23 December 2006
What can adding a second mouse do to help education?
Microsoft has announced the development of the ability to use multiple mice concurrently on one machine to control Office and other applications. They say this will benefit schools in developing nations where there are more students than schools can afford computers. This allows for all the students to be able to benefit from using the program.
There is just one problem I see, what good can come when 2 people are trying to control the same application. The most appropriate development would be allowing virtual systems to run off of one computer on multiple displays. This would allow all the children to use a computer and still keep the costs considerably lower than having multiple computers. This has already been done with Novell Enterprise SUSE, which has the ability to use one computer to create up to 10 workstations consisting of just keyboards, mice and monitors. This provides for a better learning environment than having 2 mice controlling one application.
There is just one problem I see, what good can come when 2 people are trying to control the same application. The most appropriate development would be allowing virtual systems to run off of one computer on multiple displays. This would allow all the children to use a computer and still keep the costs considerably lower than having multiple computers. This has already been done with Novell Enterprise SUSE, which has the ability to use one computer to create up to 10 workstations consisting of just keyboards, mice and monitors. This provides for a better learning environment than having 2 mice controlling one application.
Labels: education, linux, microsoft, novell, suse
