The Open Source wing of Microsoft, the Microsoft Open Tech, today integrated a set of Moodle’s Remote Learning plugins into Office 365 so that teachers and students can make better use of learning, sharing and collaboration features of the software.
In what can be described as a welcome move, Microsoft partners with Moodle on its Remote Learner program platform to make it easier for course makers to create, share, collaborate, streamline and track progress of not only the course designing but also the customization of courses for students as well as assigning tasks and providing feedback.
The president of Microsoft Open Tech, Jean Paoli, said,
“Working closely with Remote-Learner, we’re delivering a technical solution for one of the most popular open source learning management systems that aims to provide seamless workflows for both Moodle and Office 365 users. By working closely with the open Moodle community, MS Open Tech will continue taking feedback and maintaining, improving, and adding new features.”
Integration of some of the open source Office 365 products that went into Moodle’s packages includes OneDrive for Business, OneNote and Outlook Calendar. These plugins are generally used to create and track a range of workflows – which, in this case would be related to creating, distributing and taking feedback on course curriculums. There are no limits on the tasks that can be achieved via the integration, he said.
People can sign in using Moodle or Office 365 sign in, making the sign in process easier. But that is just the beginning. Events created in Moodle will automatically be stored in the Office 365 Calendar so that teachers can get to them from either way. Previously, teachers had to update their Calendars manually which meant additional work. The process of sending invites is also automated now against the previous method of sending them manually.
OneNote integration will allow teachers to create assignments, students to send their completed assignments, and instructors/teachers to send their feedback to the students. Among other features that are expected can be using Office MIX to embed PowerPoint presentations in the coursework.
The amount of extra work done to provide remote learning will reduce completely and now the instructors or teachers can focus more on content delivery and training.
