Prezi and SpicyNodes

My students love to make presentations in PowerPoint. But, there are only so many times you can look at the same PowerPoint theme and 40 nauseating transitions before you want to bang your head off your desk. Frankly, my students feel the same way. If teachers use the same presentations over and over again, they tune out.

A fellow teacher told me about Prezi.com, a presentation site and I stumbled across it's cousin site SpicyNodes.org by accident. Both sites allow you to create interactive presentations that you can share in class, on your blog and edit on the fly. They also offer you the opportunity for your students to create presentations that will blow your mind.

The Cool:

• Both sites are very engaging to students and teachers.


• Both sites allow users to add pictures, Youtube video and text.


• Both sites offer free user accounts: Prezi.com offers you an upgraded free education account with more than enough perks to make it worth the upgrade.


• Prezi.com offers collaborative workspace. So, students and teachers can work together on the same project without having to hover over the same computer screen.

The Mediocre:

• Neither site allows you to set up sub licensed accounts for students


• Prezi.com can be frustrating for teachers and students who are not creative thinkers or patient with technology--It requires a level of computer knowledge that goes a step or two past "average"


• SpicyNodes.org is very linear in the way it is laid out and very user-friendly, but there is limited space for text

Examples:

I created each of these presentations in under 30 minutes for use in my classes. The students loved them.

What is Allusion in Literature on Prezi