Online Mind Mapping with Prezi?

For those of you out there who teach english, be sure (if you haven't already) to join the powerhouse social community English Teacher's Companion Ning, created by San Francisco-based high school english teacher Jim Burke (gosh, I'm already feeling self-conscious about my grammar as I write this). 

I've been poking around in Jim's amazing community for a day or so but I first heard about it when it was awarded the ever so prestigious 2009 Edublog Award for Best Educational Use of a Social Networking Service.  Bravo!  I believe social networking is still the most underutilized aspect of web 2.0 in education.  I've shed light on Ning in previous posts and discussed how I've used it in my own teaching as a supplemental environmental to a learning management system for students to share and reflect in response to specific blog prompts through text, image and video.

Well, Jim has embraced Ning and molded it into a resource for english teachers (but there are clearly lessons here for all teachers!).  I, for one, had a light bulb moment just as I watched one of the wonderful videos that was shared by a member of the network, Tim Larkin, a teacher from Burlingame, CA.  Tim has his english students create visual mind-maps to communicate ideas and concepts after reading MacBeth.  Hmmm. 

Now I've seen mind mapping before and I've been very intrigued about it as a learning process.  For awhile I've been trying to theorize a way to make this activity work successfully in an online environment but couldn't put my finger on the right tool to make it work.  But as I watched the video below (recorded with a liberating Flip video camera, by the way -- I love mine too!) which illustrates the colorful, lively mind map created by Larkin's student, I thought, "Would Prezi work for this?" 

As the video swirled in and out in a circular motion, it began to remind me of the Prezi zoom/canvas interface which allows the user to place content anywhere on the clean white canvas, much like a stretch of white paper.  The interplay of images and text in the mind map have a clear correlation with Prezi too -- but, with Prezi, the content could become interactive, taking the reader/user to a level beyond the surface of the "paper."  Intriguing.  Anyone want to give it a a try?  If you do, please share!


Find more videos like this on English Companion Ning

Hello Prezi - So Long Powerpoint!

For years I've been part of the anti-Powerpoint movement -- the group of individuals painfully opposed to educators who presumably "teach" with their entire lecture written on their slides, transforming their physical existence into a mere auditory translation of the text for the bored-out-of-their-mind students. I've considered the importance of teaching the "art" of designing effective presentations but today, I think I stumbled upon the answer.

Web 2.0 does it again -- another beautifully integrated, easy to use tool that turns the concept of a presentation inside out by focusing on key words and visuals spread out over a continuous two dimensional canvas, using hierarchy and zoom to convey importance. Now I can't help but draw the lovely metaphor between an artist's toolkit and the Prezi interface, as we embrace our new methods of creating in the 21st century (as an art history I rejoice in seeing the arts influence business innovations processes so inherently).

Here is a simple demo of Prezi so you can get the idea then you can take a trip over to the Prezi showcase to view lots more samples (many which are simply mimicking the Powerpoint interface, you'll catch on to them after awhile).




I also rejoice in a move towards a visually-centric content creation tool. This makes all the difference. Moving away from an interface that requires a user to click through pages or slides is a huge leap for the western user ... bravo Prezi! I have felt constrained and challenged as an art historian, and I've been very vocal about this in presentations I've given in recent years, as I've attempted to craft learning activities for my students to effectively achieve objectives focused on visual learning. But how does one have students engage, critique, analyze and study an image in a text-centric learning management system (like Blackboard)? That has been my biggest challenge as an online educator and that was specifically why I began to migrate outside of Blackboard and started to dabble with web 2.0 tools (like VoiceThread and Ning).

So, check out Prezi. It's quite amazing. Hmmm. Prezi training for educators and students-generated Prezi projects? Sounds like a turning point! And for those of you who are eager to ask the question, yes, Prezi offers subscription options that give you the ability to keep your content private. There is also an option for a "Public License" for students and teachers which I wasn't able to get more details about, as I am not currently teaching right now (unless somebody wants to hire me?? Grin.).

To learn more about Prezi, visit the Learning Center which provides many beautifully done, easy-to-follow video tutorials.