Changes to Inserting Online Images, Audio, and Video from Office.com

#announcements #help #instructors #students

Microsoft recentlyremoved Office.com clip artfrom Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Instead, all online image searches will use Bing while PowerPoint will add videos from YouTube. We are updating SIMnet to reflect the way your students interact with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

The changes Microsoft made to inserting images, audio, and video are as follows:

• Inserting Online Pictures in Word, Excel, and, PowerPoint now uses Bing Image Search as the primary method for finding images online (searching from Office.com is no longer available). The search results use the Creative Commons. Simply, the Creative Commons allows for non-commercial use of copyrighted images. A discussion of the Creative Commons licenses can be a productive way to think about copyright issues online.

• Inserting online audio is currently unavailable in PowerPoint. When you open the Insert Audio dialog, you will see a message informing you that PowerPoint cannot connect to your services and to try again later. At this time, it is unclear if or when this service will be available again.

• You can no longer insert video in PowerPoint through a Bing Video Search. You can upload directly from your OneDrive; search YouTube; or paste an embed code from another website.

The following changes are being made to SIMnet:

• All current “live in the application” projects that use clip art are being rewritten to use another method.

• SIMbook pages that refer to Office.com clip art are being updated to notify users that the content has been updated since the original publication. In addition, some pages will be updated to include other ways to add clip art to documents and presentations.

• Let Me Try steps will reflect the old method of adding Office.com clip art. A note will be added to the relevant page directing the student to the steps to use to successfully complete the exercise.

• Simulated questions that refer to Office.com clip art will no longer be available to add to exams. However, any of these questions that currently exist in exams will continue to be valid.

While this fix is being finalized we suggest that you show your students the new Online Pictures dialog. The differences in the way the students interact with the applications is minimal – they still enter their search terms in the text box and select results. The only differences are what the name of the box actually is and the quality of the results that they will get back.