Creating Effective Presentations in Prezis

I taught an Our Turn for RU faculty and staff last week on Creating Effective Presentations in Prezi. I wanted to give best practices for using Prezi as a presentation medium. Of course the presentation turned into something else. Most of those in attendance had never used Prezi. I think for the next Our Turn I will just have a drop-in session where people can come and ask questions about Prezi.

The Innovative Library Classroom Conference 2015

This is year two of The Innovative Library Classroom Conference, and I am very fortunate to be a co-chair of the conference for another year. It was held at Radford University on May 12, 2015. This year's conference had a proposal acceptance rate of 41%. There were 82 attendees, and 38 different institutions were represented from 10 states. I am so very proud of the way this conference has grown.

This year I also co-presented a conversation starter with Katelyn Tucker. This conversation starter was focused on online instruction videos. We wanted to get a dialogue going about how different libraries are handling online instruction videos. We had a great conversation and I feel like everyone left with new ideas on how to create and manage their online instruction videos. Below is the Prezi we used to guide the discussion.



We also published an article on using Prezi to create online instruction videos based on this presentation and the poster that we presented at Metrolina and VLA. The article was published by Internet Reference Services Quarterly in November 2015 and can be seen here.

2014 VLA Annual Conference

In October 2014, I attended and presented at the 2014 VLA Annual Conference in Williamsburg, VA. I presented a poster with Katelyn Tucker on using Prezi to create online instruction videos. It can be seen below.

Zoom into online instruction: Using Prezi in online instruction videos from Jennifer Resor-Whicker

I also presented for the first time on the research I received IRB approval for concerning McConnell Library's chat reference service. It can be seen below.

9th Annual Metrolina Library Association Conference

My colleagues and I presented on our web evaluation class for the last time at the 9th annual Metrolina Library Association Conference held in Charlotte, NC on Thursday, June 12. I presented this concurrent session with Lisa Vassady, Alyssa Archer and Craig Arthur. We also wrote an article on our constructivist approach to teaching web evaluation that appeared in Communications in Information Literacy in 2013. The article can be seen here. The Metrolina presentation can be seen below.



I also presented a poster with Katelyn Tucker on using Prezi to create online instruction videos. It can be seen below.

Zoom into online instruction: Using Prezi in online instruction videos from Jennifer Resor-Whicker

Roanoke Valley Library Association Presentation

I was invited to speak at the Roanoke Valley Library Association Spring Meeting on May 15, 2014. I gave a presentation about using Prezi as a presentation tool. The presentation can be seen below.

8th Annual Metrolina Library Association Conference

On June 13, 2013, I presented a poster at the 8th annual Metrolina Library Association Conference in Charlotte, NC. The poster was on Prezi and library instruction and can be seen below.

Free to Roam (the Infinite Canvas): Using Prezi in Library Instruction from Jennifer Resor-Whicker

I also co-presented a concurrent session with Lisa Vassady and Alyssa Archer. The session was titled A Novel Approach to Instruction Assessment: Using Worksheet Observation Assessment in One-Shot Instruction Classes and can be seen below.

2012 Conference for Higher Education Pedagogy

I presented two posters at the 2012 Conference for Higher Education Pedagogy held at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA on February 8-10. The first poster was on Prezi and can be seen below.

Seeing the connections: Zooming into learning with Prezi from Jennifer Resor-Whicker


The second poster I co-presented with Candice Benjes-Small and Lisa Vassady. It can be seen below.

’Me’ Learning: A Constructivist Approach to Web Evaluation from Jennifer Resor-Whicker

VLA 2011 Presentation

I presented at my first library conference on Friday, October 28. It was at the 2011 VLA Annual Conference. This year's conference was held in Portsmouth, VA. Our session was apart of the Academic Track fro the conference and was submitted to and accepted by the College and Research Libraries (VLACRL) section of VLA, which means it was a peer-reviewed session. This makes my inner scholar so happy for some reason. :) Our session was entitled Free Tech Tools that Enhance Library Instruction. In it we covered Prezi, Mindomo and Bubbl.us, Jing, Lino it, Poll Everywhere and Google Forms. For each tool we covered we gave background info, things to know about the tool and examples of how we have used it in library instruction.

My co-presenters and I presented to a room of 70+ librarians. The session volunteer joked that if any hotel management had happened by our room, they would have made about half the people leave because of fire code violations! The presentation went great. My co-presenters and I couldn't have been happier. We received a lot of great feedback from the evaluations. We also got invited to write an article on our session for the next issue of Virgina Libraries. So, if all goes well I will be a published author soon.

Here's the Prezi we used during our session.

MABUG Conference Presentation

I presented at my very first conference on Monday, October 3. The conference was the Mid-Atlantic Banner Users Group (MABUG) Banner in the Blue Ridge Conference, and it was held here at Radford University. My presentation was on Prezi. The session was well attended. There were about 20 people in attendance, and they asked a lot of great questions at the end of the session. I answered questions for over 15 minutes. Everyone seemed really excited about Prezi, and what it can do for their presentations. I even received a phone call from someone who had attended the session the following week. He had a few questions concerning the Prezi Desktop software.

Here is my MABUG presentation on Prezi:

My First Concurrent Session!

Back in May, I submitted (along with 2 other NC library friends) a proposal to the third annual VLACRL Conference-Within-a-Conference, "Academic Libraries: Adding Value in a Time of Change." It's being held during the 2011 Virginia Library Association Conference in Portsmouth, VA. The conference is being held on October 27-28. Our session is schedule for 1:15-2:00 p.m., on Friday, October 28, in the Jefferson room of the Renaissance Hotel. They only accepted 12 sessions out of the 34 submission they received. To say I am excited is an understatement!

The proposal we submitted was entitled Free Tech Tools for Better Library Instruction. During this session we will be covering Prezi, Jing, Bubbl.us, Poll Everywhere, Lino It and Google Forms. Here is the abstract we wrote for it: During these times of cutbacks, instruction librarians are looking to provide dynamic instruction with no budget. Several free tools exist that can add value to our instruction classes. This session will look at some of these free tools and show how they can be used to enhance instruction.

Now the real fun begins. We get to plan the session! Wish us luck! :)

Prezi and I

I was working on my Current Projects page today when I realized I'd never shared any of the Prezis I've created on my blog. I've been using Prezi for a year now, and I love it. I started using Prezi after a fellow library student suggested that I use it for my job interview presentations. I'd never even heard of it when she suggested it. So I did some research (like a good librarian) and I was very impressed with what I saw. Now I use Prezi whenever I can. (On a side note, I did use Prezi for the interview for the job I have now, and well I guess you now how that turned out.)  I taught 8 faculty workshops on Prezi alone during the Spring semester. Here is the Prezi I use during faculty workshops:


I've also created a Prezi for the UNIV 100 classes we teach every Fall semester. During this class we play a game to help the students learn about the library. This game was previously on PowerPoint and took the PPT and made a Prezi. Here it is:


I am really excited about using Prezi for some of my instruction classes in the Fall. I will keep you posted on how it goes.

I'm a teaching machine...

With the dawning of the Spring semester comes a full instruction load for me. Yes it is now time for me to assume my proper place here as a full instruction librarian. I will no longer be shadowing any of the other instruction librarians. I will be doing it on my own, designing scripts and worksheets, like a real instruction librarian. No time was wasted in throwing me into the ring either.

The week before the Spring semester began, I "volunteered" to teach two faculty workshops, one on RefWorks and one on Prezi. Now I have put volunteer in quotations because the head of instruction here asked me to teach these workshops, and being one that never steps down from a challenge I accepted. It really does amaze how my fear of teaching, and for that my fear of public speaking, has almost completely disappeared. It seems with every class I teach, every group I speak in front of, it lessens. It has diminished greatly just from the time I began graduate school in August 2008. I am truly grateful for this considering that 45% of my job is teaching instruction classes. (I'm already scheduled to teach four classes this semester. I have one this week and three next week. I need to enjoy the lite load while I can.)

The two faculty workshops went really well. I taught the RefWorks workshop first. It was attended by three people, and lasted about an hour and a half. The second workshop was on Prezi, and it was attended by twenty-one people with a great deal of them being teaching faculty. The workshop only lasted an hour, but I could have easily gone on another thirty minutes. The head of instruction in the library assisted me during this workshop and was very impressed by the number of participants that were in fact teaching faculty. She said that oftentimes they do not attend these workshops because they are too busy gearing up for classes the week before the semester begins. The Prezi workshop was a big hit. I even received applause at the end. (I love applause. It's always nice to feel like the work you put in is appreciated.) The Prezi workshop was so popular that I'm doing it again next month and in May. I guess I'm going to be the Prezi goddess around here. I've already been getting emails from faculty with questions about Prezi. It's nice to fell needed.

Last week brought lots of excitement with the two faculty workshops, but a funny thing happened at the Prezi workshop that was even more exciting. A professor walked up to me and introduced himself and said that he knew I was Sigma Tau Delta. (Sigma Tau Delta is the International English Honor Society.) He went on to say that whenever I wanted to take over the university chapter of Sigma Tau Delta I should let him know, it's all mine. Well, I was rather surprised that he knew I was a member of Sigma Tau Delta, so after the workshop I emailed him to inquire about the position and about how he knew I was a member. He said he'd Googled me and found my capstone website that had my resume on it. Of course. Well we've exchanged several emails, and I have decided that I would like to take over the university's chapter. I believe this will be an wonderful new adventure for me, and I am excited to begin pursuing it. This will be a great opportunity for outreach, and it will get me an in with the English department. Shakespeare instruction classes here I come! That is my dream, teaching instruction classes on all things Shakespeare. It might help if they actually taught Shakespeare classes here. [Sigh] Maybe someday...