Wednesday 14 December 2011

Prezi


Prezi is a web-based alternative to the standard PowerPoint/Keynote presentation. It uses dynamic motion, including panning and zooming, between sections of a digital canvas to present presentations in a whole new way.
At first I was intimidated by Prezi. The old adage is that we fear change and Prezi's style is a dramatic change from what I was used to. I signed up for an education account when it was presented in class and even watched the tutorial videos, but I didn't go any further. I couldn't think outside the slide.
However, other classmates could and they presented their Prezis in other classes. They were visually stimulating and engaging. Their great work allowed me to make the shift to motion. I decided to make a one myself.
I was working on an inquiry project on dyslexia with Kelsey and we had modified an assessment framework for how to proceed if you notice one of your students has reading difficulties. It was represented as a flowchart. I decided to convert our adaptation into a Prezi.

I thought the spiral enabled everything to be close together, yet show a definite progression through the steps of the process. The design and colouring choices were to match the website we'd created to share our findings with the class.
Prezi has a host of web 2.0 features: public access (if desired), collaborative editing, and multiple sharing options (facebook, twitter and embedding, as I've done above). It also allows multimedia to easily be incorporated with simple tools to upload images and video built in to the editor. I also appreciate that I can download any of my Prezis, and any public one that the author has given access to, and present them offline. Some schools may not have a wireless network and bringing an entire class to the lab for a two minute presentation on the scientific method, to pick something at random, may not be productive. Or one day, inexplicably, the network may fail or the server will crash. With my offline copy on a flash drive none of these situations need change my plans. I can present worry free.

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