Mouse Mischief is a tool that Microsoft makes available free of charge, and that allows teachers to work with Microsoft Office PowerPoint to make interactive presentations. With Mouse Mischief, teachers can add multiple choice questions to their presentations, and large groups of students can answer the questions using mice connected to the teacher’s PC.

Mouse Mischief not only gives students the ability to engage, have fun, and learn in new, interactive ways, but it also provides teachers with a more affordable alternative to purchasing expensive student response systems, commonly known as clickers, by letting students use affordable wired or wireless USB mice that their school already own.

How does Mouse Mischief work?

It’s simple. After Mouse Mischief is installed, the Mouse Mischief toolbar will appear as part of the PowerPoint ribbon when a new or old PowerPoint presentation is opened. This intuitive Mouse Mischief toolbar lets teachers add interactive elements such as multiple-choice question slides with a single click.

When the teacher opens a Mouse Mischief enabled presentation, students in the classroom can answer each question by clicking it with their uniquely designed mouse cursor. Once the students have selected their answers, the teacher can display the correct answer.

The best part? Mouse Mischief gives teachers the option to have their students answer questions individually or as part of a team, in order to encourage both competition and collaboration in the classroom.

How does the teacher stay in control?

Special teacher controls allow the teacher to disable student’s mouse cursors, navigate between slides, set timers, and more. With Mouse Mischief the teacher is always in control, whether there are two or 25 cursors on the screen.

Please also check out Death By PowerPoint to learn alternate ways to spice up a presentation.