For those that are new to this series, I received a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 as being part of the Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert group. I have been documenting my journey using this device. After being a huge Apple fan for quite some time I am surprisingly and excitingly finding myself loving this machine more and more. As I continue to try out new things, discover new features, and learn more about what Microsoft is creating and developing I get more jacked up to streamline my life and make work easier.
For this piece I want to focus on Office Mix. Mix is an add on for PowerPoint where you can record audio and video over your slides, create quizzes, look at data, and more. It is a very powerful add on with so much benefit that I am sure I will be blogging more about Mix in later posts.
For this stage in my journey I used Mix to create a presentation. I recently held an information meeting about our upcoming Robodogs Robotics Camp. Many parents were not able to attend due to so many events taking place. Instead of fielding the same phone call over and over and constantly repeating myself I decided to make a Mix presentation.
After the meeting I had a clearer path of what to present and what questions parents had. I opened up my Surface Pro 3, clicked on PowerPoint, clicked Mix, and got started. With the Surface Pro 3 I simply chose the camera so I could be seen, adjusted my audio levels and hit record.
The great thing about Mix is that it slices up your video and audio as you click through your slides. Each slide has its own narration which is great. At first, I was not too happy about that as I wanted a full video. However, I realized you could export the whole presentation as a movie file and I went back to being happy and impressed with having both options.
Here is the video
It is nothing fancy, but for getting information out to parents or whoever your audience might be this is a great tool! I already have thought of a new way to use this tool which I will share soon, but for now you can see how an add on mixed(pun intended) with a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 can lead to streamless and easy communication to a lot of people.
The other great feature was the use of the pen to write on the slides as you speak. Another great benefit of the Surface devices.
What are other ways in which you are using Mix or could see yourself using Mix?
In the next episode I will showcase how my wife recently used the Surface to create video lessons for her math class.
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