I heard about Prezi being talked about in class so I decided to explore this new technology. First off there is a free version of Prezi you can sign up for which is a big plus. Also on the Prezi homepage there is a free video tutorial that shows you step- by-step how add text/image/video, orient the text/image/video, and size the text/image/video. Prezi also uses a zoom feature in its presentations that lets the author zoom in on a detail of an inserted picture/video, for the watcher to focus on. Prezi’s zoom out feature is also cool because it can show the whole ‘flowchart’ of ideas so the watcher can see the ‘big picture’ of the presentation. Prezi also has a navigation button (that’s what I am going to call it) that allows the author to make the presentation move left, right, up, down, spin, or follow a winding path of information. I really feel that since PowerPoint hasn’t really changed much in the last 15 years, that Prezi has a real chance of outselling PowerPoint, and could become the new presentation computer program that is a staple on all laptops and computers.
The disadvantages that I see with Prezi is that when I watched the Introduction to Prezi Tutorial and the Your First Prezi Tutorial I felt that Prezi was going to be very fast and easy to create and publish with. But when I opened my first blank Prezi to work with, I felt that creating a Prezi was much harder and takes a lot longer than the tutorials portrayed. Also another disadvantage that I saw with Prezi is that to get all of the features that Prezi offers, you have to pay for the ‘platinum Prezi’ version. To me, realistically, I know that PowerPoint is free and can be found on thousands of computers in schools, the library, and computers labs, so in this category PowerPoint does win. Also I think that Prezi can be used for any subject area because the gist of Prezi is that it just shows the flow of ideas, which is a component of math, literacy, science, and social studies. Furthermore, I think that Prezi should be used for short lectures versus long lectures because Prezi seems like it will be more time consuming per section/idea. Lastly, I think that Prezi could be a teacher tool to make short presentations for any grade level of students, and could be a presentation tool for older students to use as long as they understand the sometimes-difficult directions and how to upload pictures and videos to Prezi.
Here is a an introduction video as to what Prezi is
I also wrote a post about Prezi and although I am amazed by Prezi and think it is an incredibly creative way to create a presentation, I agree that it can be difficult to work with and would require a lot of practice!
ReplyDeleteIt was nice to read someone else's opinions on Prezi software! I actually decided on using Prezi for my final lesson plan and encountered many of the same problems you discussed in your "cons" section while creating my lesson. I have used Prezi for my own presentations several times, but it wasn't until I started using it for a lesson plan did I see all the problems that could be brought up when using it in the classroom. My lesson was originally for 5th graders, but after creating my own sample Prezi I did realize that this might be harder than I had originally thought for these students. However, if 5th graders can be proficient in complex video games such as those they play now.. it makes me believe that they are generally more advanced technologically than we were at their age and are capable of such tasks.
ReplyDeleteI also looked at Prezi, but didn't spend a lot of time working with it. I found it to be fairly easy to use, but I can foresee some of the problems that you mentioned in your post.
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