Prezi

A lot of people have started using 'Prezi' becuase of the 'wow' factor. The way you can zoom about is very appealing. The thing to consider though is 'does this zooming about add anything besides a raised eyebrow?' You need to ask what the teaching and learning justification is lest you end up with PowerPoints that zoom a bit. The ability to import PowerPoint directly into Prezi makes this even mroe likely now. So much for the downer.. I think there is ample justification for using it when you want to express ideas in a non linear fashion, reinforce links between aspects of a topic and create a visual 'whole' as a peg to hang several ideas onto. I have tried to do it in the one below:

The idea here was to have the notice board as the holding idea and gave me the ability to go backwards and forwards. In terms of producing it, the thing to do is a) get your ideas down (all of them!) b) establish the paths (i.e. the order that the Prezi will flow) and then c) put in a ‘holding’ or background image , shrink the items and fit them onto the main image. Then make the holding image the first focus and last by adding them to the path.

Better, I think, is this one by my son that he did for his extended project last year. The iceberg analogy works really well as a mechanism of emphasis and the radiating arms of key elements again tell me on a subconscious level that there are 3 key points to this particular aspect and help structure bot the presentation that accompanied it as well as his audience’s sense of sequencing and links.

Incidentally, to embed these into this blog post I have chosen the share, embed option BUT for some reason there’s an extra bit of code either side of the working Prezi that makes it look messy. All I do is delete it before posting.

If all of this sounds like a bridge too far then why not search Prezi for what’s already out there? You may find you have to do  no work at all! http://prezi.com/explore/

M Compton