One of my pet peeves with Power Point is that often the person that is speaking is simply reading bullets off the screen. One of my friends, Kyle, introduced me to Prezi. It's the anti-bullet presentation software.
Prezi is free if you are an educator and have an education email address. I had difficulty getting the confirmation email through my school address because of our filters, but it was worth the trouble.
Prezi gets the presentation to focus on key words and allows you to zoom, twist, flip, show video, pan back out and move through your presentation on one main screen. Your emphasis is made by the size of the text and how you frame it. You can add video, pictures, and sound. Instead of focusing on one frame and then leaving it, Prezi allows you to zoom out to the main frame and keeps the presentation as a whole. It's a really cool way to keep kids from getting bored, because they have listen and participate and look for the key words - it keeps them engaged.
The concept is cool - it's worth it to watch the intro and tutorial videos to learn it and to ask a friend when you get stuck. It's not a perfect software, but one that is worth it. Kyle's bride, Jenny, used Prezi at a big presentation of PR guru's from major universities and impressed them with the flow and the fact that she discussed and presented and did NOT just read a Power Point. They were my PLN connection that got me re-inspired to use Prezi after I got bored and frustrated. That was important.
I attached a link to the Prezi I finished about the new NC Professional Teaching Standards, which is now public and one you can use as a template. The videos are from You Tube and may not show unless you have access to the you tube videos. I still need to figure out how to shorten the clips and get them to focus on the main point of the clip for some of the longer ones. Click on SHOW and use the arrow keys for the easiest movements through the presentation. There is still some editing to do. I would love to hear from someone that knows what to do about getting better video clips.
How did you get past the email thing? I had tried signing up for a free account last fall when I first heard about it but couldn't get the email confirmation to go through, so I gave up...
ReplyDeleteI had to use my ECU email account. I will try to remember to see if my tech guy can look it up and try to make sure the email filter doesn't block emails from that account. My feeling is that because it's a computer generated email, our filter treats it like spam, but I couldn't find it in my junk mail or anywhere.
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