This was a great exercise and it was a humbling one for me. I am always telling my students to read the instructiions and I failed to do so for this exercise and had to do some major revamping. I missed the ‘story’ part and got focused on the technology and what I could create for a digital lesson for my course. What I learned is that stories can be just as engaging as a ‘lesson’ and that they are very different. I also learned that applications in the cloud are great for making copies (I saved the original version and then adapted my work for more of a story version) and for making quick and rapid change.
With prezi, I could remove frames, change the order, add images, alter text and make radical changes to the order and feeling of the presentation in a very short period of time. This is a fantastic option because the presentation can be retasked for different audiences and functions in a short period of time without losing any of the content or educational value. It is also availabe from any location that has access to the internet and can be shared with viewers that are not in the same physical location. These remote viewers can contribute comments or even edit the content which would be great in a collaborative project.
For educational purposes, the tool allowed me to move through space and to switch from outer space to earth in a very visual manner that is very true to the subject matter (the GPS system) and it is often very difficult to teach this section of the course in the classroom because it is dry and content heavy. In the prezi environment, a lot of information can be shared in a graphic and visual manner and the spatial context is easy to create and share with students. In the story presented here, The lesson has been adapted for a nine year old with questions about what I teach my students and what GPS does and means. I think it would be an interesting experiment to teach students in grade 3 or 4 about GPS and then allow them to try out a GPS unit, calculate their position on the ground and match it to a map and then download their work to something like google maps or Google Earth. It would be a good introduction to how things work and how they can be used for some pretty great projects. I supported one of the teachers at my daughters school with GPS and the mapping of invasive species in a pond habitat. The subject was Bull frogs and Grade 3 and 4 students used a recreational GPS to get the positions where they found the frogs and then sent the coordinates on to the Ministry of Environment for their records. How great would it be to tie a GPS lesson on to that project so they learn about the technology they are using as well as the issues of invasive species and pond ecosystems.