Hi all,
We have really loved using Office Mix and the Office Mix LTI in Canvas. Now that Microsoft has announced the retirement of Office Mix Migrate your content from Office Mix - PowerPoint I'm interested to know how others are going to manage this change. Has anyone already found an alternative?
Note: the solution to migrate content to Stream is not a good solution for our instructors as they need to keep the interactivity of their Office Mix presentations.
Kind Regards,
Colleen
This is a sad day, I quite like Mix!
I think this might be a great question for Sean Nufer !!
Here is his Ed Tech Showcase - which may be helpful here Colleen Ortega
From what I've heard, Microsoft is going to work to better integrate the Mix functionality more natively into the PowerPoint platform. See: Migrate your content from Office Mix - PowerPoint
I like SoftChalk Cloud, but it is not a free option. I am saddened to hear that Office Mix is going away. I hate when companies reel me in and then discontinue something that I come to rely on.
*sad panda* I have a few academics that I know will be sad to see this! (Thank you for the heads up Colleen)
Has anyone played with VoiceThread? I've started looking at it, and it seems like it could be an easy and good alternative to Mix. I know there's a free and pro version, but it could be something to play with.
I have used Voice Thread in my Canvas sites for a couple of years and it is a constant challenge. VT does not integrate well into Canvas because it isn't an official add-on. Canvas cannot/will not assist in technical problems because of this. VT tech advice is abysmal - even with a premium account. That being said, there is not a good alternative that I have found with the features of VT that I need for my interactive classes, so I am stuck with it.
Sad news. We have a whole department using Office Mix at making videos (flipped learning), - and I like Mix a lot. So I look around for more information from Microsoft.
I am under the impression that the recording features will still be available within PowerPoint, but not under a "Mix" tab. So if all goes well, we will still be able to record, just not upload to the Mix website. Of course the videos can be directly uploaded to Canvas. Fingers are crossed for all of the recording features of Mix!
The add on of Office Mix will actually be in PowerPoint under the Record tab. However, it is not as easy to embed into canvas. We have had difficulty with permissions and with losing narration in videos. Also, we are unable to have grade passback with quizzes that were in the OfficeMix and now in PowerPoint. Canvas had an external tool for OfficeMix, but the same does not work for PowerPoint.
The ones I have researched before that come to mind are Articulate and Camtasia. Articulate is crazy expensive and Camtasia requires some manual setup when editing and producing the video. When you produce the video you can produce it as SCORM package and then import it into Canvas as SCORM assignment. It's been a while since I tested this so I am not sure how well it works.
Quizzing & Surveys | Camtasia | TechSmith
Hi Susan Nugent! Thank you for the suggestion however we were beginning to use a combination of the OfficeMix LTI and native Canvas Quizzing instead of Articulate (for presentating content with quizzing not branching scenarios) as the SCORM engine in Canvas doesn't have the functionality or reliability we need. We are trying to avoid using SCORM in general as when we have raised issues or suggested improvements it has been made very clear that there are no plans to update the SCORM engine in Canvas.
OfficeMix going away is causing a few of our departments and myself a lot of stress. Migrating to Microsoft Stream only plays a video, which only works in a few instances for us. I have many teachers that have taken advantage of the interactivity of Mix and it has become difficult to find a replacement. We have tried embedding powerpoints, but either lose narration, have issues with permissions, or cannot find a way for quiz results from Mix to pass back grades to canvas as a powerpoint. I wish that Canvas had an external tool to embed the powerpoints without losing these functionalities. There will be many man hours involved in rebuilding for us. If anyone has suggestions that may help, I am all ears!
At our institution, our workaround is using the iSpring Suite for PowerPoint interactions and then hosting them on iSpring cloud. This way we get the multimedia and we can embed the presentations in Canvas. But it's not a free solution, unfortunately.
Look into Nearpod.
Thank you Miriam:) Our County does have nearpod, but there were just some things it was not capable of.
Hi, I had hosted my interactive and narrated lectures on authorstream in the past until they went out of business. I migrated them to onedrive but for some reason that fell apart once the semester started and multiple students were trying to access. I was pretty excited to find Mix and adapted all my lectures (34 of them) to that format, but that took TIME. I was really discouraged to lose all my interactivity in the migration, so there no option.
Our tech guy found Adobe Presenter - it does everything and also integrates into scorm.
But alas, it is not the easiest, costs 150 bucks for a single person and you have to make sure that your windows bit version matches the acrobat presenter version that you are downloading.
Furthermore, to get the narration to work on Adobe Presenter, you may have to convert the sound file to mp3 to work in Presenter. You also have to go in and re-sync your transitions or animations.
This is a shame. We have a lot of faculty so buying and distributing screencasting software is problematic if it is not part of our Microsoft site license. We -- the TEL team -- use Storyline and Camtasia, but they are too expensive to buy for academic staff. I am hoping PowerPoint can step up so we can promote a solution for all staff wanting to create rich media content at their desks. Does anyone know any more details of what exactly Microsoft are planning to put into Powerpoint and when?
Hey,
We did use OfficeMix to create video's. We never used the interactivity. What I recommend to our teachers is to keep the video's short, and to add them to a quiz. A quiz has multiple questions. Every question can be introduced by a video. When the video stops, the student has to answer the question underneath, and continue to the next page to watch the next part of the video. The big advantage is that all the information is directly in Canvas, and that the video's can be reused (because they are very short and to the point).
I recommend ActivePresenter (the free edition) as a tool to create screencasts, and PowerPoint as a tool to turn presentations into video's. It's possible to create good looking video's with both programs. You can combine text, video, audio, pen annotations and screen recordings with PowerPoint and save this as an mp4 video file which can be uploaded to Youtube, Arc,...
Has anyone looked at EdPuzzle? It has a lot of interactive features. I've been meaning to take a look at it but I haven't had time. edpuzzle.com
Hey Debra Mansperger! I have not done much with EdPuzzle myself, but there are numerous teachers at my district that are using it and really like its abilities.
I just wanted to come back to this post and share what my teachers are doing to replace Office Mixes that were embedded into their canvas courses. The type of replacement really depends on what was included in the Office Mix. If the Office Mix did not contain links, but had narration, we downloaded them into PowerPoints and exported to a video (MP4). This can be done in PowerPoint: File>Export>Create a Video. Before doing this, please make sure that your slide narrations are set to automatic playback and not playback when clicked. We chose this option because the Microsoft Stream did not save our narrations:(
If your Office Mix contains links, but no narration, we have found that changing them to Google Slides has been the easiest option.
I hope some have found this helpful! I am happy to elaborate if anyone has questions:)
Thanks for update Heather Rozar-Bergmann. We had the quiz feature enabled, so I see my team packaging our videos into shorter videos with Canvas quizzes following the videos. Office Mix was a viable solution with a low-learning curve for instructors in the online learning sector. Hopefully a Microsoft solution will advance quickly.
As a follow up, I am struggling through transposing it to Adobe Presenter, very time consuming.
Has anyone tried Nearpod? I use this to create tutorials and I can add audio and questions and well as other engaging activities. It is super easy to use but it has an annual fee of $120.
There was a recent update that allows you to add narration within the app. I have found this app to be more reliable than OfficeMix.
If anyone is currently using Panopto for lecture capture. It too has the ability to add questions within your video.
We've started using Zoom for our video conferencing, and their record tool is great for this. It's not as nice as Office Mix as far as recording directly on the slide, but with the immediate access to the mp4 file, it makes life easier.
I turned my interactive Powerpoints that were in Office Mix into PDF. You must use the Export feature or the links and clicks will not work. I also had to move some graphics up from the bottom of each screen because an annoying (yet necessary) Adobe PDF toolbar covers up anything that is too close. I haven't tried putting them in a Canvas course yet. But I did place them on a different server/location and the interactivity works well and you don't end up with just a video.
Hi Elizabeth, I just tried that and I am stuck trying to find out how to then play the interactive, narrated presentations.... any suggestions or where I can find directions? And what servers did you place them on? Thanks for your help in advance....Carola
After trying out several methods, I've decided with OneDrive PowerPoint for next semester.
1. Place the Powerpoint file with Mix recording in OneDrive (non O365 account works)
2. Open it in PowerPoint Online
3. Generate Embed HTML code (under right menu bar), copy
4. Go to Canvas. Add a new page
5. Edit the page. Click "Insert/edit media", choose "Embed", paste, save.
pros: video with audio,annotation plays inside canvas, all the hyperlinks work, no need to update the address/link when made changes in powerpoint, even plays in mobile devices
cons: quiz inside powerpoint works but no longer integrated with canvas gradebook. no table of contents
update: if anyone uses this, keep the file size small (<100mb). The slide show may not automatically play properly, before the entire online PPT file loads up in browser. PPT "screen recording" (not "record slide show") can make the file size big.
Just found this thread, and this is the cheapest solution for me. I have used iSpring Free before, but this embeds easily and I don't have the iSpring watermark. I don't use quizzes or voiceovers, typically, but I do use interactive links and videos. This seems to work great so far.
I tried the One Drive and then once the students tried to sign in, it didn't work any more, why we could never figure out. Does it work for you for multiple students?
If that doesn't work, Share the link. Here's how I create a link so that no sign-in is required.
Office Mix was so simple and an effective way to hold online lectures that were easy to modify from semester to semester. Kaltura lives in Canvas and is being pushed as an Office Mix alternative - but in no way does it do the same tasks as Office Mix. I have a Camtasia license, but creating a video lecture is very time-consuming, is quite difficult to modify and isn't an ideal way for students view a lecture (no discrete slides).
I'm unable to get Office 365 to work in my Canvas sites - is it a Canvas problem, a Microsoft problem, a school licensing problem - or me? Who is this "Canvas administrator" that needs to enable me to embed a presentation created in Office 365? Is it my school's Canvas administrator or corporate Canvas?
I'm willing to bet that the people who behind this mess have never taught online. It is just weeks away from the beginning of the fall semester and I am still ISO an decent alternative. :-(
Ashley Conway - This might not be what you are looking for as this involves saving a PPT to a video, yet, I was able to upload the video file to Canvas and the students were able to watch it without any problems.
Here is how we used Office Mix and then how to update just one slide or piece of info.
Scenario
Coming up on the new school year and I am facing my first OfficeMix replacement video. While, the quizzing does not pass back (oh we miss OfficeMix and its great LTI), I did find a nice little option that allows PPTs to record audio, video in the PPT and save as a video.
Rather than walk through each click, I decided to just post a quick video showcasing the feature.
On a side not, I found this after having a difficult time trying to re-record over just one slide. When inserting an audio file, the file did not align with the rest of the audio files created in OfficeMix and it was rather difficult to make it work...we only need to change audio on one slide. We also found that the timing of slides was off and did not play all of the new recording but cut if off and moved to the next slide.
Here is the video sharing a little about our need and the ability to be able to pick up where we left off, minus the LTI integration. The video also shares a little of the background story as well, well, maybe it can help at least one person.
OfficeMix Alternative - YouTube
Edit: Replaced screencast.com link with youtube link
I was using Office Mix for *interactive* lessons and not just video. Maybe that's why MS decided to move everyone to a video only format. I had to turn all my Office Mix PPTs into PDFs so they could remain interactive.
Again - I also have very interactive presentations and they are narrated - how did you get them to play?
Well, rats. I don't have narration in mine. Didn't think of that. And I uploaded them to our uPerform server which we have here and can use for such things. Hmmmm
Thanks for the quick response
Okay, a little Google search turned up this bit of info for adding media files to a pdf. I haven't tried it yet.
Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs in Adobe Acrobat
And just to be sure, did you Export or Save to PDF? Export will keep the links and Save does not.
I successfully added a small mp3 to a slide in one of my pdfs. I placed a small square icon at the bottom of the page so it will be behind the Adobe toolbar when it opens. And I set it to play when the slide is opened.
I miss OfficeMix!
Q: Can I sync PDF annotatation with mp3 audio? Suppose I want to explain how to multiply 2 * 3 in a blank page using voice and annotation (hand writing). Can I do it in PDF?
Looks like you have to record the mp3 first with something like Audacity (free - it's what I use). Adobe Pro has a record feature but it only works as a comment and does not play automatically when the page opens.
Colleen, I've already seen consternation expressed here and on various social media platforms about Microsoft's plans to retire Office Mix. In an attempt to gain broader exposure for your question, I've shared it with Higher Education, Instructional Designers, and Canvas User Group: Office 365.