Reinvigorate your presentations

I have been reading some media theory recently (I know, I need to get a life!), and there is an interesting tread in the research that suggests we (that means humans) pay more attention to (that means we learn more from) novel presentations. This explains why PowerPoint was so well-received by students a decade ago, but why students yawn at those presentations today.

For educators, that means we need to continue to learn and use “the newest thing,” if we are going to continue to engage students with the ideas and information we teach. It also means that simply changing the format of a presentation may help students pay more attention.

One tool I have used to update some presentations that were getting tired is Prezi. After creating an account, users can create presentations that follow paths to different sections of a large canvas. Along the path, the user creates content (add text, upload images... typical presentation stuff). Navigating the Prezi (their name for a presentation) involves following the path and zooming in on the content.

Taking a presentation and making it into a Prezi does several things for teachers:

1) You get to revisit the content, update it, add new images, etc.

2) You get a more engaging product for your classroom.

3) You get to work at learning something new!

Visit Prezi