Multiple mice in a single computer: Simple and innovative idea to help disadvantaged schools

I've just finished reading an article about the use of multiple mice plugged in the same computer to help children in disadvantaged schools.

The idea is to give the opportunity to all the students sharing a computer to interact with it instead of being passive while only one had the mouse control. This is done plugging in as many as necessary mice in the USB port and using a specific designed software to let all the students interact with the computer. In the authors field work, there were a maximum of 5 students using one mouse each but in lab tests they had tested up to 15 mice simultaneously.

The software - an educational prototype - has two modes of work: a racing mode where the students had to compete to click on the correct answer first; and a collaborative mode where all the students had to click on the same answer for the software to evaluate it as right or wrong.

Their findings, although slightly limited, show benefits in the learning process using the practice above.

For me, this is one of those ideas that make you think: "Why didn't I come up with that first?" When I was a kid, I had to share a computer at school and later, during a time when I worked as a teacher, I saw my students facing the same problems when they had to share a computer and one or two had to be passive while the other was actively following my instructions...

As of today, the article is available online here (PDF file), if you are interested. More publications of the TIER Project (Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions) can be found at the official web site.