Apps 101: Prezi!

Apps 101: Prezi!

Link to Prezi

Link to Prezi Lesson Plan

    Prezi is an incredible app that we can use in our future classrooms. It is focused around making visuals that can be used for multiple purposes. 

    The lesson plan link above was made by myself, and Chelsey Rains, and uses Prezi as a tool to make a character trait mind map! The lesson is meant to be facilitated in a 3rd grade classroom, and takes outcomes from both the English Language Arts curriculum, and the Information and Communication Technology Program of Studies. Specifically, the lesson was focused around "examin[ing] major characters in fictional texts" (New LearnAlberta, n.d.), and "process[ing] information from more than one source to retell what has been discovered" (Alberta Education, 2000-2003).

    Our lesson was planned to be the first of a series of 2-3, following an "I do," "we do," "you do" approach. The part that we facilitated to our peers was the "I do" portion in which Chelsey and I demonstrated how to use Prezi as a tool to make an interactive character trait map. Chelsey and I worked closely for this assignment and had very similar outlooks for how we wanted the lesson to pan out. This made planning the lesson simple, and was of great use to me as I will be both team teaching and team planning during my practicum!

    Some of the feedback from our peers included: A general consensus that using a character such as SpongeBob was a great way to engage students, visuals were useful to the assignment, the lesson was broken down into manageable steps, and that the lesson was interactive as the teacher worked with the students. 

    After facilitating this lesson to our peers in class, I took a handful of things from the experience. First, I would double check that where I were facilitating this lesson has a functioning SMART Board and keyboard to write the students' answers. This was the first "issue" that Chelsey and I encountered, so we had to alter it on the spot. Since we could not use the keyboard to actively type student responses, our solution was to write the answers using the SMART Board markers. Only halfway through facilitating the lesson did I realize that instead of having myself write all the answers, I should have been inviting our "students" up to write their responses in en effort to make the lesson more engaging and interactive. Upon reflection I realize that by doing all the writing myself, it made the lesson feel as though it were a lecture, and took away from the collaborative piece that we intended to have with this lesson from the beginning. Finally, I feel like Prezi would be more suited for older grades. I say this as after starting our planning, Chelsey and I realized that Prezi can begin to glitch once you have 10+ people working in the same document. If all of our "students" had been working in it, the app could have potentially begun to glitch. Because of this, Prezi would be better suited for either individual or partner work, which we see more often in older grades!

    This was definitely a learning experience, and upon reflection I see where I could have altered things in the moment to make it run more smoothly!

References

Alberta Education. (2000-2003). Information and communication technology. https://education.alberta.ca/media/3114953/ictpos.pdf. 

New LearnAlberta. (n.d.). English language arts and literature. Retrieved September 28, 2023, from https://curriculum.learnalberta.ca/curriculum/en/c/laneng5. 

[Photograph of Prezi Logo]. (n.d.). Prezi. Retrieved September 26, 2023, from https://prezi.com/login/.