{"id":1377,"date":"2011-01-21T03:14:47","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T07:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mathgradblog.williams.edu\/?p=1377"},"modified":"2011-01-21T03:14:47","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T07:14:47","slug":"a-random-question-and-presentations-with-prezi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/2011\/01\/21\/a-random-question-and-presentations-with-prezi\/","title":{"rendered":"A random question and presentations with Prezi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.math.ku.edu\/%7Ebstone\/\">Branden Stone<\/a><\/p>\n<p>While sitting in a coffee shop last week, an estranged economist asked me what the sum of the first n square numbers is.&nbsp; If you already know the formula, proving it is an easy exercise with induction.&nbsp; But how do you create the formula?&nbsp; Below is a <a href=\"http:\/\/prezi.com\/\">Prezi<\/a> presentation on my favorite derivation of the sum of the first squares.<\/p>\n<p>The point of the presentation is not to show you the construction, though I do enjoy it, but to introduce an alternative to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Beamer_%28LaTeX%29\">beamer<\/a> (or power point).&nbsp; Prezi is a web based presentation editor; for the most part it is a virtual poster that you can navigate around.&nbsp; I am new to Prezi so I have not had time to play around, but here is what I think so far.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Pros: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Very easy to use and learn<\/li>\n<li>Web based<\/li>\n<li>Free upgrade with edu email address [<a href=\"http:\/\/prezi.com\/profile\/signup\/edu\/\">http:\/\/prezi.com\/profile\/signup\/edu\/<\/a>]<\/li>\n<li>A fresh look that lets you really personalize your talk. I think most beamer talks feel the same; it is difficult to really express yourself with beamer.&nbsp; Personally, I enjoy talks more when I am not just reading facts on a screen.<\/li>\n<li>Very easy to add a school logo to the presentation.&nbsp; You cannot see it in the embedded version though.&nbsp; But when you download the talk to present, you have the option of attaching a personal logo.<\/li>\n<li>Dynamic; in the sense that you are not tied to a particular slide order.&nbsp; You are free to navigate the Prezi canvas. This feature might be nice if you are asked a question during your talk.<\/li>\n<li>Easy to embed pictures and video.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cons: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No LaTeX support.&nbsp; This is a very big con.&nbsp; You have to be clever if you want to use LaTeX in your Prezi talk.&nbsp; In my presentation below, all squares and the main formula are products of LaTeX, the rest is Prezi.&nbsp; In reading about this issue, I came across a nice Blog post [<a href=\"http:\/\/sumidiot.wordpress.com\/2010\/11\/21\/a-math-prezi\/\">A Math Prezi<\/a>].<\/li>\n<li>Can make audience dizzy if used poorly<\/li>\n<li>As with beamer, you can spend many hours working on how your presentation looks.<\/li>\n<li>No LaTeX support.&nbsp; Did I mention this already?<\/li>\n<li>No spell check in the editor<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There is more to say, but you can read the <a href=\"http:\/\/prezi.com\/\">Prezi<\/a> web site if you are interested.&nbsp; I hope you enjoy my presentation (it&#8217;s short).<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Branden Stone While sitting in a coffee shop last week, an estranged economist asked me what the sum of the first n square numbers is.&nbsp; If you already know the formula, proving it is an easy exercise with induction.&nbsp; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/2011\/01\/21\/a-random-question-and-presentations-with-prezi\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" data-url=https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/2011\/01\/21\/a-random-question-and-presentations-with-prezi\/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3gbww-md","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}