The MOUSE Squad Wire

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.

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.

2008 MOUSE Squad Educators Conference

Save the Date: Wednesday, April 23rd, 9AM - 6PM.

Mark your calendars for next year’s conference. We will start registration in the fall.

Do you want to present at next year’s conference?
Have an idea for how we could do something better?
Want to suggest a workshop topic?
Participate on or form a panel?

Send your idea, name and school to help@mail.mousenetwork.org

Registration is still open for the MOUSE Squad Educators Conference on April 25th. Click here to sign-up (the conference is entirely free, but advanced registration is required).

This year, we are offering professional development workshops on the following topics:

* MOUSE Squad Updates: new curriculum, certification, elearning etc.
* Best Practices Workshop: share your ideas, challenges and expertise with other faculty advisors.
* How-to-make Screen Capture Movies
* Grant-writing for Teachers and Schools
* Google Applications
* The One Laptop Per Child initiative: Explore 2 laptop prototypes
* Fogbugz Online Ticket-Tracking
* The MOUSE Corps Program and Job Shadowhips
* A MOUSE Help Desk: ask the MOUSE Staff for help/advice on your squad!
* Feedback Session
* Networking Cocktail Reception with Raffle

For more information and to register, click here: http://www.mousesquad.org/conference/

Log in to e-Learning and check out the new Certification Section. You can download all of the new curriculum, and all of the requirements for MOUSE Squad certification - including the Level-10 certificate for students who have completed all of the activities and quizzes in the Student Guide Modules 1-10. Several of the materials are password-protected for Faculty Advisors only; email us for the login code.

Help spread the word about the MOUSE Squad program to faculty in other public schools! Once a month, MOUSE hosts an information session for schools interested in participating in the program. We highlight program requirements, benefits, and challenges, as well as assess each school’s readiness for involvement.

Infosession registration: http://www.nycharities.org/event/c_event.asp?CharityCode=1096

Long before laptops roll off an assembly line, designers, engineers and software developers collaborate to produce a product. Recently two MOUSE Squad students from Riverdale Kingsbridge Academy in the Bronx, Leroy and Lawy Tindi acted on an opportunity to be hands on with this exciting new technology.

The OLPC boards are works-in-progress and differ from the shrink-wrapped products to which we are usually exposed. Adam Mayer from Wireless Generation led a workshop for MOUSE Squad so that the device and the project could become more than an abstraction.

Adam and Ted Bongiovanni, MOUSE Program Director presented a brief overview of the OLPC project. Leroy and Lawy talked about how their school environment would change if everyone had laptops.

Adam talked Leroy and Lawy through what it took to get the board up and running. Next Adam identified the components on the board–for example, he explained that there was little shielding for the wireless network adapter, which meant that it was challenging to lock in on a signal. Once we all connected the components, Leroy and Lawi tinkered with machine’s interface. When asked what applications they thought would be important to be included they both thought that writing tools would be critical.

Next, we disassembled the boards and asked Leroy and Lawi to put them back together again and boot the device–they performed this task with ease. Finally, Ted took Leroy and Lawi on a quick tour of the OLPC wiki and demonstrated it as a potential collaborative writing tool for the devices. Want to be a part of the next event? Send an email to ted at mouse dot org.

How would your school change if everyone had an laptop with a fast internet connection? What if you could bring the laptops home? What would you do with them? Sound off in the comments.

We are currently working on the next version of our MOUSE Squad e-Learning School Kit and it would be great to have your feedback and ideas!

Faculty Advisors: Please take this 4-question survey online and let us know what items are the most useful and what new items you think we should provide.

Click Here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=268992869505

Thank you!

This September, MOUSE hosted its first grant writing workshop, led by Yalda Nikoomanesh, MOUSE Director of Development. The group used the The Best Buy te@ch program as a case study. This program seeks to: “recognize [the] creative uses of interactive technology in K-12 classrooms. Winning te@ch programs focus on kids using technology to learn standards-based curriculum, rather than on teaching students to use technology or educators using technology that children aren’t able to use hands-on. The purpose of te@ch is to reward schools for the successful interactive programs they have launched using available technology.” Though the grant application deadline has passed, we thought that these materials may be of interest to faculty advisors interested in applying for other grants. The .zip archive includes:

* A powerpoint presentation that includes the basics of responding to requests for proposals (rfps), effective proposal writing, and examples of winning proposals
* A checklist to keep tabs on everything you’ll need for a grant submission

Faculty advisors and principals may also find this glossary of terms related to funding helpful as they develop proposals.