Thing 17 - Prezi and Slideshare

Prezi

I’d heard of Prezi, but I hadn’t explored it for myself, so I was interested to see what it was all about. I watched the presentations suggested in the Thing 17 blog post, and I can see that it could be very useful for presenting ideas in a non-linear fashion. However, I have some reservations. All the zooming in and out and moving around made me feel a bit sick, and I would worry that the bright colours and snazzy graphics of the presentation might overshadow any actual content. Also, just because Prezi looks impressive, it doesn’t mean it is the best medium for all content. Some information might be better presented this way, but some might still work best when displayed in a linear fashion. I won’t abandon PowerPoint just yet.

I had a look around some other cpd23 blogs and saw that several participants have had a go at making their own Prezis. I was particularly impressed by Infopromom's Prezi resume and Annie Johnson's adventures in Dublin. I was temporarily inspired to create my own presentation based on a recent holiday to Iceland, but I actually found Prezi quite difficult to use and didn’t want to spend hours on it for no real purpose. I don’t create presentations as part of my job, so this software isn’t necessary to me just yet. If I ever do need to create a presentation for whatever reason, I might go back to it and give it another try.

Slideshare

 

Again, I’d heard of Slideshare and in the past I’ve used it to view presentations from conferences. I’ll continue to do this as it’s very handy to be able to view these all in one place. I’ve never uploaded anything to Slideshare, and I don’t suppose I will until I am called on to create a presentation for work or some other career-related reason, but it’s good to know I have the option.

I’m not keen on the idea of posting a CV up here. I’d rather stick to the standard Word format in all honesty, and only send it to the people I want to see it – not stick it on Slideshare for all to see!