MOUSE Squad Wire

In July and early August,  MOUSE partnered with Best Buy's Geek Squad and Girls Inc. to offer three week-long Summer Academies - in Chicago and New York.  Designed for students without much tech-experience, participants learned how to build a computer, set up a wireless network, design web pages, use the internet safely, and how to create/edit digital media. With the enthusiasm and expertise of the Geek Squad agents, MOUSE & Girls Inc  staff, as well as activities like Wii Sports, Rock Band, and Dance Dance Revolution, students had fun and acquired useful technical skills.  By the end of the camp, all students were certified Geek Squad Junior Agents and encouraged to continue learning through out the year by joining or starting a MOUSE Squad at their school.

Check out the ABC news spot on Summer Academy
Chek out the 1010 WINS news sport on SummerAcademy
Check out our Flickr Photo Pool

Just a quick reminder about the New York City Council’s NYCyber Safety Summit 2008 at City Hall this Saturday, August 9th from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

The Summit promises to be an exciting and educational day for parents, educators and youth ages 9-18. The first 50 adults though the door will receive a free DVD of the PBS FRONTLINE documentary, "Growing Up Online."  There will also be a free raffle for software as well as our grand prize, a free Compaq 610 laptop computer donated by www.perscholas.org.

All attendees will also receive free lunch that day.

To RSVP to the NYCyber Safety Summit, please call (212) 788-6871 or e-mail events@council.nyc.gov.

For more information, download the PDF flyer here.

I recently had the opportunity to visit our MOUSE Squad of the Year. This squad has 4 students 1 girl, and 3 boys. They meet everyday during lunch for 45 minutes to work and then every Friday they take a couple of hours for squad meetings, and Mr. Valia, the faculty advisor,  rewards the students with pizza.
The students manage 4 computers labs throughout the school and their responsibilities include re-imaging laptops, hardware troubleshooting, hardware replacement, software troubleshooting, smartboard set-up, and  and setting up projectors. In addition to all of the great work this Squad performs on-site, they also reach out to other schools in their community and offer their professional and technical support services to faculty and administrators at local schools. They've dubbed their service "MOUSE Mobile Solutions" and pitch themselves as a low cost alternative for out of warranty machines.   Sandra Barnes a principal from P.S. 57 had this to say about the IS 49 MOUSE Squad ”Kudos to the Mouse Squad and Mr. Valia of IS 49. They successfully repaired my out of warranty laptop and saved our school $400.00. I am so grateful to the youngsters who have applied their technology knowledge to repair and revive my laptop that I thought would have been irreplaceable. Thank you so much. ”

Learn more about Mobile Soultions by IS 49.

The IS 49 MOUSE Squad produced this video highlighting why they won the MOUSE Squad of the Year Award.

MOUSE Squad Vlog: We Won MOUSE Squad of the Year! from Matthew Valia on Vimeo.

If your school is working on an interesting project or would like to please leave a comment about what your doing or would ike do.

The June/July issue of Edutopia Magazine includes and article entitled,  "Tech Without Support, Schools get creative when untangling PC problems" and highlights the work of a Chicago Tech Crew, powered by MOUSE and the MOUSE Squad at Robert F. Wagner Jr. Secondary School in Queens, New York.   'The student helpers are a bit like teacher's assistants or interns, says Hannah Kim, who teaches art and computers at the Robert F. Wagner Jr. Secondary School for Arts and Technology, in Queens, New York City. Though the school has a computer technician, Kim says she fills in the gaps in addition to full-time teaching duties. The Mouse Squad students and faculty are working to establish a help desk to make her job easier. "These students can assist me in troubleshooting problems like, 'My computer froze.' It won't be just me doing this alone," Kim says. "There are routine tasks that take up precious time."'  Read the full story on Edutopia.