Wow! I made it!

Here is my Prezi about what I learned.

Looking back on LIBE 477 on Prezi

I loved being able to take the time to explore tools that I think will engage my students, such as Kidblog (something I am super excited about trying even though it didn't work out for me to have the students use it during this course) and the digital storytelling tools. I also found tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest interesting for personal and professional reasons and to inform my teaching. I learned so much from Joanne and from what each of my classmates contributed to the course. Thank you everyone! Thank you to Brenda for setting up the class Wiki. I will be making my contributions over the next few weeks.

Playing with Prezi

The last tool that I chose to investigate was Prezi. I started out the course making my "Autobiography of a Tech User" on one and I wanted to play around a little more with this tool. There were so many options that I could have chosen with my first Prezi and I wanted to try them on my second one.

The second time around, I started off by watching this video. I'm not sure why I didn't watched it the first time...

How to create a great prezi on Prezi

My goal was to group my objects according to theme and then to zoom into each of them individually. I ended up spending quite a few hours on this second presentation and learned much in the process. The most valuable trick that I learned was that I could edit and create a path at the same time without losing my path.

Another trick that I learned was that I could interrupt the presentation and then edit, frame by frame, if I needed to do so.

I would use a Prezi to introduce a new social studies or science unit or to teach a new math concept. I can also see myself using a Prezi to put together a presentation on the different steps to be carried out in a research project.

After my experience using Prezi, I would not have younger students use it. If anything, I would teach it to a small group of grade 7 students. I think that it would be difficult to teach a whole class how to create a Prezi. For myself, I really had to take the time to play with it and that was how I learned best. In Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, Will Richardson says that it is important that we choose tools that we are passionate about and spend time learning them for personal reasons before we can effectively use them in the classroom (Richardson, 2010, p. 9). Although I found Prezi to be a complex tool, I am intrigued by it and can see myself using it again, hoping to learn more to improve my presentations. Stay tuned for my next blog post to see my second creation!

Works cited:

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

My autobiography as a tech user

Here is my autobiography, created on a Prezi. I had fun putting it together, but there are a few things that I would do differently next time. I would try to group my events according to theme or era. I would play around with the frames to get something that I liked a little better. I'm now wondering how I can use Prezi in my inquiry project. Should I do another personal project, or should I plan to use it with students? I need to think about that. I wonder if we are to demonstrate our personal use of these tools or if we are to show how we would use them in the library or the classroom.