Power- Up
All my life up until my first year, at The University of Toronto, where I completed my undergraduate degree, I had only ever used PowerPoints or Bristle Boards to complete any assignments or projects that needed to be presented. That all changed the moment a friend introduced me to Prezi! For our final group presentation I volunteered to be in charge of our PowerPoint, then a group member responded with, “maybe we should make a Prezi to make it look more fun and creative”. I asked questions, showed my concern as to never hearing about Prezi ever before. Questions such as, “is Prezi easily accessible”? “Is it free”? They then showed me all I needed to know and that was that, I never went back to PowerPoint ever again! The Prezi we made for that class really did keep the audience engaged and interested because the presentation had not been formatted to be slide after slide, but shown in the form of a newspaper article that jumped from texts and images with video clips as well.
What I learned from this experience, well I can say I learned that technology although ever evolving is not as difficult as I thought it to be. I personally always stuck to the traditional pen and paper, I preferred handwritten notes over typed notes and I liked the feeling of presenting with Bristle Boards. Mostly because I had never been a fan of trying new things and technology; truth be told frightened me. When the group suggested we do a Prezi, after I volunteered to do the PowerPoint, it then became my responsibility. Being taken out of my comfort zone I panicked and lost all my confidence. Days went by and I practiced and fiddled around with Prezi in my free time. At first I had been extremely overwhelmed because there were endless possibilities and the better I wanted it to look the more tedious it became. I’m glad I had a great group, they let me know what worked and what didn’t, but they also encouraged me to make it my own without putting too much pressure on me. As I mentioned the presentation went well and I in turn gained a new skill and learning experience!