Presentations, Presentations, and Prezi

I've had so many ideas for posts I'd like to write lately -- including sharing great ARCs I've read by Jennifer Ann Kogler (The Death Catchers) and Sherry Shahan (The Purple Daze) (both coming soon!) --  but I've failed to get to. Instead, I've been overwhelmed with presentations in the last couple of months. Since January 10, I've done nine presentations! One more to go this coming Thursday, and then I'll have a break, and hope to have more writing time.  In the meantime, here are links to the presentation fiIes for most of my recent presentations in case any of your would like to check them out.

• Presentation about the Manhattan Beach USD Libraries for the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation, prepared by me and Debby Kalenik, Library Specialist at the our middle school, and Heidi Snively, Barbara Siegemund-Broka, Julie Jones, and Yukari Matsuyama, Library Specialists at our elementary schools.
• CSLA's Web 2.0 Tutorials for the California School Library Association (CSLA) Southern Section Workshop
• CSLA's Teen Learning 2.0 Tutorial for CUE (Computer Using Educators) Conference, with Sheryl Grabow-Weiss
• Ignite Interest and Inspire Your Audience with Prezi.com Presentations and Lessons for the CUE Conference, with Jani Nelson

Manhattan Beach USD Staff Professional Development Sessions:

• CSLA's Classroom Learning 2.0 Tutorial 
• Creative Commons, What Is It, and Why Do I Need to Know About It?  (including information about copyright, fair use, and Flickr.com as a source for Creative Commons images)
• Bring Asynchronous Conversation to Life with VoicThread (mostly a repeat of my November presentation at the CSLA Annual Conference)

If you click the links, you will see that I did all of these using Prezi.com, my current tool of choice for presentations. The only presentation I have done lately without Prezi was my hands-on session about Google Docs and iGoogle, for which I didn't have a formal presentation. Why do I love Prezi? ... I first learned about it when I was a virtual attendee at NECC session in 2009 by Steve Dembo. I was blown away by the pizzaz of his presentation. I set myself a goal of using it for a presentation. I learn more about its power each time I create a new Prezi. It offers so much flexibility in terms of laying out a presentation on a free-form canvas, presenting on or off a set path, grouping items in multiple different ways for viewing during a presentation, and zooming in and out to drill down to more detail or for surprise effect. Check my Prezi presentation for CUE above to learn a little more about why this tool has captured my heart. :) Give it a try if you haven't already. Prezi also just introduced an iPad app. When my iPad 2 finally arrives in the mail, it will be one of the first apps I'll be checking out.