Group 3 Tools: Prezi

This week I explored Prezis for the first time. I had never heard of it until now and was surprised at how easy it is to use and fun to create. Below is my first Prezi creation. The topic I have chosen for my presentation is 'Sea Turtles'. When viewing make sure you click on the youtube video I embedded into my presentation.





Here is my analysis of this tool using a PMI:

POSITIVES

• Visually beautiful presentation
• Not a linear presentation like a power point, you can navigate to where ever you like or choose the path you created when presenting.
• you can zoom into videos, pictures and words with your mouse like a magnifying glass.
• when zooming students can focus on what is important.
• you can easily embed youtube videos which can be watched directly from your presentation rather than going to a website to watch it like in power point presentations.
• can incorporate images and can paste them where ever you like on your page.
• can include background music on each slide.
• can deviate and explore concepts or ideas even further by adding videos, pictures, definitions etc. to further explain a point.
• a variety of templates to choose from.

MINUSES

• too much zooming in and out can make people feel sick and can confuse audience.
• cannot add hyperlinks to websites like you can in Power Point.
• when zooming in it can be a bit difficult to get the image in the right position on the screen. 
• Unlike Power Point you cannot record and embed an audio to the presentation. You can only add background music.
• does not have spell-check

INTERESTING

• Is an online product that can be accessed and view from anywhere.
• Teachers and students can now create private Prezis for free.
• Prezis can be reused as it has a feature that allows you to offer a copy to everyone for content re-mixing. For example students can play around with an exisiting Prezi created by a teacher, replacing the texts and images with new ones on a new topic. For example the above presentation on sea turtles can be reused to create one about Tasmanian Devils.

In conclusion I believe Prezis are a great tool to use in the classroom by the teachers and students. It is an interesting and engaging way to explore topics. There are many educational ideas on using Prezi in the classrooms. Here is one that I found on a website that has 5 Prezi examples to view.  It introduces colours to a class. It is fun and creative.

References:

Fractus Learning. (2013). Retrieved from: http://www.fractuslearning.com/2012/04/24/prezis-digital-classroom/. Accessed 02/04/2013.

Barlev, Y. (2011). Retrieved from: http://managerialcommunication.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/prezi-vs-powerpoint-which-will-come-out-on-top/. Accessed 02/04/2013.

URL: http://blog.prezi.com/latest/2010/1/24/new-release-features-educational-license-reuse-learn-center.html. Accessed 02/04/2013.