Bridge Office and Moodle via New Add-in from Microsoft

The Office Add-in for Moodle is not the first tool from Microsoft designed to bridge the Moodle Course Management System (CMS) with its own technologies. In mid-2009, the Redmond-based company released an open-source Live Services Plug-in for Moodle, and now teachers running two pervasive teaching solutions, Office and Moodle, have a new add-in available for download. The Office Add-in for Moodle promises to streamline as best as possible accessing documents in Moodle, as well as uploading files, straight from Microsoft Office. At this point in time, only Office 2003 and Office 2007 are supported, allowing teachers to open and save Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents to a Moodle website.  “Like Moodle, Microsoft Office is prevalent in classrooms around the world. In fact, more than 90 percent of teachers and students worldwide use Office. So we explored ways to improve how educators can intuitively and efficiently use the two products together. What we developed is simple. The Microsoft Office Add-in for Moodle provides educators an easy way to find, open, and save their Microsoft Office files housed in Moodle. It’s free and available for download at www.educationlabs.com,” revealed Jon Perera, General Manager, Education Products Group. Office Add-in for Moodle has been tested against Moodle 1.8-1.9, namely the versions that Microsoft recommends teachers use in concert with Office 2003 and 2007. Following installation, users will be able to find the Open from Moodle and Save to Moodle options under the File menu in their productivity suite components. Without the help of Office Add-in for Moodle, teachers leveraging both Office and Moodle have to perform a range of back and forth steps in order to complete basic tasks. The add-in significantly simplifies work for users relying on both Office and Moodle. “This tool was created by Microsoft’s Education Labs team. That team was established in July 2009 to quickly create prototypes of new tools, applications, and services that showcase how Microsoft technologies can meet the needs of schools, teachers and students. Sometimes we create or use brand new technologies. Other times we integrate our technologies with others’, including industry standards or even competitive technologies. For example our Education Labs team recently released applications to help teach chemistry, make digital flashcards to help students learn concepts, and also introduced the Microsoft Live Services Plug-in for Moodle,” Perera added. Office Add-in for Moodle is available for download here.  Sources: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Bridge-Office-and-Moodle-via-New-Add-in-from-Microsoft-139320.shtml