Normally at conferences I’m already “up” on most of the Web 2.0 tools being shown, but last year I was happily surprised to learn about a new one from Prezi.com.
Prezi allows you to create more dynamic presentations, with the great application of doing “mind maps” which allow users to drill down into details. Users can zoom in and out of a presentation, or they can follow the predefined "path" you have created for the presentation.
Last year - I played around with the Web 2.0 application and created a quick “Student Readiness for Online” presentation. With only a few minutes of orientation - I was able to create the following presentation:
The result is at: http://prezi.com/134940/
Use the arrow keys in the bottom of the screen to navigate, or simply click your mouse on an object to "zoom into" that object, and use the mouse scroll wheel to control the zoom aspect (bigger / smaller).
The site provides free accounts which include 100MB of file storage (which is plenty of file space since text-based presentations take up very little storage space). Educators with a ".edu" email address can get a 500MB free account. Commercial accounts are also sold for a very reasonable annual cost. Even with the free site you can download your presentation to a ZIP package which includes your presentation as an Adobe Flash application (so you can off-load your content and use it without connection to the internet).
In online courses, I would prefer this style of presentation over PowerPoint for many types of information. The ability to scale size of each object allows you to "hide details" deep inside of other objects and text - and yet, you can create a "path" which brings all the information into full view. I also like the concept map as a means of showing relationships and interconnecting processes.
Since it is a free tool – it would be useful for faculty and students alike.
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I have been using Prezi as well and like it. in my last two presentations, I ditched PowerPoint in favor of Prezi. A recent improvement was the addition of hidden frames that let you focus on collections of objects without seeing the frame (rectangle, circle) on the screen.
ReplyDeleteOn a pedagogical note, Dr. Kim Bates and other WSU Biology faculty support mind mapping activities in their courses. Students in Immunology build a personal map throughout the semester and then present it at the end of the term, describing all the concepts they have learned and how they are connected to one another. The finished maps are huge! They use Inspiration now, but maybe Prezi has some advantages (e.g., easy to share online, greater flexibility, better use of size and position as mapping variables). Something to consider.