Week 5: Presentation, Animation & Simulation

PowerPoint, Prezi and Glogster
...and a cheeky animation

PowerPoint
I groan when I hear someone is doing a PowerPoint presentation as I immediately recall suffering through dozens of ordinary (read boring) presentations where the speaker read from slides crammed with dot points. In these cases the presenter did not make use of the tool and certainly did not consider the listener's engagement!

PowerPoint can do more, but it still has the connotations of being 'the old way of doing things'. While it can link to other media and be dressed up, it still has a predetermined format, or flow. Plus I never really learnt how to use it to its full potential - and truthfully there lies the greatest problem!

Here is some information on how to use PowePoint in a classroom setting from unit 2 of 'PowerPoint in the Classroom' ('PowerPoint in the Classroom' http://www.actden.com/pp/). While the information is from the 90s and they show you have to save using a floppy disk (!!!), it does cover the 'how to' quite well. Be aware though that as Microsoft versions change, so does the location and availability of the icons mentioned.

Here is a PowerPoint presentation I have created. It is for work (two birds, one stone). Please note that the references for the images are in the speaker notes and will not be visible. You will also notice that it is unfinished. I decided to use Prezi instead. You can see the finished Prezi version further below. This presentation is included here just to show that I can use PowerPoint.

Example


You can embed your  PowerPoint presentations into your blog like I have done here by using SlideShare and copying the HTML.

Mouse Mischief & PowerPoint
Here is a link to Mouse Mischief by Microsoft. As PowerPoint is a Microsoft product you could use Mouse Mischief to get the whole class involved in creating, editing and delivering a presentation. This would be a great tool for zone of proximal development learning - peer learning. I can imagine a lot of 'who can show me how to...' questions working here.


Prezi
Prezi is a less known tool and its path animation and zoom ability give it some serious 'wow factor'. It also allows the facilitator to let the audience guide the direction of the presentation (as far as the information that has been input into the presentation). In Prezi you can stop, start go back forward, in and out and skip along the story according to the needs of the audience.

When comparing PowerPoint to Prezi the lyrics 'anything you can do I can do better' comes to mind.

Anything You Can Do by Annie Oakley, Frank Buttler and Chorus (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfHBPusZg6E)

I haven't used the PMI as a scaffold for assessing a tool, so thought I should give it a try now.

Plus

• You can start with a free account.
• Prezi has an intuitive design, like most devices these days. You don't need a manual or prior knowledge, just start!.
• Prezi will be a comfortable too for digital natives due to the intuitive and friendly design.
• It also allows a creative design process. You can shift, shuffle, re size and set a path in a way that does not limit you to a linear story.
• You can import existing PowerPoint materials into a Prezi.
• Prezi allows you to have a more free flowing, student driven path. You can zoom in and focus on specific points regardless of the intended order of the 'slides'.
• Prezi does not have lots of icons on a toolbar (like PowerPoint) and this limited menu makes it more inviting for people with less computer knowledge and easier to teach someone or yourself how to use it.
• Prezi can support multiple media formats, like video, audio and links.
• Multimedia presentations are great for visual & verbal learners.
• This tool can cater for independent and collaborative projects.
• Higher level thinking can be achieved - Prezi is a creation tool.

Minus

• Prezis are meant to be viewed online, through a link. There is the potential to be caught without Internet.The finished product can be downloaded however the file is likely to be large (a couple of Meg).
• Over use of the zoom can be exhausting for the viewer.
• Over time Prezis will become common place and less exciting.
• Presentations (viewing or creating) are not always ideal for the kinesthetic, so other sub tools may need to be employed (like allowing movement breaks).

Interesting

• The non-linear path of the presentation is an enormous plus for the classroom however there are times when presentations should follow a more linear format, for example a set of precisely ordered safety instructions. In this instance you could set the prezi to be viewed linearly, like I have done in example 3 below.
• Similarly, being able to take tangents is great for natural learning, but sometimes information needs to be purely disseminated.
• A bad presentation will still be bad, in any format.
• You can share and edit your prezis online.

So here are some Prezis I have made, again for work (birds and stones).

Example 1
This presentation, called 'Is Your Website Giving You The Return You Deserve?' ,my boss, the Managing Director, presented at a conference last week. It is accompanied by speaker notes and a workbook (I wrote the lot, in case you were wondering). The aim of this presentation is to teach people the basics about making their website more effective.
Given the requirement to meet a set of learning outcomes in a limited amount of time the presentation is designed to follow a specified path but still allow the presenter to to stop, start, go forwards, backward and into more depth depending on the audience's needs.
Knowing only general information about the demographic that was attending I needed to keep the presentation at a basic level, going into detail on only the most important points, leaving the detailed analysis to come out through the workbook

The workbook was an integral part to this conference session and provided the scaffolding for this learning activity through questions and prompters with space to provide answers and a section for summarising it all into an action plan. I have embedded the workbook, using Scribid, below the Prezi.

Please note that along with 'clicking through' the presentation, you can also scroll around and zoom in any where that you please.

YBFT Workbook March 2013

Example 2
Although I like to embed content you can also provide links to your Prezis, like this.
A presentation I made for my boss to present to a small business group.

Example 3
This is the mobile website presentation I mentioned above that I started in PowerPoint and decided to convert to Prezi. I elected to restrict this one to forwards and backwards steps, so no zooming or moving freely. Again it was made to be a spoken presentation.



Summary - Prezi as a learning resource

• Prezi is fun and dynamic and is a great step towards engaging an audience.This tool allows the presenter to to stop, start, go forwards, backward and into more depth depending on the audience's needs. It also allows easy manipulation of the contents, so is not intimidating to learn.
• Ditching the predetermined, linear format is the best feature of this product. It allows a teacher to put as much information as they have into a resource that can then be used differently with each group of participants.
• While Prezi appears to be quite a visual tool, it can incorporate many types of media including audio and video and obviously has a textual component. This means it is a tool that can cater to many learning preferences.
• Being online and having offline presentation capabilities means students can work on their Prezi at any time.
• Prezi can also be used as a story board for recording learning. This could be like a personal journal that is not meant to be shared or a collaborative project. The zoom function means you could have an entire project or a whole years worth of work in one 'presentation'.
• Prezi can support multiple accounts working on one presentation so that a whole class or network of people anywhere in the world could view, contribute and edit the Prezi.
• In a class situation you could have everyone create their own piece of a story and then import each mini presentation into one larger presentation. This allows students to work independently but also contribute to a larger project.
• Prezi would also work well in a tutorial format, utilising zone of proximal development. The class could be buddied up and each person take turns in sharing their research on a particular topic with their group. The students would need to use Prezi to present as little or as much detail as needed for their group to demonstrate an understanding of the new information.In this scenario the leading student has created something and are using higher level thinking.

Glogster
I gave Glogster a try in the first few weeks of the course as it looked very creative and fun - and it is. Here is a board I have created. It is easy to do and is great for people like me that enjoy the visuals.
You may need to click on the 'full screen' icon to see the scroll bar for the speech bubble.


Animation
We were introduced to a number of animation tools this week, but this one was so easy to do. Here is my cheeky animation!

MEL by BKMEL10 on GoAnimate

Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate.