NOTE: Plan to attend the Intro to Prezi session scheduled for Monday, Feb. 13, 2012, from 2-3pm in GEB A302. You’ll hear from Constance Tucker, Educational Coordinator in Student Academic Support Services, Richard Magid, Vice President of the University of Tennessee Research Foundation, and Paul Stumpf, Professor, Program Director & Chair of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Chattanooga, about their use of Prezi. They’ll do a show and tell of what they’ve done, what worked well, what didn’t work as well as hoped for, and their recommendations for use.

When used correctly, PowerPoint can be a fine addition to a presentation. Most of us, though, have experienced Death by PowerPoint. This is a painful and annoying experience!

Enter a relatively new Web 2.0 tool that’s a cross between slides and a whiteboard: Prezi.

Prezi aims to make sharing ideas more interesting. Curiosity is a goal. That could be a very positive thing!

Features of Prezi include:

• it’s free – some features require licensing, but educators can get a lot for free
• pan and zoom that allows zooming in/out
• non-linear navigation within the presentation – not tied to a specific slide sequence
• can handle text, images, videos
• create on the web and export for off-line viewing (Pro version allows for off-line creation as well)
• facilitates showing relation and context

But, is Prezi really useful for doing anything but fancy zooms and offering people the opportunity to skip around in a presentation? Here’s a recent blog post that illustrates the use of Prezi in conveying mathematical ideas and describes some principles for the use of Prezi.

Prezi examples you might find of interest:

• Hidden Perspectives Underlying Success or Failure in Teaching with Clickers
• Medicine educational category at Prezi
• Medical Laboratory Science 101
• History of Dentistry and Dental Hygiene

Some detailed “how to” sites to get you up and running on Prezi a bit faster with less frustration – from various sources.

• Prezi’s learning site
• Purdue
• The Ultimate Guide to Prezi
• A Prezi on learning how to PREZInt with Prezi
• Prezi Part II – Prezi for higher education faculty that touches on styling and tips for grouping
• Learn how to use Prezi in 4 minutes

When you are welcomed to Prezi after subscribing, their introductory email has lots of great resources, including learning how to make a great Prezi by the company’s co-founder; exploring what other Prezi users are making; support manual; and support channels.

Prezi offers a free webinar every Thursday at 11am CST. Register here to receive details.

Prezi U is Prezi’s educational community. Join that community to learn and share best practices using Prezi in education, meet other educators, see top University Prezis and more.

Other links of interest:

• Prezi is on Facebook and Twitter
  
• Read about Prezi on Wikipedia
• Download the Prezi viewer for iPad
• Prezi U library of educational Prezis from various institutions
• A review of Prezi’s perceived usefulness

Make plans to join colleagues on Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 from 2-3pm in GEB A302 for an Introduction to Prezi session that will increase your knowledge about Prezi and help you make an informed decision as to using Prezi in your future PREZIntations!

Image Attribution: Image from flickr, uploaded by Edd Dumbill with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license. Downloaded by Cynthia Russell on 20120208.