUSE Squad Student Guide modules 4, 8, and 9.
Prerequisites: MOUSE Squad Technician Training – Part One
Available Dates:

• Saturday, October 27th, 9:15 AM to 4:30 PM
• Sunday October 28th, 9:15 AM to 4:30 PM
• Saturday, February 16th, 2008, 9:15 AM to 4:30 PM

Location: TBA

---

The MOUSE Squad Educators Conference
Description: Annual conference invites MOUSE Squad faculty to learn new technologies, network with each other, share best practices and celebrate achievement. Free for all MOUSE Squad schools.
Tentative Date: April 30th, 2007
Location: Time & Life Building, Rockefeller Center, NYC

So first things first, I’m sorry about the late post everyone, but I got wrapped up with some things I had to take care of this weekend. I had to do some things for a class I want to take and I did an interview (which hopefully will act as a “thank you” to MOUSE. It was the best way for me to even attempt to repay you all for what you have done – happy 10th anniversary), but anyways back to the post. This week brought the arrival of some new people (well, to put it better, they are not really new. They were just relocated here). They were brought in to occupy the empty space that lies behind my cubicle. Also, I finally meet the last person on the guy who I’m interning for’s team. It would seem that, due to the way they organized themselves as a team, she is most of the time taking care of a bunch of other things, as well as being located on a different floor from us. Other from these two events nothing really big happened. The week was fairly uneventful – and I’ve learned to be grateful for that. The term ‘eventful’ here would mean that some very important system or the likes has crashed. And don’t think any of us wants that.

Ever wanted to know if there are other MOUSE Squads near your school? Or how many MOUSE Squads there are in New York, or California, or anywhere else?

Thanks to the hard work of our Technology Intern, Jonathan, you can now find all of the schools with operating MOUSE Squads using the Google Maps interface. Check out the new MOUSE Squad Locator here.

Tags: faculty, google, maps, mouse squads, students