Prezi
I discovered Prezi today via a bookmark from Dean Mantz. I spent about 10 minutes looking through the site, the tutorial and the three examples on the homepage.
Here’s what some are saying.
When it comes to presentations, Microsoft Powerpoint is the desktop tool that most of us use. Apple Keynote delivers better visuals and is preferred by creatives. Google & Zoho presentations bring a subset of the functionality to the web and allow collaboration. Slideshare introduces community - following the strategies of Youtube (video) and Scribd (documents). But Prezi flips the paradigm of presentation inside out to bring you simple interactive presentations like you’ve never seen before. (Source)
Prezi allows anyone who can sketch an idea on a napkin to create and perform stunning non-linear presentations with relations, zooming into details, and adjusting to the time left without the need to skip slides. (Source)
With the help of Prezi you can create maps of texts, images, videos, PDFs, drawings and present in a nonlinear way. (Source)
Josh Lowensohn of CNET stated that Prezi is a presentation creator that ditches the idea of individual slides in place of a giant expanse that can be navigated with a mouse, keyboard, and eventually touch screens. The end result is pretty incredible and feels a lot like Google Maps. (Source).
Educational Uses
I must admit that while browsing through the site I almost gave up and left twice, but I’m very glad that I didn’t! It’s an interesting tool and holds untold educational potential. Here are a few thoughts that came to mind.
- Presentations could become more dynamic, interactive and hopefully engaging. Prezi IS the message.
- The ability to easily incorporate most any digital file or media allows teachers/designers to account for a variety of learning styles (audio, video, visual, etc.).
- Prezi could be used as one of the (if not the) most robust concept mapping/semantic mapping tools that I’ve seen.
- Teachers and students could find it useful for organization, collaboration and project management.
- I like the idea of using Prezi to help during the design and development phases of lesson planning, unit development, team planning, cross-curriculum mapping, etc. In some instances (such as a typical presentation) your design and development work actually becomes part of the final product or learning artifact.
- Diigo Notes for 11/18/2008
- An Introduction to Presentations 2.0
- Collaboration in a Web 2.0 World
- NECC This Morning
I remember the first time I read Too Many Daves (from 
). I was sitting at a table in my elementary school library with two of my friends. I read the book silently and the ridiculousness of one naming all 23 of her children the same thing just sent my imagination spinning. It remains one of my favorite poems all these years later. I’ve included the poem below in case you’re unfamiliar with it. Unfortunately, I can’t also include the artwork because it really sales the story - as is typical of all of Seuss’ work.
, 
, in which he explores the potential impact of the Internet. Watch this 4 minute video and then let’s discuss it a bit.
