Prezi

Wild Wonderful West Virginia on Prezi

As I played around with Prezi, I had so many ideas come to mind as to how I can use this. I got a little carried away with my Prezi Presentation, but I had fun creating it. I just started with a simple idea that was Social Studies related. From there the idea just evolved. I found myself working on this late into the evenings, but I enjoyed it because it was about something that I love to teach and present. Feel free to check my presentation out. I hope you enjoy it. I know there is a lot of stuff there, but it should be pretty easy to manipulate. I created a path, but it is easy to choose your own route of interest with my presentation. The second slide explains that the easiest way to maneuver this presentation is to click the forward arrow and choose as many or as few of the examples from the characteristics that you want. Definitely check out the map. I had the most fun creating this.

The more I experimented with this tool, the more I liked it. I like it just as much as Power Point, although I have more experience with the latter. Power Point is more oriented towards following slides in a specific order. With Prezi, users can establish a path or order, but viewers can deviate from following that order by just using the cursor to slide the screen as opposed to pushing the play arrow at the bottom of the presentation screen. Prezi is also a good tool for creating cognition diagrams that are interactive. Ultimately, as I become more familiar with Prezi, I can see myself preferring this tool over Power Point because of its flexibility and interactive nature. I really would like to introduce this to my students and give them the opportunity to show their knowledge of different content specific topics through the use of this tool. This is an excellent tool for students who struggle with writing because it enables one to use cognition strategies in order to convey a thought or topic. Students can create a Prezi and use their information that evolved from their thoughts to create a written composition. I really like the possibilities with this tool in regards to writing strategies.

As with many of the tools were used in this course, the use of Prezi by teachers and students could coincide with all five standards set forth by ISTE. The three standards the work the best with the use of this tool are standards 1, 2, and 3. The tool is definitely a great way to inspire student learning and creativity. As I mentioned earlier, I started with a basic idea, and as I used Prezi to convey that idea, my thoughts continued to evolve as to coming up with more ways to improve and develop my idea. Before I knew it, my basic idea expanded into a web of supporting details that developed my topic in a more thorough manner. I also see the use of this tool by both teachers to instruct as well as by students to learn as well as convey their knowledge as a way to provide opportunities for students to design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments. One characteristic of the 21st Century Schools classroom is that assignments are more student centered. Enabling students to use this tool to convey their knowledge is an excellent way to facilitate student centered learning that is flexible yet rigorous in regards to students mastering content standard objectives CSO's established by the state. By this, I eam that students can create Prezis about given topics in a manner and order that they decide on themselves. The use of Prezi is also a great way for teachers to model digital-age work and learning. As teachers use this, students are able to see how modern technology can be used to guide one's thinking and expression. As they are given the opportunity to become familiar with Prezi and use it they are able to become familiar with technology that is common to digital-age work and learning.

I definitely plan on using this in the fall with my classes. I really see this as something that will benefit my students tremendously. I really liked using Prezi.