It is universally acknowledged that powerpoint is closed related with presentation nowadays. Every time when students are required to make a presentation, they will be offered with several evaluations about their power points. There have been some problems when my students were required to give presentations with power points. Firstly, the format of the powerpoint is over emphasized, deserting the importance of the content itself. Secondly, some students believed the main function of powerpoint is like the readable transcript, so they usually typed many paragraphs of their speech, even including “Good morning, I’m gonna introduce…” these opening words. It literally makes the powerpoint and the whole presentation boring and pointless.
Edward Tufte, in his “PowerPoint is Evil”, challenged the overwhelming powerpoint, deliberating that school students have fallen into the powerpoint cognitive style, regardless of the main aim of writing a report. It makes me to reconsider the question ” Have these powerpoint templates made our presentation simpler, or our presentation has been simplified, or oversimplified, by these powerpoint templates?” The most skeptical issue of these powerpoint templates is that the reasoning could be barely shown from the straightforward table. It is true that students including teachers have descended from the notion that writing or giving a presentation is to demonstrate how students reason, and more importantly, all the tables, pictures and even videos should facilitate the process of reasoning. However, we are kind of lost, on the road…
When it goes to Prezi, I was totally amazed by the more extensive use of images and movements, and by the effectiveness of embedding videos and the straightforwardness of using space on the screen. Most importantly, users are endowed with more sense of creation by using the Prezi.
There is my Prezi project about Chinese culture:What Do You Know About China?
There is another merit worthy to be mentioned, is that Prezi could be edited together, which could be an effective tool to organize students’ teamwork.
leisunkaren 