Prezi in the classroom - how do you use it?

www.tutor2u.com
In the history section of this website I have posted a link to Prezi, as I have used it in the classroom, and found it much more dynamic than Powerpoint, although when I want a rolling presentation that will just scroll through slides I still use Powerpoint as I have not found how to 'run' a prezi without my input.
i would also like to use hyperliks in the Prezi.

I'm a mathematics professor in a small liberal arts college in the midwest USA. I've been using Prezi to make mini-lectures for my calculus classes when I need to present a highly graphical concept (calculus is full of those) or if I want to present something like a concept map for understanding a process or how material relates together. Basically I can make up a concept map on paper or with mindmapping software -- or directly in Prezi -- and start drawing paths and/or lines and arrows to connect the ideas in a logical flow. It's the way I have been teaching for some time now, but none of the "linear" presentation tools (even Apple's Keynote, which I love) really implemented the concept map idea the way I wanted it to.

Students love it, especially since it is web-based and they can go back and replay my minilectures any time they need to.

I've also recently done a faculty development workshop on my campus with Prezi and it knocked their socks off. So much so that now they're going to have me do an hour-long workshop just on Prezi! It's catching on.

Tony, There is an autoplay feature in Prezi. If you hold mouse/left click down over right screen arrow, it will show 2, 10 & 20 sec slide timings. I have found hyperlinks best used if you insert them as a pdf first. Happy to help.

Robert, I have seen your first few Prezi's online a few weeks back. Now I cannot find one - perhaps Prezi should included author name in the showcase search and not just title and description. Mike

I'm another UK teacher - secondary ICT. I have a couple of pupils who practically refuse to use powerpoint any more, after introducing them to Prezi. I've used it to present A-level and GCSE theory and I'm trying out some stuff with younger pupils.

Great to hear about others who are using prezi. I am a high school business/phys. ed teacher in Saskatchewan, Canada. I primarily started off using prezi as a teaching tool to create presentations and/or activities. I am now having my students create their own prezi to be presented to the class. We are doing tutorials and learning the features before they create the finished product.

We use it for our son to take news (or show & tell) in to class. He is in kindergarten and we are just playing around with it as a different means for him to present stuff. He is profoundly disabled in a mainstream class so technology is paramount. The first two attempts are under Kindergarten News and Wombat Scat on the prezi site. We hope that as we use more mainstream stuff the teachers will use it for everyone, to everyone's beneft.

I am using Prezi as an optional tool in a university course on Oral Presentation Skills in Pécs, Hungary. Many students have chosen it to create the illustrative elements of their final presentatitons.

I am trying to integrate this into my lessons - I too am a secondary ICT teacher. Jon Rogers, let's toch base!

I use it for my university lectures - both oral and online presentations. I really like the possibility to include mind maps, concept maps or any other form of diagram. Also the multi-level approach is great. And PowerPoint files can be imported easily when converted to pdf, so I can use parts of my older presentations.

I really like it. And it is infectious ... my colleagues start to use it too :-)

Great idea to create this discussion. I like Prezi because it has more visual impact than PowerPoint but I didn't convert because using it was confusing and it is less interactive than my PowerPoint which has second party build-ins like clickers. I'll keep following the development though.

Hi all, I'm a law prof at McGill University in Montreal, and I have now been using prezi in class for a week. The impact has been immediate and striking. Lawyers typically rely on a lot of info and sources in class, but not all of which turns out to be useful. I use prezi as a big brainmap, and am in fact planning on having only one, ever expanding prezi for the whole term. The prezi allows me to explore the class content with students by association of ideas rather than through a given path. It is, in other words, nothing short of revolutionary. I will blog on this soon at www.thenomadicacademic.net

As an instructional technology professional development coordinator for the state of North Carolina, I find that far too many teachers use linear presentation tools to teach. They often lead to low levels of student participation, and more importantly, little learning. Prezi should be used as a tool to change the way information is presented as well as change the way students create new content. I have shared this resource with teachers across the state and had great success in making that change. Keep up the good work Prezi...can't wait to see an educator's pricing plan.
Dan Froelich

Provide a supported environment for educators to see relevant examples, be allowed to share created resources, and be given easy access to continued support beyond the initial exposure to this new and exciting tool. Most of our professional development is done in face to face environments that are either in the workplace or in isolated locations that provide an opportunity for personal and professional growth in a community of learners. This is supported with blended learning environments that extend to online courses for participants to access each other for the following school year. This way they can share frustrations and successes for all to see.

most universities have a pedagogy department. they can be quite instrumental in getting other faculties to adopt new tools. I would aim for those. A dedicated space on prezi for educators would be nice. We won't use it in exactly the same ways as business types. In many ways we will use Prezi more because the focus is not just on getting a message accross, but on getting students to think. And for that, non-linearity is incredibly precious.

I am an 8th grade Language Arts teacher in Georgia, and I am trying to use Prezi in my classes. I have used a few that I have created at home, but several teachers would like to collaborate on one at school. The network at school won't play the presentation. I can access the site fine, just not the actual presentations. It tells me there is an error, and to check support. I'm sure it is a firewall problem, but our IT doesn't know what to do. Can someone give me some ideas?

There has been a lot of discussion about the non-linear aspect of prezi but I think its visual power is equally important. PowerPoint is very text based.

Zoli, in reply to your post ten days ago about ideas, experience and suggestions.

I am a UK teacher of ages 5-11 years olds. There are two ways that I see - those who want ready made Prezi's and those who wish to create their own. Maybe a niche may be to simply make Prezi's about National Curriculum areas and then offer them to schools, That way, children receive the great Prezi show, but the teacher does not have to make it (we know there are 1,000s of powerpoints on the web for free). For example, there are 32 Prezi hits in Prezi/showscase and 8,400 powerpoints in a UK Google search. An emmerging market perhaps?

For those who wish to create a Prezi in a school, whether teacher or pupil, it reminds me of Textease where users can have the software as AT HOME, see http://www.textease.com/athome/ where schools purchase software and licence, then issue parents with a password for children to download from the web as a trial, then unlock using schools password. Now, Prezi is free, but schools will be very nervous of storing children's Prezis for all to see online for the obvious e-safety reasons. Therefore, schools only option to purchase Prezi Desktop?

In addition, for young learners, it can be very daunting to have a blank canvas. Maybe, the teacher or Prezi can produce some child friendly templates?

Lastly, my school in Coventry, UK will display Prezi.com / My & Learn, but Showcase will be blocked by firewall.

Maybe, some can comment on how best for young children to make Prezi's at home and show/edit them at school without saving them in the public showcase. Then again, I now see the new public/private checkbox - Wow how fast Prezi are moving! Mike

I will be using Prezi for all my class presentations and the internet and applications when needed. The course is an introduction to social media and Prezi is perfect for it. I have been using it for a few months now.

In the end there will 6 lessons in prezi around the class. Love Prezi!

Are we going to see multiple paths or single connectors soon?

Hi i use prezi in the classroom too and am beginning to set tasks for my kids on it

I am a school librarian in the UK and have now used two Prezis - one to present to colleagues at a conference and a second one that I used with 6th Formers in school. This one enabled me to talk about a pretty dry subject - Plagiarism, Referencing and Citation - with much more dynamic images on screen. The students were pretty impressed and wanted to make their own. Like a previous poster, I intend to use this one Prezi and expand it to show different aspects of Information Literacy and how these all interlink. It is so easy to change the path to include other sections of the Prezi - although this will mess up where people have embedded it on their websites! A "save as" function to save the Prezi at different stages would be good here!

http://prezi.com/es5v40wdb3ls/

Many other school librarian colleagues are getting very interested in Prezi too!