And..... Office Mix is back (well almost!)

The previous post was all about the death of Office Mix and a search for alternatives. 
The best option was

• Create a narrated slideshow in PowerPoint
• Save as a video
• Upload to YouTube as an unlisted video
• Use EdPuzzle to embed the video and insert questions

This solution is probably the optimal one at this point as the EdPuzzle interface is quite intuitive and it has decent learning analytics.  

But it seems Office Mix is being reborn as an embedded feature in PowerPoint.  MS had promised as much but it is good to see that the first part of that promise is now delivered.  If you have Office 365, you can enable the "recording tab" and this includes all the features that were provided by the Office Mix add-on.

Adding a Recording Tab to PowerPoint

MS plans to support quizzes using MS forms and hosting using MS Stream.  

Adding quizzes in PowerPoint using MS Forms (under development)

I look forward hopefully to when these will be available and work seamlessly like Office Mix did.

Microsoft Strings Together an Amazing List of Innovations!

This has been an amazing year for Microsoft.  The list of hardware and software innovations that they have come out with is mind boggling.

1. Surface Pro 3 - probably the best single device I have owned - replaced my laptop and iPad and Android tablet in one fell swoop and added the functionality of the superb Stylus.
2. Office Mix - the easiest way to create content for flipped classrooms
3. HoloLens - the mixed reality headset that has huge potential in education
4. Surface Hub - Large "Smartboard" with video conferencing, OneNote and motion sensing built in.
5. Microsoft Band - for $200 a fitness tracker with ability to read notifications, tweets, text messages, email, calendar alerts, heart rate monitor, GPS etc.
6. Windows 10 with Microsoft Edge - a browser that lets you annotate the web
7. Skype Translator (in Preview) - instant translation between English, Spanish, Mandarin, Italian and other languages coming soon.

On top of this making all of Office apps available on both iOS and Android and also allowing developers to quickly convert their iOS and Android apps for Windows is a big shift in MS philosophy.

Competition is great for consumers and I am glad MS is back in the fray in a big way!

HoloLens for Anatomy Education

Office Mix Video

Surface Hub

Web Note feature of Microsoft Edge Browser