Prezi presentations

Let's talk about Prezi, the website that changed the way I thought about using IT in my lessons! A teacher at Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden introduced me to it and I have not used Powerpoint since..

What is Prezi?

Prezi is an online application that allows you to make presentations that are dynamic and visually attractive. Prezi describes itself as a communication tool to help you organise, present and share your ideas. Right, so what does that even mean??? Basically, Powerpoint 2.0!

According to the About section of the website, 'Prezi is a virutal whiteboard that transforms presentations from monologues into conversations: enabling people to see, understand, and remember ideas'.

You can register with an e-mail account and it is free! Prezi also offers an educational version which provides you with more storage than you would have with a regular free account. This educational version also gives you the option to keep your Prezis private (the Prezis you create in the regular free account are public). If you want  an educational account you have to use your school e-mail address to register. 

Prezis can be added to, linked to, and shared via Facebook and Twitter. You do not need an account to view the presentations, so students have access to your presentations anytime, anywhere. 

You can finish a basic Prezi in about 10 minutes, but the many features will probably cause you to spend more time making sure your Prezi is perfect! 

Prezi: pros and cons 

Prezi has many pros, but there are some cons... I've put them together for you in.. A Prezi! The arrows allow you to click through it. There are to other options: play automatically and Full Screen.

How can teachers and students use Prezi?

1. Use Prezi to present subjects, just like you would use Powerpoint. 
2. Create elaborate Venn diagrams, timelines, or other options to get your point across. 
3. Zoom in on images to make details more clear. 
4. Highlight important information.
5. Show that some ideas go together or flow into each other. 
6. Tell a story or discuss a process. 
7. Make a digital portfolio. 

So what do you think? Are you ready to get started? Good, that means it is time forrrrrr *drum roll*

The step by step guide to your first Prezi! 

1. Go to www.prezi.com and click 'Sign up' in the top right corner of your screen.

You will get to a page where you can choose your license. I chose to continue with the educational license for teachers and students. This option is a bit hidden, but you can find it under the 'Enjoy' option. Do you see the orange hat? That's where you want to go...

In the next screen we will choose the free option 'Enjoy Edu', which is written in green.

2. Sign up with your e-mail address and click continue. Make sure to use your school e-mail account.
Tip: this e-mail address will also be your username, so you may want to write it down somewhere.

3. After this, Prezi will ask for some information about your school: the name of your school, location, country, and school website. You also need to check a box to confirm that you are an active teacher or student. You can find this box below the blue 'continue' button. Strange place to hide it, but yeah..

Click Continue to, well, continue...

4. You will now receive an e-mail with a link to verify your account. Go to you inbox and click the link in the e-mail. If the link doesn't work you can copy-paste it into your search bar and press enter.

5. This is where your personal information comes in. You need to enter your first and last name and then pick a password, which you have to enter twice. Also check the box to accept the terms and conditions.

6. That's it! You now have an account and Prezi will send you to your home screen. As you can see we now have 0 Prezis... Sad times..

You may notice a couple of things in this screen: Your Prezis is written in a bold font for example, because it is the screen you are in now. Next to it, you can see a tab called Learn. This is where you can find tutorials, Frequently Asked Questions and support. I've read somewhere that the Prezi helpdesk is very quick: they fixed a broken Prezi in less than 3 hours after receiving the e-mail. It might be a good idea to check out a video and then experiment with a presentation. There is a lot of information in the videos and I like to think that it is clever to do something with that information right away..

You will find the Explore tab next to Learn. This is where you get access to millions of Prezis from other people and I suggest you take a look at them sooner or later because you are allowed to copy them. They will show up on your home screen so you can easily find them back if you want to. And let's be honest: why do work and create a Prezi to go with it when other people actually have that part covered?

7. Now, let's go back to Your Prezis and click on the blue button that says '+ new Prezi'. A pop-up appears: choose a title for your Prezi and, if you want to, a description. Continue by clicking 'Create new Prezi'.

Edit: Prezi has changed a bit and will now send you to the templates right away. You can enter a name for your Prezi after working on it. To do this, click Exit. You will go to view mode and you can click the pencil next to your Prezi's name (which probably will be Untitled Prezi or something along those lines).

8. We're now in the Template screen. I've decided to go with a template because it has the same options as a blank page. Choose your template and click 'Choose' in the right bottom corner of your screen.

9. Prezi has now come up with a basic outline for your presentation. On the left side of your screen you will see the order of the slides. You can click these slides and work on your presentation, which is exactly what I did in the previous Prezi and in the one I will show you later on. All I did was edit the text a bit. You can do this by clicking on the text and then either type right away or choose 'Edit text'. You will also get the possibility to delete the text.

But there is more.. I'll show you in the next Prezi..

10. If you want to start from scratch and create your own Prezi, the most important thing to remember is the path: the order in which your slides will be shown. You can work on this any time you want by clicking 'edit path'. If you want to add a new slide, you have two options:

• You create a new frame, which will be added to your path automatically;
• You click Edit Path and then click on the text, image or video you want to include.

I've made an experimental video for you to watch, but the sound quality is horrible. Sorry!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-iJcc4G6s8

If you have any questions, please post them in the comments section or e-mail me at l.brouwer2@fcroc.nl! 

Webquest

Our colleagues mentioned that they would like one of our blogs to be dedicated to Zunal, so here it is!

First things first: what on earth is a webquest?
A webquest is a way of teaching that is activating and interactive. The lesson is mainly focussed on research (kind of like a scavenger hunt) and the information should be completely or mostly accessible through the internet, according to Wikipedia. Students learn to look for and study information that they can use for their final product. Participants in a webquest usually have roles that will help them create said final product. The information they need is structured by their teacher, who are also the creators of the webquest. A webquest usually consists of seven parts:

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Task
• 3. Sources
• 4. Process
• 5. Evaluation
• 6. Conclusion
• 7. Teacher page

This allows students to work on their own and they should be able to work on bigger projects. These projects can be assignments, but a website or a portfolio would also work really well. A webquest can take up as many lessons as you would like: you can do one in one lesson, but it can also run through an entire term. Each and every teacher can create a webquest and you can choose any subject you would like.

Click here for an example webquest on decorating a cake

Advantages of using webquests

1. Participating in a webquest teaches students to use the internet effectively. A teacher should't send students to a website for some copy-pasting but students should be directed to a page where they really have to give some thought to the topic of the webquest.
2. Using webquests can have a positive influence on student motivation. Students have claimed they like this way of learning because it appeals to their curiosity (Abbit & Ophus, 2008).
3. A webquest calls for collaboration and therefore trains students in this skill. Because they are working in groups, students can give input on several levels, such as the activation of prior knowledge, skills,and attitude.
4. Webquests give teachers the opportunity to differentiate where content and work process are involved.
5. Teachers can also differentiate in the final product
6. Using a webquests is a way to integrate technology in lessons and in learning.
7. Students with disabilities appear to be more motivated and finish more assignments when technology is incorporated in lessons.
8. Webquests make it easier to help students with dyslexia because text and lay out can easily be adjusted (think of fonts, size of letters, underlining, or even websites that read text out loud to students)
9. A webquest provides students with

• a well-structured environment
• clear step by step guides to the final product
• a list of suitable sources
• instructions for gathering information for a project.

How do you come up with a webquest idea?

1. Pick a subject you think needs to be worked on and on which information is easily accessible on the internet.
2. What do you want students to be able to do after completing the webquest?
3. How do you want students to complete the assignments?
4. What will the webquest yield/what is the final product? A report? A presentation?
5. Which sources can be used? Find at least five suitable websites.
6. How will you grade the assignment? Add a rubric if you have one.
7. Come up with a way to evaluate the assignment and the webquest.
8. Write down important information for teachers on the teacher page. Students have no business on this page..

Where can I create a webquest?
There are many places to create online webquests, but I will focus on Zunal for this blog. If you want to try another one you can go to Google and look for 'make webquest online' for example.

Step by step guide to your first webquest!

Step 1: Go to www.zunal.com and click the pink button that says 'Register Free'.

Step 2: Create an account. Zunal only allows you to have one account which should only be used by you. You can collaborate with others but only if you all have separate accounts. A free account lets you create one webquest. If you would like to have several webquests up and running at the same time you can upgrade to a Pro account ($20, which is about 15 euros, for three years). If you do not want this, you can obviously create multiple accounts by using multiple e-mail addresses. I have to say that I found this a bit of a shame...

Step 3: Finished? Press Click Here and log in! You will see the following screen: 

Click the pink button to create your first webquest. 

Step 4: Click the blue button that says 'Create a webquest from scratch'. This means you are going to create a webquest that requires you to fill out every page. You can update them after you've finished, so there is no need to be a perfectionist ;)

Step 5: You will now see a pop up screen in which you can write the title of your webquest. Click 'Create now' to continue. If you want to continue working, click 'Continue'... Nooooooo surely not!!! Yes, please do..

Step 6: You have now arrived at the Welcome page. In the middle of your screen are a couple of gray buttons: Update Image (allows you to add an image), Update webquest Information (to specify the information) and Add Resources (to add... resources, basically). If you click 'Update Webquest Information'  you will see that it is quite clear what is expected of you...

Zunal does this on every page: it give you a chapter and tells you exactly what kind of information should be in there. Perfection! Look at the Task page for example:

Step 7: So imagine: you have filled out theWelcome page and you now want to add an English-Dutch dictionary as a link for your students to use. To do this, you have to click the Add Resources button. You will see a pop up appear and this pop up contains several options. I mostly use Add Website, Attach a file en Attach a Photo.  For an online dictionary, choose option 2: Add Website URL. Choose a title, paste the link and if you want to, enter a description. Click Save Now and your link has been added to your webquest.

Many things are possible so I suggest you just go ahead and click on some random buttons to see what happens. Zunal gives you examples for almost everything, so there's not much that can go wrong...

PS: webquests mix very well with Edmodo and with Flipping the Classroom!