Tech Fun Idea #1 to Avoid Summer Boredom

Just because school is ending soon, doesn't mean kids should stop exercising their brains! In fact, there are a lot of researchers working on studying the connection between playing and learning. 

Want something fun for your kids to play with when taking a break from the UV rays outside?

Allow me to introduce you to Prezi! The Zooming Presentation Tool! 

Depending on what you do for a living, you might have at some point in your career either A) Created a Power Point or B) Been subjected to view one as part of a presentation. If you were lucky, it was informative...perhaps even pleasant.

But it's a known fact, there are two types of presentations and two types of presenters in the world: engaging ones and boring ones. 

Prezi is not boring when used properly. 

If you use Power Point or Apple's Keynote (way cooler looking than Power Point) you know you can add text, images, audio, video, transitions, and animations.  

Yes, you can do all that with Prezi, too. But what sets Prezi apart is the movement and the fact that there are no predictable slides. Your presentation is on a canvas that is a seemingly infinite space. You can zoom way in or out depending on whether you want to hide text or an image or embedded video somewhere it can't be readily spied. 

My first experience with Prezi was very disorienting. I had a hard time grasping a sense of scale. I would type a word on the canvas, use the wheel on the mouse to zoom out, and the next thing I knew that large text had all but disappeared! 

Want to see a few examples of a Prezi to understand visually what I mean? 

Check out this example I made to teach my students about the concepts of copyright fair use, and public domain. Granted it's heavy on text and light on graphics, video, and sound-all of which can be embedded-but I'm still a bit of a novice. Here's another one for teaching key characteristics in good writing. 

Want a student created example that's visually way more appealing than my examples above? Here's one made by Wade, a former 6th grade student of mine, as part of a project to explore some common characteristics all "advanced" civilizations have in common. Wade incorporated images as well as text. It's not hard to embed video, too. Just grab the embed code and go to the "Insert" button when in edit mode.

Like a lot of technological programs, you kind of have to just jump in and try it out. And trying Prezi out is a low stress deal when you consider its price.

Free. Prezi is free. Yes, free!

Granted, the free account means all of your Prezis are public for the world to see.

If you prefer a bit more privacy, you might opt for the "Enjoy Account / EDU Account" or "Pro Account" where you get a bit more memory, some privacy, and tech support. 

No, I don't get paid for plugging Prezi, but I do get a lot of satisfaction showing it to kids who are tired of Power Point. My one complaint I have is that there currently is not way to export a Prezi as a movie file so that it could be uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo or incorporated into a film. 

The workaround for this would be to screen capture the presentation while it's running. But still, how cool would it be to create a multi-media presentation in the cloud and render it as a movie?

Another cool feature Prezi offes is sharing live via online sessions. You can invite up to 30 people to view your Prezi online by emailing them a link. When people come to your virtual presenation, a little avatar appears with their name. They can either follow along with you or "explore freely" by clicking on their icon. 

But wait...there's more. 

Not only can you share with others, you can send an email a link to people inviting them to collaborate with you! It's amazing to watch little avatars roam around your computer's monitor, floating across your Prezi's canvas, adding text, embedding video, resizing a picture here, adding a graphic there. 

Have fun with Prezi! If you already use it, please share a link to your presentation in the comments below to show us your stuff!

If this is new for you and you have questions, please feel free to email me at jbentley@egusd.net or send a tweet to Jim Bentley@Curiosity_Films