Students in MindTap Courses Can Now Use Microsoft Office Tools
Students using Cengage
Learning's digital learning platform, MindTap, will now be able to access Microsoft
Office while working on their courses in the platform.
To begin with, students
working in business statistics and computer courses, in which business
software
is most important, will be able to use Microsoft Office and save their
work automatically
to the cloud-based Office Online. They will be able to use Microsoft
Excel Online
while working on problem sets in their MindTap business statistics
courses.
Meanwhile, instructors can
monitor student progress any time and reinforce Excel skills and
statistic
methods.
MindTap
offers more than 650 courses spanning the STEM disciplines. It
integrates reading, homework, quizzing and multi-media assets into a
single course
experience for the user. MindTap also allows instructors to bring in
content
and applications from any source to give students real-world context,
with the
ultimate hope that it will motivate and keep students interested in
STEM subjects.
As
a result of the partnership, students and teachers will also be able
to use Microsoft’s SAM text-to-voice technology, OfficeMix, which
allows the
quick upload of PowerPoint presentations, and OneNote, a digital
note-taking
application.
"This
integration will allow students to develop the key business skills
needed to be competitive in today's workforce, using the actual
software that
they will be using once on the job," said Cengage Learning Chief
Product
Officer Jim Donohue. "This live access is above and beyond what can be
done
with a standard simulation."
Anthony
Salcito, Microsoft's vice president of worldwide education, said,
"We know having a rich set of tools to create and collaborate is
critical both
in school and in the workplace."
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.