Speaking to a crowd is easy with good presentation

Before I give a presentation, my heart pounds to the point where it'll try to talk my brain out of walking to the front of the room. That goes for every crowd, no matter if it's 10 people or 50 people.

Picture from Monday night's City Council PTSA meeting where I presented.

It wasn't exactly an intimidating set-up at the PTSA meeting last night, but I was still nervous. But once I got up in front of the room, I was comfortable because I had an organized presentation and because I practiced before the meeting.

For the past three months, I have used Prezi to organize my presentations, about six total, and I highly recommend the free Web application for anyone looking to make a dynamic presentation in the classroom or the meeting room.

I spent a total of three hours preparing for the presentation last night, about two hours in Prezi and an hour making sure it worked and running through my talking points.

Throughout this blog, I'll give some tips for Prezi because I think its a great tool for teachers and administrators. I'll also share my Prezis, accessible via the Prezi page at the top of this blog.

Here's my Prezi from last night:



Lesson Learned: It's okay to use Prezi as your outline. Professional presenters will tell you to keep your eyes of your screen and on your audience. But in small settings, it's okay to use your Prezi for your outline.

When I showed this to Shane, he thought it would be a 30 minute presentation. I told him I would do it in 10 minutes, a notion that he gawked at. I presented in 12 minutes, much to the pleasure of my audience who were ready to head home.

The Prezi is meant to accompany your words. So a "slide" of a few pictures can be a good way to get through three sub-points of a section in your outline. Just be sure not to go too fast through your Prezi, because you don't want your audience to get motion sickness.