Technically Teaching Tips, tricks, resources, and ideas for surviving and thriving in the digital classroom.

Promote Positive Presentations with Prezi

We are all familiar with "Death By PowerPoint". And when I don't see enough of it from my students, I can usually seal the deal by going to some kind of professional development workshop. PowerPoint + wireless internet = the worst thing ever to happen to my ADD.

And to make matters worse, PowerPoint is far from perfect.  It depends on text, makes demonstration of relationships nearly impossible, doesn't travel well, and makes embedding Web 2.0 content really, really difficult.  It's clear we need something better.  One of the possible tools is Prezi (www.prezi.com).  I'm not sure it's the cure-all, but it's certainly a noteworthy alternative.

Prezi doesn't use slides.  In fact, it uses one large canvas.  You emphasize parts of the canvas by setting Prezi to zoom in to different parts of the canvas.  See this example that Prezi posts on how to use some of the features of Prezi:

If you click the "Play" button in the presentation above, you'll see that you can go forwards and backwards through the presentation, like a PowerPoint with spinny effects.  However, the greatness in Prezi lies in the third button, the one that looks like a little target.  Click that, and you can see the entire canvas - the entire presentation - at one time.  You can see how the elements connect and are sequenced.  You can also double-click elements to zoom in, and use your mouse to move around the presentation (an awesome interactive whiteboard tool, btw).

Here is an example from a student at my school:

If you step through the presentation, you can see each step individually, along with a picture (yay digital cameras). However, if you click the target, you can see Mitosis as a repeating process. You can see at a glance how the different phases connect, and can zoom back in to any one. You'll also notice that vocabulary, interesting facts, and works cited are part of the canvas, but not part of the presentation flow.

Prezi has a learning curve to it. They have about ten minutes of sample videos on how to use it. The user interface, while logical, is completely revolutionary. If you don't take the time to watch the videos, you are going to have a hard time using this tool. But the advantages are numerous. You can embed your YouTube videos directly into your presentation. You can also include hyperlinks, embedded Web 2.0 content, graphics, and more!

However, once you know what you are doing, there is a lot of power here. Use it wisely