Digital Stories

The History of the Peace Sign on Prezi

This week I've spent some time playing with various different digital presentation programs that are available online. The one I chose to use is called Prezi. In the most basic sense, it is a really creative and interactive version of PowerPoint. You can still give a cohesive and interesting presentation with pictures and text, but it can be controlled by the viewer so it is more conducive to being shared online (such as in a blog) than only for use as a presentation. It makes the project much more entertaining and interesting to watch and explore than a simple PowerPoint.

I chose to put together a very brief project on the history of the peace sign. The idea behind it was for a lesson on counter culture of the 1960s. I really enjoy planning lessons that employ collaborative learning. There is that old adage that you learn more by teaching others, but I really do believe it is true. I like the idea of having students research something specific in groups and then sharing it with the rest of the class. This could be incorporated into a current US History class (usually 10th or 11th grade). I would be really interesting to hear how effective my sample presentation was. Since I know the full narrative in my head, I would like to know if I was able to convey the information with minimal text.

Overall I really enjoyed using Prezi. It was a little bit difficult to get used to the different wants to manipulate text and pictures because it is so different from any other program. Also, there are several tutorials on the site but once you enter the design template there is not much assistance. Some of the sample presentations on the site are really amazing but they unfortunately require a higher (i.e. you have to pay for it) version of the program. I'm looking forward to playing with the site more to see what else you can do with it. I think the future I would make sure I pick a topic that lends itself to using a lot of visuals. The peace sign was an interesting idea but I didn't realize that pictures for it would not vary much.