Check back in a few days for an interview with former colleague, dear friend and recent author, Dr. Phil Sinitiere. Phil's first manuscript, Holy Mavericks, rolled off the presses recently and I'm eager to share some of his experiences here.
In particular, I've asked Phil to share his thoughts on why educational leaders should write, why educational leaders should encourage others around them to write, what his administration offered in way of support of his writing, and more. I believe this will be both informative and inspiring.
Now that the school year is winding down, I'm excited that I'll have time to jump into Holy Mavericks and perhaps to do a little writing of my own. See you back here in a few days!
I have to thank Shawn Liner, my science department chair, for introducing me to Prezi. Powerpoint has been a pretty effective presentation tool for many years now. While you can embed all sorts of cool stuff in ppt presentations, Shawn was pretty bored with ppt and set out to find the its replacement. He may have done just that when he came across a great new presentation software called Prezi. Shawn posted recently about Prezi on his blog.
So, what is so cool about Prezi? First, no more slides. In fact, Prezi is completely nonlinear so it can be as wild as you want it to be. I really can't explain it as well as as Peter Arvai, CEO of Prezi, so I'll let him explain it.
One of the greatest things about the new presentation format by Prezi, in my opinion, is the appeal it has for today's digital native learners who aren't wired to think in a linear fashion. Prezi allows you complete freedom and control when it comes to how you lay out the presentation and how you navigate through it. What a great teaching tool. Another thing I love about Prezi is that it works perfectly with our Activboards. Activboards plus Prezi certainly is a winning combination for getting kids' attention!
Will it take some getting used to? Will it take some teachers a while to get the hang of it? Sure. If it reaches our digital native kids, though, isn't it worth the effort?
