Tech Tuesday: Prezi

I recently learned about Prezi in my technology course last semester. I like to describe it has PowerPoint on steroids. I believe they market it as the only zooming presentation tool. The zooming feature makes boring slide presentations come alive with movement. On their home page, there is a great video introducing you to this tool, if you're unfamiliar with it.

I created a couple Prezi presentations for my class last semester. Overall, I found that it was really user-friendly. For someone who tends to be a bit of a perfectionist, it can, however, be a little trying. There is no real good way to get text to line up perfectly, so the more abstract thinker will probably enjoy this tool a little better than someone a bit more concrete. It did teach me to try and let some of those things go. Once I was able to do that, I really came to enjoy this software!

There are a few other quirks, but they have a great Learn section and manual to help you along your way. There is also a showcase where you can look at presentations created by others. Some are even available for reuse, which means you can save a copy to your page and edit it to fit your needs or topics. How great is that?!

Here are a couple of Prezis that I've enjoyed. They are particularly related to education/teaching.

Thoughts on Using Prezi as Teaching Tool by Paul Hill

Playing to Learn by Maria Andersen

Here are the two Prezis I created for my class.

This first one is the first that I created. I'm taking an independent study course on Environmental Studies right now, so I created this to help me understand and learn more about Natural Selection. As a future teacher, I could use this in my classroom to help students understand this Theory as well.

Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

Ok. One more, and I'll let you get back to your regularly scheduled day. :-)

This Prezi I created as part of my final project in my technology course. My idea was to begin a unit with a timeline that showed specifics events. I would then break the class into groups and have each group choose (or perhaps I would assign) an event on the timeline to elaborate one. Each group would then collaborate on that topic and add it to the class Prezi. I've created an example of what an elaboration might look like. I'd be willing to bet that my students would be far more insightful and creative than I was!

Early Civilization in Afroeurasia to 450 BCE

I tried to embed these presentation, but they didn't look so good on my blog.