The Powerpoint: a useful educational tool yet limited in its offering in this age of innovation and choice...
"Powerpointlessness" is a term coined by Jamie McKenzie in 2000, and is defined as "any fancy transitions, sounds, and other effects that have no discernible purpose, use or benefit." (McFedries, 2001)
The issue I have with powerpoint is the overuse of it I guess...
10 years ago it was all "oooh and ahhhh and wow!!!' given its visual nature and early technical gadgetry.
10 years on and we have options - flexible, awesome options.
I stumbled upon a fantastic new presentation tool a few weeks ago.
http://prezi.com
This cool cyber toy is, basically, a massive cyber canvas with the capacity to add content - text, images, video links etc, add a 'path' ( the order you want to view the items) and Bob's your uncle!
What is new is that it is not linear and sequential - you can set it to spin, flip, zoom, pan out and basically make learning dance!!
I look forward to sharing with you next week!!
Have fun,
Louise W
McFedries, P. (2001) The Word Spy http.www.wordspy.com (accessed 9 August 2010)
Louise, I had a quick look at Prezi and it looks great. The way the slides (is that what they still call them?) transition in is very impressive and looks much more interesting than the standard PowerPoint presentation.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to learn more on SDD day!
Natalie
Made a Prezi for Year 5 Creative Arts after watching my boys use Prezi for their Year 10 assignments. (Couldn't bear to have them able to something I couldnt! ;) and they enjoyed sharing their superior knowledge with me!) Yes, more flexible than and more fun (it is for me, anyway) to work with than powerpoint, not as many pretty, special effects options perhaps, but since the "canvas" is huge, it lends itself to mind-mapping and lots of advantages in presentation. You can add things as you go, as part of a class discussion (not that we've got up to that bit in Year 5 yet!) although you need an active online connection, which powerpoint doesn't necessarily require. If you sign up for the free educator's account you retain the option to keep saved prezis private (which I like to do - particularly while I'm learning this stuff!). The privacy option isn't available for the other free accounts. My kids ended up creating separate yahoo accounts (apparently it doesn't accept hotmail) just to use with prezi - more passwords to remember! The privacy issue might be something to be aware of if we were encouraging our students to use it.
ReplyDeleteKathy F