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Promethean Releases PowerPoint Addon for Student Response Systems

Ed tech developer Promethean has released a new plugin that adds interactive polling features and new presentation capabilities to Microsoft PowerPoint.

The new plugin, ActivOffice, is a tool for Microsoft Office for Windows that provides tools for incorporating student response systems and other interactive classroom technologies into PowerPoint presentations. It's designed to work in conjunction with Promethean's ActivBoard line of interactive whiteboards, though it can also be used without them.

The software adds several new capabilities to PowerPoint, including a special toolbar that lets users access the new features directly within a presentation. Some of these new features include:

  • The ability to annotate directly on a PowerPoint presentation (with highlighter, eraser, and clear tools);
  • Support for saving annotations for later use;
  • Annotation editing;
  • Support for conducting assessments and polls using Promethean's ActivExpression, ActiVote, and ActivEngage student response systems;
  • Support for adding and managing questions within PowerPoint via Question Manager; and
  • Import and export of assessment results using Microsoft Office tools.

Promethean ActivOffice is available now for Windows systems only (Windows XP SP2 through Windows 7). Further information and a link to a 60-day demo version can be found here.

About the Author

David Nagel is the former editorial director of 1105 Media's Education Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal, STEAM Universe, and Spaces4Learning. A 30-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art, marketing, media, and business publications.

He can be reached at [email protected]. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrnagel/ .


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