Watch Out Powerpoint, There's a New Sheriff in Town

I may have said that Jing was the most useful software we have covered in class. I should have said it was the most useful software we have covered in class that week, because clearly, Prezi is the most useful software covered in class (for the week that it was covered.)

If you have followed this blog over the course of the previous posts, then you know what I am about to say regarding the software used in IT 644. Everyone say it with me now: it’s FREE and it’s SO EASY TO USE. And srsly, it pwns .ppt liek whoa. I know. I just broke every grammar rule known to man, but geek-speak is appropriate when getting excited about free and easy software.

Prezi is presentation software that simulates a blank slate or drawing board, as it were. It gives you the ability to plop words, themes, content, and media onto the “board” in non-linear “brain-storm” format. Each piece of information is counted as a “slide”, even if it placed halfway across the board and upside down from the previous piece of information. I found this anti-structure to be so much more conducive to creating a presentation that the slot-by-slot, paint by numbers rigidity of Powerpoint. Once all of your data is placed on the board, you point and click the path that determines the sequence the slides will be presented in. Setting the order of the presentation is literally no more complicated than moving your mouse to each piece of information. If you want to re-order the slides you can easily back track and renumber or you can manipulate the paths to expand and include pieces of information left out.

Prezi has built in animation, so no matter what position your information is in on your board (facing in direction in 360 degrees) it will rotate to right side up when it is presented. This animation makes for good visual interest in the overall flow of the presentation.

Media entry is also ridiculously easy. Uploading images is simply a matter of browsing the image and clicking “open” (as you would in any email attachment). Surprisingly, video is even easier. Locate a clip on YouTube and cut and paste the URL into the Prezi text box. No html codes, no embedding hassle. Cut. Paste. Done. It is important to note that if you download your Prezi for offline work or presentation, you will need internet access at the time of the presentation for the YouTube videos to appear.

Prezi is not without its nuances. For example, if you pause your Prezi while presenting and the computer goes to screensaver, when you commence with your Prezi, it may reset to the beginning. Also, in editing the Prezi, if you are coming and going in and out of the Prezi screen, the zoom may change with each visit to the page, resulting in your first slide appearing microscopic and your last slide appearing gigantic. These are quirks that most likely can be avoided with a little practice.

I would much rather create and/or watch a Prezi than a Powerpoint, and I look forward to using it professionally. Powerpoints are widely used in litigation and I look forward to getting a Prezi in front of a jury. I think it will be an effective and attention-holding tool.

For this project, I made a Prezi of one of my passions, Chinese cinema, and in particular, one of my favorite directors, Zhang Yimou. It was a lot of fun to put together.

Zhang Yimou's Wuxia Trilogy on Prezi