I know, I know, powerpoint is the devil, that's why we're all here.

But; two things:

1. There is an existing body of education research related to powerpoint in the classroom

&

2. There are several fundamental overlapping facets of powerpoint and prezi use in the classroom

Disclaimer: I've not done an extensive review of existing research literature related to best practices with powerpoint in the classroom.

Intuition tells me that answers to the following two questions from powpoint research transfer directly to best practices with prezi:

A: How many slides per hour yield best learning gains?

B: How much of each type of 'stuff' per slide yield best learning gains?

---roughly restated in prezi language:

A: How many frames or path points per hour yield best learning gains?

B: How much of each type of 'stuff' per frame or path point yields best learning gains?

I guessed that fewer slides would be better and that less 'stuff' per slide would be better... I was half right, according to the first study I looked at a la google search:

http://ijikm.org/Volume6/IJIKMv6p085-094Brock545.pdf

"The instructor with the highest teaching effectiveness comments and the one with the most negative both used a relatively high number of slides (35) per session. However, the higher rated instructor used only an average of 3 bullets and 20 words per slide, whereas the lower rated instructors used 5-7 bullets and 25-70 words per slide. Both used many forms of graphic additions (pictures, photos, charts, sound, graphics, and illustrations)."

Also found in the above link is a brief review of the field of edu-research on powerpoint usage. Several additional topics from that review seem like they would transfer nicely to prezi usage; topics such as:

'effects on classroom engagement when presentations are made available outside of class '

& 'stimulus novelty'

Certainly, some of the finer aspects of prezi's functionality in the classroom deserve their own research (cough cough... little funding here please... cough cough), but, in the mean time, why not take advantage of research which may transfer?

I hope that this community will share its thoughts and experiences related to applying powpoint practices to prezi usage; further, I hope y'all will share related links to powpoint edu-research (with meaty findings quoted by each link where appropriate).

All good things,

Ed