So recently I taught my practicum classes about Totalitarianism to boost their background knowledge for their novel, Fahrenheit 451. I wanted to incorporate YoTube clips of different totalitarian governments and such, but I wanted to also include a few key words and facts to help students visualize the words and concepts. I'm a little over PowerPoint, mostly because I think it has been used way too much. While it used to be the new thing that got everybody's attention, now it's just another sure-fire way to put students to sleep--that is, if you use it incorrectly. However, I'm a very organized person and I like the idea of having all of my information in one place, rather than opening up a web browser and navigating through 50 million tabs while I'm trying to teach.
Enter in Prezi.
Prezi is like a beefed up version of PowerPoint, but even that description doesn't quite do it justice. Prezi easily (and I mean with one simple click) allows you to incorporate YouTube videos, pictures, text, etc. But it is just so cool. You really have to play around with it in order to see what I mean, but Prezi is interactive on many levels. While I don't want it to sound like some gimmick teachers can use to get students' attention, it does have the benefits of engaging students; when I taught, students' eyes were literally glued to the screen. Prezi allows to organize information more precisely, such as according to hierarchy, and it takes you through an information journey, if you will (I know, cheesy).
Hopefully we won't fall into the same rut of overusing Prezi like we do PowerPoint, which I think is the key to presentation technology in general. By presentation technology I mean things like movies, pictures, slideshows, etc. These tools are really great ways to present information in a different way for students, but we have to make sure that it doesn't become to familiar to0 them or they may tune out. Anyway, check out Prezi!
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