BP5_Prezi

Every teacher in the school district I work for has access to a Prezi upgraded account that we are provided by the district. But how many of us actually have used it?   I have heard others in the EMDT program talking about it.  I have been to "technology trainings" that my district has provided on inservice days where they have "introduced" us to this tool.  Which basically means they handed us a booklet of instructions and told us we should look into it.  In the 6 years I have worked in my present position, today was my first time to actually try it out.

I logged into my school account and read through the handy quick start guide they provided for me:

In my district, we are provided an upgraded version of Prezi.  The basic version is free to any users, however, the upgraded version can be purchased by individuals for approximately $60 per year subscription fee.  The greatest benefit to the upgraded version is really just more storage space.  Once I had a decent idea of how to proceed, I created a log in ID and watched the getting started tutorial video which was really easy to follow and understand.

Prezi How-to video

I was amazed at a variety of things dealing with Prezi.  First of all, it is very simple to navigate and learn to use.  It took mere minutes for me to figure out the basics of how to throw a quick presentation together.  Secondly, it looks so professional.  With a Prezi presentation, I can spend 15 minutes creating a product that makes me appear to be very tech savvy and professional because the product looks neat and creative.  I once heard someone refer to Prezi as "Power point on steroids".  I think this tool is so much more than that.  Power Point has been a great asset and a quick way to produce a slide show that efficiently delivers information.  Prezi takes a more appealing and eye-catching direction because it uses one big, visual map with all of the information on it and zooms in and out of each topic as it is addressed.  It is new, innovative, and attractive which catches the audience attention and interest.  That is our goal, isn't it?  Prezi supports image, videos, PDF files and can be used to create a Flash file to embed into a blog or a website.  I will be incorporating Prezi into my lesson delivery.  I think the students will enjoy the variety and the presentation style and I will have a great opportunity to catch the interest of my visual learners.  I also think this would be effective in collaborating with my teaching partner.  Not only can we take turns creating the lesson Prezi that we will both use which will ensure that our classes our staying on the same page, but we can also use this for our PLC team to plan out our goals and the path we will take to achieve them each 6-weeks.  I don't know why it took so long for me to use this fun and valuable tool that I have been provided but I will make the most of it from now on.