Prezi
Review by EDT631 student, 2016
Prezi is a presentation platform similar to PowerPoint. The Prezi home page indicates that over 60 million people use Prezi and the sites tagline is “Become a more effective and engaging presenter with Prezi.” Here is the basic tutorial offered by Prezi: or the true beginners of Prezi, here is a helpful video:
This video provides some helpful tips and strategies to using Prezi to its fullest!: https://www.youtube.com/watchhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWns0P_z200(Linkstoanexternalsite.)?v=eWns0P_z200
</p>Prezi is cloud based, which makes it easy to collaborate with others. What was good about Prezi is that there are several languages that it is available, including Spanish, French, German and Japanese to name a few. What else is good about Prezi are the features that allow you to pan in on something or zoom out. You can rotate items and objects, build graphs, add mediums of all types like you can with Power Point. You can work in real time with anyone no matter where they are located once you send them a link to open your presentation. (See my note below). Prezi does appear to have a lot more options once you really delve into the customization of a project and can present almost in what appears to be a Skype type setting. The tutorials above show how you can move easily from laptop to mobile and vice-versa very easily. Keep in mind it appears to be specific to presentations and not really designed to present large amounts of data like papers or thesis or large statistical samplings.
Currently, staff that use Prezi love it more than PowerPoint because they feel it is easier to put together presentations. They suggested that if you truly used Prezi, collaboration is much easier in this medium compared to PowerPoint. We tried this theory out and it does appear to be an easier tool
</p>I think the biggest design flaw that I can see is that you are not able to edit the presentation once someone starts to “present” even though it tells you that you can collaborate anytime, anywhere – but when looking at online reviews – several have said that they cannot edit the Prezi presentation once an actual presentation begins; which hurts collaboration. Second, many complain that the frames within Prezi are spatially related and that the templates aren’t really good because Prezi forces spatial relationships even where none exist. Some online reviews also indicate that the transitions from laptop to mobile is not as easy as it appears and if the non-originator is not familiar with Prezi, it’s difficult for them to open the link and use it properly.
</p> Most notably- Prezi is very similar to PowerPoint as indicated above. It is also similar to Apple’s Keynote. All have their advantages and disadvantages, but if you are most familiar with Microsoft’s Office suite, you are more likely to go with straight PowerPoint.
I have decided that I am going to use Prezi to try out a few new presentations for my new class that I am prepping for next spring. I think that it offers a lot of opportunity for me to present material in a more fun and exciting way than basic PowerPoint. I’m just going to have to work on some of the presentation material to make it really pop and make it interesting. Students really like to have an interactive class environment, so I am going to see where I can add some interactive components. I do not know if this detailed of a presentation is good for those teaching K-3rd. It appears like a lot of tool for more advanced material presentations. I could be wrong though. And if teachers wanted to collaborate across school districts this might be a really good way to integrate materials!
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I have decided that I am going to use Prezi to try out a few new presentations for my new class that I am prepping for next spring. I think that it offers a lot of opportunity for me to present material in a more fun and exciting way than basic PowerPoint. I’m just going to have to work on some of the presentation material to make it really pop and make it interesting. Students really like to have an interactive class environment, so I am going to see where I can add some interactive components. I do not know if this detailed of a presentation is good for those teaching K-3rd. It appears like a lot of tool for more advanced material presentations. I could be wrong though. And if teachers wanted to collaborate across school districts this might be a really good way to integrate materials!
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