Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Starting Prezi

In order to use Prezi, you must first sign up and select a plan. Do not worry; one of the plans is completely free and will be more than sufficient for you to begin working in this platform. From the prezi welcome screen (http://www.prezi.com), simply click on “Sign up” and provide the necessary information to the system. You will be urged to select a screen name and a password when you do so. You have options regarding pricing, so simply check the one that is free; this will allow you to store your work on the Prezi server but not work offline.

Once you begin working in Prezi, you will see what is known as the “Prezi Bubble Menu.” This does not look like your typical Windows menu system, because each menu choice appears as a circle, or, like a bubble, if you will. There is one main center bubble and 5 smaller bubbles around it. This is where all the action takes place. You will have these bubbles to choose from:

Write Bubble: this is how you can add text to the presentation and then format the text.

Transformation Bubble: This bubble is actually located inside the Write Bubble, and it allows you to move, resize or rotate any object you upload into the canvas (the canvas being the “whiteboard “ space you place all items into).

Insert Bubble: This is a submenu that includes commands Load Files as well as the command Shapes.

Frame Bubble: this has submenus offering you Bracket, Circle, Rectangle, and Hidden Frame bubbles.

Path Bubble: here you find 1-2-3 ADD, Capture View and Delete All bubbles.

Colors and Fonts Bubble: here you get to select the style for your presentation.

There is also the Show Bubble, which is the one from which you will present. In Show mode, the Bubble menu disappears and planning lines on screen are removed. You can set Autoplay options here and set timing if you wish, and you can also manually zoom in and out.

To use Prezi, you need to have Adobe Flash 9.0 or higher, 1gb memory, and a mouse, with an operating system of Windows XP, Vista or 7 and Mac OS X. When you log onto Prezi, there are 3 tabs on the screen. One is “Your Prezis.” This is where you can access all the Prezis you create, and as you create a number fo these, you can also organize them so that you an easily locate the one you need. There is the “Learn” tab. Clicking on this will allow you locate training sessions in Prezi, at the beginner, intermediate and expert level- there are text documents as well as video clips. There are links to tips and ideas from other creators, and there is also a link to the Prezi manual. Finally, the last tab is “Explore.” This is a page that can link you to other people’s Prezis as well as to message board and community resources.

Please note that one of the links- at least as I write- is to a Prezi presentation about how to convert your PowerPoint presentations into a Prezi. I recommend looking at this and playing around with the system.

To see a Prezi in action, click on http://prezi.com/recyyolzxm3e/how-to-create-a-great-prezi/, and use the arrow button at the bottom of the screen to take you through a Prezi about creating great Prezis. Enjoy and play around with this.

1 comment:

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