Friday, January 29, 2016

Microsoft Mix - first look

Warning:  nothing about maps, just of interest to educators.

So I've come across office mix this week, its an add on for MS Powerpoint with a linked cloud hosting service.  I've had a play and I think its a definite force to be reckoned with.  It does the clever trick of combining:

  • Easy audio and slides creation
  • Easy written materials with links and video embed creation
  • Self assessment quizzes 
  • Polling 
  • Easy cloud management (no ed tech help needed!)
  • good tutorials 
  • AND you get learner analytics 

The analytics is a big plus, you can see if a certain student has accessed your mix or gone only half way through. You can also see if most students skipped a slide and see if it was good or not.

The only downsides are: -

  • Functionality for students on mobile devices (tested on iPad/iPhone) is reduced a lot - you have to convert to a movie and you lose interactivity
  • I’ve found it a bit ropey in places e.g. fails to upload once in a while, analytics behaving oddly at times.
Some ideas for what you could use it for:
  • Recording skype tutorials for those who can't make it
  • Create some screencasts of Powerpoint content and then have a quick feedback survey at the end to gauge how your students found them
  • Give feedback on essays by screencasting you looking at their essay and adding ink onto their scripts
very much worth looking at.

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