Discovering Prezi

     For the assignment this week I thought that I would explore around Prezi.com. I knew that it was a different way to make a presentation but had no clue how to use it. I wanted to see how easily I could use it in my math class.
     First I had to sign up for an account. I signed up for the educators package which let me upgrade to the second step of the program. I then watched the tutorial video on the site and found out it is so easy to make. You just click on the screen and type in what you want. You can then click on the words and a zebra circle shows up to make your words bigger or smaller and also to turn them. I played around with it for a while and discovered how to group things together and to make the path of my presentation. I could not figure out how to make it auto play, but I did not think that was a big deal. The program even had some backgrounds to use so it is not all boring white. You can also add in pictures and videos. I had no idea that you could add in videos. One other thing I could not figure out was how to do a voice over. I figured if I really wanted to do that I could use the Jing program that we used last week.
     There were a couple of problems that I had with it. First I tried to add in a video from youtube and it would not let me copy and paste the url into the box. So I had to type in the address myself. The other thing was I had some problems getting out of the presentation when I pressed play. After looking for a long time I found the exit button. Boy did I feel silly. 
      As I was trying to come up with a history lesson using the program I found myself thinking of my own class and how to use it. The program is so easy to use I think that my high school students could make one. In fact as I read about Prezi I saw that one mom had her kindergartener making a presentation to help with show-and-tell. I thought in my math class I usually have students make a pamphlet explaining some concepts. I thought this would be another great option to my original project. Who doesn't love to play on the computers. I also found a nice rubric making site to help me with the grading. It was called rubistar. It has many options to choose from, while you are still making your own rubric. What it does is gives you options of categories to grade that might apply to your project. If you choose one of their options then the descriptions for the grades automatically show up. You can also add in your own grading options but you have to type in the descriptions for the grades yourself. I think this is another cool site that I might use in my own classroom.
     All in all I think that both of these web sites are great places for you to check out for your own classroom. If you would like to see I attached the Prezi presentation that I made to introduce you to it.

Why use Prezi? on Prezi