I learned through this assignment how boring regular PowerPoint presentations seem to me now. I think it would take a great deal of time and effort to make a PowerPoint as interesting and captivating as a Prezi. Even though I barely scratched the surface of Prezi's capabilities, I am completely hooked on the zooming aspect and think that creating a path between different groups of information is much cooler than flipping through slides. I especially loved how easy it was to incorporate videos and images, especially the fact that you can search for an image without opening an internet browser. The Declaration of Independence video I included is still one of my favorite tunes, and was really the force behind my decision to focus on the topic. In the future, I really want to go further and figure out how to turn my pictures into questions or reveal hidden answers...all of those cool features that I haven't mastered yet.
On my next Prezi, I will certainly get better about fitting the frame for different groups of information so that the content doesn't overlap. With this presentation, sometimes when I zoomed into a statement or an image you could see some text from another statement in the corner, which could be very distracting for students. I need to make sure that the screen shot is only of the specific content or statement I am focusing on at that moment. I also wish to focus more on different vocabulary words. I saw so many cool ideas that other classmates had where the screen would zoom into a letter in the word and the definition would be written within the letter.
What I regret the most is that I incorporated too much information, it was too broad of a spectrum. I should have focused on only one of the bullets under the SOL and gone into more detail. I had intended for this lesson to be taught at the end of the unit as review, but I still think that I could have either gone into more detail on the content I presented, or narrowed the amount. As for presentation, it appears that I'm very quiet. This is something I have always struggled with and need to make a conscious effort to improve. I also got a few comments that I was monotone and therefore seemed disinterested, and I don't want my students thinking this! I had no idea I sounded so drab and now I'm glad I know. In conclusion, the main thing I want to focus on for my next assignment is narrowing the scope of information, I want to focus more on less information- less is more!
