A week ago, I used the second prezi that I have created to present at Alumas Wałdamala (Alumas Information).  I have attached the registration package for your information although the event has passed.  I was very honoured and humbled to be presenting a paper that I wrote for EDCI 532 in which the instructor was Monica Prendergast from the University of Victoria.  I used the prezi seen below as a visual interactive aid.  I was able to attach links to pechaflickr and youtube within my prezi.  I am very thank you to cogdog aka Alan Levine for the use of pechaflickr as it was a hit at my presentation.  I learned about pechaflickr when I participated in an ETMOOC session on digital storytelling which I will write about in another post. Also, being able to directly link to Ken Robinson’s “Changing Paradigms” video was also very helpful.

Thankfully, I went to my assigned room prior to the presentation and I found that wireless internet was not available.  I had to purchase a cable to run from another room to my presentation room so I could access the internet and therefore my prezi.  PowerPoint can be downloaded onto your computer so having access to the internet is not an issue.  However, I not only had to access the internet for the prezi but also the other features of my presentation.  I honestly can  say that I have had  more experience with Prezi than with PowerPoint.  However, I have a slightly informed opinions about each of them after having used and seen both in action.

Initially I thought that Prezi was better to use since it more dynamic with the use of transitions whereas PowerPoint seems very static.  However, I think that I was more interested in the flash and transitions than the actual presentation.  The tool used should not be the focus of the presentation but rather the ideas that you are trying to present.  As a result, I think that PowerPoint seems to be more of a professional looking tool than Prezi.  However, if I had the time, I could create a Prezi like this one by Brooke Haller.  (We are looking at connected classrooms as part of our EDCI 515 project)

Another drawback of Prezi is that I needed to be connected to the internet.  However, a classmate told me that you can download Prezi onto your computer.  I will have to look into that as well.  I also felt limited using a template since I found it challenging to include more slides into the template.  It is easy to add slides with PowerPoint.

Now the question that I must answer is…..When would I use this new technology tool in the classroom?  I am embarrassed to say that I have in the recent past been using a overhead projector as a presentation tool for lecturing.  Although I have been using a WebCT now LEARN to communicate with students, return assignments and to provide links to resources.  I think it is about time that my in classroom practice reflects my online practice so I will start creating presentation using Prezi for a biology course that I may be teaching this fall.  I think that advantage of using this tool would be to engage the learners in the classroom and aid in learning visually.  Perhaps, my learners can present a laboratory report in this manner instead of the traditional written lab report.