SAN FRANCISCO, 12-Jul-2016 — /EPR EDUCATION NEWS/ — LiberCloud, the cloud-based learning management system for instructors, trainers and educators, announces integration with Microsoft Office Online to better enable Microsoft PowerPoint slideshows as a delivery method for blended learning materials and to give the ability to incorporate existing PowerPoint content in new ways. Microsoft Corp. is making this possible with their Cloud Storage Partner Program, which enables cloud solution partners, such as LiberCloud, to create seamless integration with Office Online.

What’s New

LiberCloud’s existing learning content management solutions combine the best of instructor-led engagement, blended learning, and interactivity between instructors and students. This new release makes its platform even more flexible via seamless integration with PowerPoint Online so that users can create and store PowerPoint content directly within their existing LiberCloud authoring tools.

“We are very excited about LiberCloud’s integration with PowerPoint Online”, said Felice Curcelli, LiberCloud’s Co-founder & CEO. “It makes perfect sense because of the amount of content that teachers and trainers have already developed using either PowerPoint or PowerPoint look-alikes. It’s another step in our mission to make trainers and teachers more effective and students more engaged.”

How It Works

A slideshow in LiberCloud is a collection of learning assets that an author can combine in a slideshow for use in coursework and training classes. It helps instructors go beyond traditional slide decks and get more creative by incorporating other assets such as canvas slides, interactive tutorials, videos, assessments and polls.

An author typically embeds the slideshow in a LiberPage which is the building block within the platform for lesson plans, coursework and assignments.

Benefits

‘Blended Learning’ techniques are the trend for educators whether in school systems or corporate training environments, and LiberCloud’s enhancements are built to meet this demand. LiberCloud Slideshows with PowerPoint is an example of blended learning enablement and gives teachers and instructors flexibility to:

1. Share and reuse individual slides with ease. For example, if instructors want to incorporate PowerPoint charts or diagrams they’ve created in various lesson plans, they can add those native PowerPoint slides to new learning or instructional content. LiberCloud makes it easy to find individual slides and reuse them without duplicating content.

2. Brainstorm ideas with canvas-based slides via LiberCanvas, an app that lets users write and draw on a shared canvas as well as record content that can then be shared as videos. For example, instructors can give an individual or group assignment with a slideshow containing read-only background information along with canvas slides that they can write on and collaborate in real-time.

3. Engage students by combining PowerPoint slide decks with polls and assessments, to deliver during a slideshow and capture the results in real-time.

4. Make communication and feedback more personal and more effective by creating audio-visual annotations on individual slides.

“The integration of LiberCloud with PowerPoint Online creates new opportunities for teaching and learning for our joint users”, said Rob Howard, Director of Ecosystem, Microsoft. “Teachers will be able to leverage the native real-time co-authoring capabilities of PowerPoint Online and LiberCloud’s canvas-based collaboration and polls to increase student engagement.”

Integration with PowerPoint Online is a continuation of LiberCloud’s mission to give educators control and flexibility to deliver instruction material and assessments in a coherent and cohesive fashion. Visit their website for more information or to download the white paper Using LiberCloud Slideshows with PowerPoint in Instruction Materials.

SOURCE: EuropaWire