Day 4

When I arrived home, I tested my Prezi by copying the link sent to Tom through the "Share" option on the Prezi homepage. What I discovered was that my hyperlinks opened to new tabs, but only behind the full-screen Prezi window, meaning I would have to hit the Esc key each time I wanted to exit the Prezi from full-screen mode in order to access the tabs. The whole back-and-forth between the windows is just not conducive to learning so I thought I might try it in a different browser, such as Safari. Safari was even worse! At least Chrome would create tabs, even if I couldn't see them behind the Prezi window I had open. I poured over several blogs and message boards only to find no solution. The only thing I did realize was that it worked properly when I hit the SHOW button in the EDIT mode. That is what I did during class which led me to believe that it was working well. I find this to be a major limitation of the software, unless there is something I missed that would solve it.

As for the nauseating motion sickness effect from the back & forth of my slides, the only thing that could fix that is a total redesign. I placed the images first, and then paired them up with the principles that I thought best matched them, and as a result, I have paths all over the place, creating that motion sickness effect. Next time I make a Prezi, I'll have the foresight to categorize bits of information first and have the paths moving in a clockwise direction. That would make it easier on the eyes of the viewer.

As I previewed my presentation, I also realized that I need to learn how to adjust the Jing screen casts so that they take a video of the entire screen at once, without the need to scroll up and across. Again, it's just not conducive to learning the skills in Photoshop or Illustrator when one needs to scroll up and over constantly to access the different panels.

This has truly been a valuable learning experience. I hope that tomorrow, the audience will gain some insight into how the software could be used in a different capacity, as I hope too, to learn new applications of the programs as well. I truly believe that my students will appreciate the use of the screen casts when they need to review techniques in Photoshop & Illustrator. It will be a relief to me too not to answer the same question a dozen times! I can just direct them to the screen cast that I'll have available for them! Although Prezi has a long way to go in terms of making the software more intuitive, I plan to revamp my former powerpoints with Prezi, particularly the back-to-school night presentations, as a way to impress parents about the dynamic art program at our school that fully embraces new technology!