Metamouse: Technology to Aid Multiple Users in Sharing Existing Applications

Technology to Aid Multiple Users in Sharing Existing Applications: We propose an easy to implement interaction system that allows multiple users to share existing applications without modification. We call this system Metamouse. Metamouse provides each user their own mouse and cursor. These cursors are then mapped down to one metacursor, which interacts with the existing applications. This allows the applications to see just one cursor, as they expect, but the cursor is controlled by many students at once. Our preliminary tests have shown that this interaction paradigm is viable and achieves our goal of involving multiple students more thoroughly in a learning activity. We feel that with proper execution, this technology has the potential to enrich educational environments all over the world.