Thing 17: The Medium is the Message- Prezi and Slideshare

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I've had so many false starts with Prezi I've lost count. I'm not a fan of its zoominess but I'm not letting that be a barrier to using it as I assume I can control it how I wish. I think it looks good and I'm a big fan of mind mapping so having a nonlinear approach suits my way of thinking. At our SALT Learning & Teaching Conference this year I was so impressed when one of the student presentations was done with Prezi, completely showing up the other academics' fusty old powerpoints! (Not a comment on their content - by its very nature, Prezi makes any PPT look pretty fusty....)

But it's just been too hard! Hard to get my head round it, hard to find my way around, feeling you need to use it well or not at all, feeling it always needs more time than I have to get to grips with it... I've been really trying to improve my presentations but I have focused on the content and planning so much I have less time for design. I think that is probably the right approach but I'm determined to master Prezi sooner rather than later... I looked at it again today but, even though I have watched the intro guides, I'm still a little lost on where to start. I do have an expectation that things will be easy to use, probably unrealistically so.

One big drawback: we are using clickers in most of our classes and of course that relies on Powerpoint interaction so I can see that being a reason not to use Prezis, although you could break up a class into different presentation formats if you were really keen.

I have used Slideshare a little and it performs a wonderful service in making things available. I have very little stuff that is for external viewers rather than our own staff and students but if I do, it will go up there. Here's my profile:
http://www.slideshare.net/Librarian_Sam