Teachers who incorporate ICT tools into the classroom are moving away from the traditional 'teacher-centric' method towards creating a more 'learner-centric' learning environment (infoDev Growing Innovation, 2013).
These tools just keep getting better and better! I actually cannot believe how much is out there in regards to presentation tools. I could easily keep exploring and exploring and exploring and exploring.... If you get my point?
How to set up your own Prezi:
Using a Prezi was quite straightforward.
I simply signed up for a Prezi and then watched the getting started videos. All the videos are quite short so its very time efficient and easy to navigate.
I definitely recommend adding a prezi tool to your capabilities - i find the more you have the more options you have to utilise within your classroom as a teacher.
Use this link to start up your own Prezi!
The great thing about Prezi is:
It is an ICT tool which is awesome for presenting ideas on a virtual canvas. It allows users to zoom in, out and all around the page of the presented media. It is ideally great for global learners as it has multiple options on how you wish to view the materials, whether or not this is a overall picture or step by step guide. You can also use Prezi for collaborating with up to 10 different editors - great to use as a classroom group task. Not only is it ideal to get your students to see the big picture of things but break it all down as well. Prezi is also available for view as a mobile app, you can download the prezi onto your computer/usb or even upload in into your blog through an embed code or link (like how I have myself). This presentation is a great technical tool to utilise within a classroom. Use it in ways of teaching your content but also ways that allow your students to build their own creative flair as individuals or incorporate group collaborative task exercises.
Using this in a classroom:
Well to start off with, I drove the creativity and style of my prezi around teaching a lesson of year 11 dance (my chosen major). It sets a clear feed forward to the students and the intended learning outcomes of the lesson. I have then broken segments into chunks as I find this would be easier on the students to break the functionality of the lesson down into parts. A lesson is only 70 minutes long so therefore time can be an issue unless the structure of my presented lesson was clear. The reason why I have designed it like this is due to the fact that it would be much more difficult to comprehend all the learning materials if it was all moulded together in a huge lump.
Chucking up a whole bunch of material into a presentation would leave students feeling:
- Bored
- Unfocused
- Disengaged from learning
- lacking interest
- More easily focused
- concentration towards the intended topic
- guidance within the task
- less overwhelmed with new content knowledge
So the students will therefore be able to travel at their own pace throughout the task, deciding what chunks they should spend the most of their time on and what parts will be easy to fly through. It makes it more realistically achievable for the students to reach the end task when all the components are scaffolded and broken down into segments.
Other ways I could use prezi is to get the students themselves to create their own. As individuals when it comes to their choreographic assessment, it would be nice to see them set it out in a way to break down their own intended goals, time-frame of events and all the content needed before handing in their final assessment for the term.
Such a great tool to incorporate into my future developing practice!
References:
infoDev Growing Innovation (2013) Teachers, Teaching and ICTs. Retrieved from: http://www.infodev.org/articles/teachers-teaching-and-icts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prezi
http://flexiblelearning.net.au/designing-elearning/gallery/student-presentations/
