Lesson Seven Comprehensive Assignment

Today during the Spring 2011 Teachers' Meeting I saw a presentation that used Prezi (http://prezi.com/) an online and live presentation creation tool from Prezi, Inc. It has all the functionality of PowerPoint but is much more powerful, has a more attractive appearance and is easier to use. For these and following reasons it meets my instructional objective of providing my students and myself with a superior presentation tool:

While online you can use a browser to collaborate on prezis with others, You can send and show your prezis to non-Prezi users. Your prezis can be accessed from any computer. If you register it - buy a license - , when you don't have internet access you can export Portable Prezis. And it works on iPad's. (http://prezi.com/learn/prezi-online-software/)

I haven't used Prezi yet but when I start class on Thursday I will tell all my students about the software and suggest they look at it. If the students like it I will suggest they use it. According to today's presenter you can also upload PowerPoint's and it converts them. Likewise is has a built in mind-mapping function - a feature I am eager for my students to start using -, that makes it really easy to conceive and structure presentations. Because they are built into Prezi it will accomplish multiple objectives.

My goal is to improve their presentations.

I anticipate that some students will be reluctant to switch from PowerPoint. Ironically students in their mid-teens are very reluctant change from things that they are use to, things with which they are comfortable. It will be really important therefore to have the students carefully compare it with Microsoft's presentation software, evaluate it and then decide. I will not force it on them.

I am also eager to see if it works well the wikis I will be using in all of my classes. Because wikis are by nature collaborative the collaborative nature of Prezi should easily meld with and enhance them. Also, it can work both offline and online so it will be easier to immediately incorporate offline and online videos, text, photos and audio into the wikis and keep them current. And repeating what I said earlier, I have never been a big fan of PowerPoint's appearance. You can spiff it up but it can be time consuming to do this and it still isn't very attractive. What I saw today looked really excellent.