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.

Recently I had the privilege of attending the Google Teacher Academy (GTA) at Google’s offices here in New York City. In a single day, I took a virtual tour of the world via Google Earth, created a 3D model in Google Sketchup, co-authored a document using Google Docs and shared it with my fellow Google Certified Teachers in our Google Group. This list is not complete–of course there are blogs and advanced search. Over 50 educators the New York City area learned about these tools and then shared their ideas on how to make the most of these tools in the classroom. Free versions are available for all of these tools.

As part of my GTA personal action plan, I’m going to be blogging about them in greater depth here on the Wire, but wanted to start by letting folks know that these tools are available on the web or in the case of Sketch Up or Google Earth, for download. Like most web users, I take advantage of Google for searching and finding the information that I need. More recently, I’ve been using Google to collaborate with users on documents–it makes sending something back and forth via email seem downright impractical. Some teachers talked about using GoogleDocs for assignments–which make it impossible for the dog to have eaten your homework.

Tools are just that though–tools. GoogleDocs won’t banish writer’s block, but it sure does make it easier for me to write an essay and share it with someone to get their feedback. It’s never been easier to create, share content, get feedback on your work and learn from your peers. Will Richardson reminded us that we are all students and teachers in this internet connected world. What do you think of Google’s foray into education? Have you used these tools at home or in the classroom? How has the internet changed your learning? Sound off in the comments.