Someone in my College Teaching Class gave a presentation this week using Prezi. Prezi made a good impression on me!
Prezi looks really cool and easy to use, but I had a small issue. I kept getting frustrated because while I was working, stuff kept moving when I didn't want it to! I think once I have more experience with the program, Prezi will be an awesome tool for me! The Prezi assignment that we did would be powerful learning tools (I am thinking specifically in online courses). I also think that having students making Prezi presentations may be just as powerful as concept mapping!
Good point! I had only considered using Prezi as a presentation tool, and I hadn't considered making an activity in which the students utilize it. That could be a fun way to solidify concepts!
ReplyDeleteI think you might have to think about the age level of the students that you'd use this tool with. If we feel frustrated with the movement, then maybe they will, too, and focus more on the tool and less on the concept mapping task. However, I think once they got the hang of using Prezi, they would really like using it and creating both concept maps and presentations.
ReplyDeleteAs always, there is a learning curve for making things work. I too had problems with stuff moving when I did not want it to move. But it got easier after a while.
ReplyDeleteThe nonlinear aspect of Prezi suggests that it can be used for creating interesting linkages. I'm going to have to think a bit about how best to use it. Perhaps viewing a few dozen more Prezis will help point me in the right way.
My son thinks these kinds of zoomings and rotations are cool. Such comments from a 13 year old and friends suggest that as always, we have to consider using what motivates the kids, even if it may annoy us sometimes.
I think Prezi would work exceptionally well as a group assignment. It has a collaborative feature that could be very useful. Something like http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html, which I would describe as a concept map/wiki hybrid could be made into an interesting class wide project. Where groups cover different topics, but everything gets tied together in the end.
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