Tuesday Tech Tip: Mixing it Up with Office Mix

We've done a series of blog posts in recent weeks, all focusing on "tools of engagement."  Zaption, Socrative, PearDeck, and Classflow all provide levels of student interaction and analytics that can help teachers monitor progress.  In addition, we've posted previously about ways to narrate a presentation (MoveNote) and create a screencast (Screencastify & Snagit),

This week, we're highlighting Office Mix, a tool that does ALL of those things inside of an application that most people are already familiar with: PowerPoint.  OfficeMix would be a great option for blended or flipped instruction or anytime you want students to interact more with information being presented.

Office Mix is a relatively new add-on for PowerPoint 2013 (you can install the add-on from their site).  While you do need PowerPoint to create a mix, a mix can be viewed on any device with a web connection, including mobile devices;  however, certain interactive elements are not yet available on iOS or Android.

With Office Mix, you can:

• create interactive questions inside your presentation, 
• record yourself going over your slides, 
• annotate your slides, include a screencast or screen caps, and 
• insert live web pages, videos or interactive content.  

You decide if you want it publicly available or restricted to your district or school domain. Office Mix analytics will tell you how long viewers spent on each slide, show their quiz answers, and results can be exported to Excel.


Use your district email address when prompted to sign in (choose Office for Work or School).

Your mix can be added into Schoology as an assignment, embedded into Schoology or another website with code, or accessed via link.  See the Mix below for the directions on adding into Schoology (and also to experience some of the interactive elements you can insert into "the mix").



Check with your school technology support folks if you need to upgrade the version of MS Office on your district PC laptop.  And have fun mixing it up!