Thing 20: Laying down roots.

I’ve enjoyed looking at the Library Routes Project wiki and seeing the paths other people have taken to get into the wonderful world of librarianship. However, I’ve decided to go a little off piste for this Thing as I wanted to do something a bit different and have a go at implementing a new skill learned through cpd23. Thus behold! I have had a go at creating a Prezi presentation of my library roots/route! Perhaps not the most comprehensive biographical run down of my library experience, but here goes. This is the link http://prezi.com/nxhpwhx2ox6r/copy-of-library-roots-and-routes/

Thing 17: Opening my Prezi!

I have had a quick nose around Slideshare, but I’ve concentrated most of my efforts for this Thing on Prezi. This is entirely new to me and I have to say I’ve really rather enjoyed getting to grips with it. It is an utterly different kettle of fish to the now much familiar PowerPoint presentation. You know pretty much what you are going to get with PowerPoint (no offence) but Prezi is indeed rather dynamic! Moving well away from linear presentation styles and allowing a more free-flowing, bells and whistles approach! I’m really rather taken with it!

Does take a bit of getting used to getting a handle on the different features (all that talk of bubbles and zebras) and generally overcoming some initial bouts of motion sickness from some of the whizzing about, but once you’ve got that sorted it is actually quite fun! There was a helpful video on YouTube which I made reference to which helped me to get a handle on things. Then I was off playing about with it! Even some very basic and frankly shoddy creations ended up looking relatively swish (though they were quickly deleted for fear of initial trials being actually seen and judged).

Admittedly I think creating a Prezi does definitely benefit from having a bit of a plan of action laid down before you start (as the very sage Ned Potter advises), just so you know where you are going and don’t end up roving all over the place and making yourself dizzy!

This will be a marvellous tool for future presentations or generally using to get some ideas across. Indeed, I’ve already got a little project in mind for it….watch this space!