I admit that I use power point frequently while teaching. I think it's a great medium for communicating biology concepts, because images are so important to learning this content: diagrams of complex processes like the carbon cycle and microscopic phenomena like cellular metabolism are brought to life with images. I have a lot of time invested in my power points, and spend quite a bit of time refining them each year, so I hesitate to begin using another format. I have been aware of Prezi for perhaps a year now, and while I find the format interesting because of it's "otherness", I am not convinced at this point that it's "better" than a traditional linear power point. However, "better" is not necessarily the point - variety can be a good thing. So I created an account and made a Prezi. I noticed that one can upload power point slides an manipulate them, so I tried using a portion of my slides on water pollution. This Prezi focuses on 4 primary types of water pollutants, symbolized by the acronym TONS.
The transition was not smooth. One thing I discovered is that much of my text had to be re-formatted in order to fit onto the Prezi slides. I don't have a lot of time to work on it now, but at least I have the basics down. There's a fairly steep learning curve here, it appears, and I consider myself fairly computer-savy. Anyway, here it is.
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