Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Sick of PowerPoint? Try Prezi.

This is our last post of the school year (unless I get bored this summer) and we wanted to give you some homework over the summer. So, if you are bored this summer try out a Prezi.

Prezi is an online Flash-based presentation tool that I learned about from Steve Dembo at the 2010 MACUL Conference . If you are sick of PowerPoint, this might be your ticket. Watch the obligatory video below:



That is the same video from the Prezi site. This is a very cool online tool for you or your students to use instead of PowerPoint. Let's face it, by the time students reach 9th grade they have been using PPT since 3rd or 4th grade. The thrill is gone. Prezi is a great change of pace. Once you sign up for a free account, your presentations are stored online to edit or view; you can keep them private or make them public and share them; you can also download final copies of the presentations if you want to store them on your computer. Lots of options.

Here is a prezi that I created about my Dad as an example for our Hero Project in my Intro to Computers class. Notice how you can easily embed YouTube video into your presentations.

Finally, if you are not going to have your students use this, maybe you can. Make your own prezi or search for prezis on a subject that you might use in your class. No sense in recreating the wheel! Here is a great prezi on Math.

I almost forgot. Beware iPad or iPhone/Touch users. Prezi is a Flash based Web tool and won't work with these products at this time. Sorry!

Good luck and have a great summer!