Mindmapping using Prezi

Having an exam tomorrow I felt I needed an overview of topics to be tested on (history of science and philosophy). I needed the bigger picture, sort of speak, and after using large sheets of paper to draft ideas, concepts, names and – isms I wanted to see if I could transfer the same intuitiveness as boardmarkers and paper to a digital medium. I came to think of Prezi as it enables an infinite canvas to work on. I had some issues with ghost frames, lost placeholders and minor challenges, but after hours working with the Zebra Control (short clip) I felt I had learned a lot and acquired the necessary skills (I used Twitter for assistance (PreziSupport) and got quite swiftly help from Prezi staff which was great).

I needed the bigger picture, sort of speak, and after using large sheets of paper to draft ideas, concepts, names and – isms I wanted to see if I could transfer the same intuitiveness as boardmarkers and paper to a digital medium.

Today I had a review session with another student and colleague who is taking the same master’s degree. We hooked up my computer to the Smartboard and went fullscreen with the Prezi and voila: A touch-enabled mindmap for review. It gave us the possibility to quiz each other, check our knowledge and discuss -isms, contrast and compare by touch and zoom. We had all our notes in collaborative Google Docs, which made it easy for us to search quotes, persons and other content and bring it up within seconds instead of flipping frantically through our books.

The bigger picture on the Smartboard. Visualization.

Naturally, all of this works great for review, but does not make up for the real reading and notetaking. However, it helped to calm the nerves a bit today before the actual exam. Hopefully I will be able to bring up the visual memories of the Prezi.

Working on paper, small screen and big screen.