A Series of Reflections: Prezi Presentations

"Audience and Purpose"

"Audience and Purpose" an article linked in the week 5 course materials, discusses some really important thoughts for capturing and engaging your target audience such as:

• Who is your audience? (In the hands of the teacher) students, (in the hands of the students) teachers, and peers of either.
• How familiar with the content will they be? Are you pitching at the right level? Will your audience understand the terminology etc.
• Is your presentation reasonable? does it have enough or too much information? Is the information displayed appropriately? Can you read the text? is it too small?
• Is your audience likely to want plenty of detail or will that be overwhelming for them?

Such considerations are all equally important cogs in a smooth running and successful presentation, and should all be thought about before deciding on a platform which best delivers your topic. In the following reflection I will discuss Prezi as one of these platforms.

Prezi

A Prezi is a free online visual aid program which allows for the presenter/creator to display "the big picture" and zoom in to see the details or minor points. This eliminates slides full of excessive text and takes the viewer on a very cool and creative journey through, sneakily enough, the important information! Prezi encourages the creator to be concise and only highlight the useful information (the true purpose of a visual aid) as if you can not do this the "bigger picture" just looks messy and overwhelming. 

In creation of that journey, the sole author (after creating a Prezi account online) may select from pre-made templates (as you will see that I have) or you can start your presentation from scratch. Both options make use of Prezi's "frames" which enable that zoom function, which come in four options: bracket, circle, rectangle or invisible. All with which can be adjusted in colour and size. To really make your presentation come alive you can also include:

• images through an embedded Google images search function, 
• or a selection of simple shapes which like the frames can be adjusted in both colour and size. 
• Text boxes can be created anywhere with just a click and include the general text customisation options such as font, size, colour, bold, underline, italic and you can also add dot points. 
• These text boxes, frames and images, even videos can also be moved around and resized at any time if needed, 
• they can even be selected to appear on a fade-in animation, 
• or be accompanied by an audio voice-over file. 

The product of such presentation customizations as listed above can be viewed in my own Prezi creations found below. When creating your own Prezi presentation it is important to consider whether using some of these features might subtract from the over-all message through creating an unpleasant distraction. While I'm sure that when used effectively or in the right context some music playing in the background can be positive, however in most cases it could be considered an unnecessary distraction, much like using too many animations etc. So keep that in mind.

These presentations are saved online in your personal account which is protected by a password of your making. In addition to that you may also download your Prezi to your computer or as a PDF, or share it to a selection of social media websites via the "share" option or "present remotely" which gives you a URL to link to, or finally you may embed the presentation via the "embed" option which opens a window where you may then adjust the specifications before finalizing.

A Prezi presentation in the hands of the teacher (a mathematics perspective)

I have decided to do this week's reflection on Prezi presentations purely because I could relate to the style myself, as I am a sequential learner. This style of presentation I feel compliments most of my mathematical instruction, as my go-to method for teaching maths includes mapping out specific steps to follow, and adjust myself from there should my students need me to. I have always worried about the limited ways in which maths can be made interesting and exciting for those who don't find it that way to begin with, however through experimenting with this Prezi program I feel I have found one way in which I can. Which is a nice start. 

Below Is an example of a Prezi presentation utilized within a mathematical teaching context. Consider my use of the "fade-in" animation option to draw the students eyes to the new information appearing, and in the case of the mathematical workings, to prompt them to have a go before revealing the next step or the answer. 

A Prezi presentation in the hands of the student (a business perspective)

In the following example of a possible student use of Prezi, within an assessment context, I have tried to indicate where this particular format of presentation encourages the development of some very handy skills as well as being a simple means of visual aid. This program (due to its limited space which when over-crowded with content, as mentioned earlier, blurs the "bigger picture") encourages the development of  some important judgement skills which effect the quality and success of a presentation such as:

• including an appropriate amount of text (enough to highlight your point, but not enough to ramble allowing your audience to lose focus), 
• choosing the appropriate pictures to enhance and make links to their discussion points
• and this program also encourages the user to really think about their speech layout and how their paragraphs flow or ease into the next topic of discussion as the links or arrows lead you from frame to frame.

As a learning tool Prezi could potentially allow for students to learn without them knowing, which in my opinion, is one of the best ways to teach.

Students may also utilize the voice-over option and record their speeches that way, to perhaps avoid some of the negative effects of nerves when presenting in front of an audience.

Bloom's Taxonomy and the SAMR model

Bloom's Taxonomy

Prezi as a tool or a means of visual aid aligns mostly with the yellow "Application" sector of Bloom's Taxonomy as in creating a visual aid you apply your knowledge to the display platform so that you may demonstrate to others that you do know enough about the topic.

The SAMR Model

Prezi, used in a business context, best aligns with the "Augmantation" sector of the SAMR model as it is almost a complete substitute for the way such assignments were presented. This tool allows for a functional and interactive visual aid with the option of including the entire speech as a voice over, however a script would still need to be submitted along with the file. 

However in a mathematics context Prezi can be considered for the "Modification" stage of the SAMR model. Currently, in the case of most mathematics assignments, they are still handwritten and drawn- then either physically submitted or scanned and submitted that way. Prezi allows for a clear step by step layout, though of course only for topics that are suitable. For example: a list of questions to complete may not be acceptable, where a scenario assignment would be. Consider the financial assignment scenario where you are given a job with x amount of income, you need to fashion a budget and discover the amount you need to put away each week for a loan on that new car you want to buy. This could put a really cool spin on a particularly drab topic, that is extremely important for students to understand.