If you use either, which one do you use, and why are you more comfortable with it ? I used to do Prezi, but not for 'teaching' stuff ... Powerpoint mainly for teaching as I find the animations really powerful and flexible to create exercises, games, interactive activities ..etc What are your views ?
My view is that Prezi is pretty awful for most things. Unless you have a very specific purpose (timelines and concept mapping in particular) there is just little to no reason for it. Powerpoint, as you said, is just so much more powerful and flexible. Prezi having almost no interactivity to it just makes it a flashy-for-the-sake-of-flash presentation tool.
I have attempted to use Prezi. A technology teacher used it for her lesson and I thought it looked amazing. I thought it was incredibly difficult to use. PowerPoint is just so easy.
I have been using PowerPoint for over 20 years. I had some great teachers teach me, and I also have been a PowerPoint instructor. It really can do far more than most people use it with. I have tried Prezi, and it is okay at best. I am sure there is more to it than I have used, but I just haven't seen any reason to use it instead of PowerPoint. PowerPoint seems to do much more and is much easier to use.
I always use Powerpoint. It's easy and I'm not using it for anything fancy, but I feel that I really rely on it every day. I have used Prezi, and although at first it seems very complicated, that's just due to it being different. I know if I used it every day it would feel as easy to use as a Powerpoint. But the reason I don't use it is because I feel that a Prezi should be used for specific things. For example: when I thought Geography, I went over the different regions we were going to cover. So I put up a world map and zoomed in on Japan for example, and showed pictures, videos, etc, then zoomed out, zoomed in somewhere else, and did the same thing. It was pretty cool, couldn't do it with a Powerpoint. But for what I use a Powerpoint (warm up, students copy, or questions, images, etc) a Prezi is too much of a hassle when a Powerpoint will do the job just fine. And when I use a Prezi, I always download it to an actual file, because I don't trust the internet (with my luck, our wireless signal would give out at the time I need it), and that is a huge hassle.
I use PowerPoint. The few Prezis I've created were only after making a PowerPoint of the same materials. I need to see the linear progress through the info before I can go all Prezi on it. I use the heck out of PowerPoint.
I only use Prezi when I am doing workshops for other teachers just for the "flashinness" but teach with PowerPoint.
Prezi and Powerpoint, along with Google Slides, Haiku Deck, Keynote and others are all powerful. They all have their learning curve. Though I personally prefer Keynote first, and Haiku second and Google Slides third, our students and teachers have used all of the above and here are some quick experiences: Prezi - has a lot of animations that can either be engaging, or distracting (gets me dizzy a lot of the times) Powerpoint/Keynote - classic presentation apps that has a lot of options Google Slides - simplified versions of Powerpoint/Keynote. But very boring templates Haiku - created by TED Talk folks, this is very simple and limits you closer to the "rule of 7" presentation tips. Btw The rule of 7: 7 slides, 7 points, no more than 7 words per slide and all in 7 minutes. Studies are showing that today attention span is dropping hard. Its now worse than a goldfish!! Whatever you are using, make sure that the fancy stuff doesn't take away from the message, and really hone in the message efficiently. Fred
Prezi makes me go nuts. I'm pretty tech savvy but I do not always understand how people have organized their information on Prezi and it's pretty stupid to have to click all over the place and figure out what that small font is saying. Slide after slide is simple, but it's organized and I don't have to click all over the place to try to find what I need.
I use PowerPoint. I generally only use PowerPoint when I want students to take notes on something. I don't both making my power points fancy or flashy. My background is notebook paper and I write my notes on the page exactly as the students should copy the notes into their notebooks. I even have it sized so that most students end up with the same words on each line unless their handwriting is very small or very large. While learning to take notes based on extra information or on speaking is a skill that my students should learn, my kiddos just aren't ready for that. In previous years, many of my students were behind in class because they couldn't tAke notes well. I also give open note tests (since my tests ask students to apply information), so students having good notes is especially important. I have used Prezi for a few things, but I find it more cumbersome than it is worth.
