Likelihood to Recommend When you have to present complex hierarchical structures, and if your audience would require navigation in and out of the hierarchy, then Prezi is a good candidate for you. But be prepared, Prezi is not as intuitive as a standard presentation tool, and it may take some time to get used to.
Read full review I've used Sakai to supplement my Public Speaking class. Public Speaking is very much a F2F type course, so I didn't use Sakai much for course content delivery. However, I did use it to post my syllabus, post my lecture slides, communicate any class announcements, and to conduct a final exam for the class. Building the final exam was very simple and I was easily able to swap out questions to vary it from term to term. Before I was a staff member and lecturer, I used Sakai as a student. My instructor used Sakai to varying degrees. I really appreciated it being the one-stop-receptacle for all-things class related. If I somehow lost an assignment instruction sheet, I could rely on it being posted there. For multimedia work it was lacking, at that time, but I know Sakai has been updated over time and I hope that part of it has improved. If I was ever frustrated by Sakai, it was because faculty used it in a piecemeal way. It's fine not to want to use the gradebook, but don't enter some grades and not others. It's wonderful to upload class documents to it; but don't do some and not others. Whatever way you're going to use Sakai, commit to it and use it well. Your students will thank you.
Read full review Pros It is great for creating more compelling and attractive presentations. A wide variety of features and possibilities. Dozens of fantastic templates that may be easily adopted. It helps a lot in terms of productivity, specially for beginners. It provides many resources and options to create presentations with sophisticated visual and animations. It is simple and easy to use - no need of programming knowledge to create animations, import assets, edit and export the presentations. Read full review Sakai is flexible, providing a way for our customers (instructors) to customize their courses while staying in line with consistency and continuity of course design. This has allowed our courses to be far less cookie-cutter and stale. This is mostly accomplished through Sakai's LTI functionality and it's Lessons tool. This is particularly notable because not every course is the same, nor should it be. Our faculty and course developers can draw from OER resources, course text publisher assessment quiz banks and pull in content from sources from our library databases and services like YouTube. Sakai is customizable, allowing us to pair it with our student information system to automatically create and track with student registration data - including adding new students and removing students who have elected to drop a course. The customization features also include being able to create course templates for individual schools or courses using specific tools or sequences of tools as well as a way to personalize content for students when they engage with each lesson. Sakai is stable in the market. We have been using Sakai for almost 10 years and continue to see it improve; responding to changing trends in browser technologies, mobile platforms and accessibility requirements. Multiple programs offered over the years have been recognized by outside organizations like BestColleges.com for our programs and given high marks by students taking the courses offered in Sakai. Sakai allows our faculty to inform it's continued evolution. We work closely with the developers, having a front seat to how things can work and function for our faculty. There have been multiple occasions where faculty ask, "Can Sakai do this?" and the answer is never "No." Read full review Cons Linux support is non-existent. With Android/Chrome OS being based on the linux kernel but also with lots of tech-savvy and influencers using non-Windows and non iOS platforms, I feel a pariah. As far as I know for Android phones and tablets you can only present but not edit prezis in its native app. Again an Android users, it is a sub-par experience the app in general is lacking functionality. Using the browser version (because I have no other alternative) uploading multiple images is very buggy Having a version history would be great when you are editing a large presentation over several days Read full review The coming upgrade will address many issues, the visual presentation of sites and courses The Forums (discussion) tool is not natively integrated into the Gradebook, but needs another step to connect the two. The Wiki tool is awkward and not WYSIWYG. But I understand that is common with wikis in most platforms The Help documentation could use some focus on student needs rather that course developer needs Read full review Likelihood to Renew Sakai is a good general learning management system - it is not leading edge but rather a stable system with standard learning management system features. It can be fairly easily customized and is fairly easy to learn from both student learning and faculty administrative vantage points. New paradigms for online learning though are emergent so the current field should also be investigated with competitors.
Read full review Usability Learning to use Prezi and create new presentations is very simple and easy to do. It does not require new skills or a long training process, since in general the use is quite intuitive (and if you have any questions there are many videos on how to use it). Its operation in both the browser version and the app is very good and fluid, managing to perform all the tasks you want properly.
Read full review When faculty are preparing courses from term to term, a portion of the content is static within a specific discipline. The time it takes to import past lessons into new versions of Sakai can be an inefficient use of my time. When I want to add new content and edit from the old content, it's reliant upon me to cut and paste the content from term to term rather than simply import and edit from a backup.
Read full review Support Rating It is a modern and easy-to-use tool (after a while) that allows you to make dynamic and trained presentations without the need to be an expert user. It has allowed me to improve the attention and motivational processes of my students. In addition, it has many [community users] who make videos and teach the many uses that you can use Prezi. And because, despite the restrictions of the free version, everyone can access and make use of Prezi and thus improve their boring ppt and inject some vitality into them.
Read full review Since Sakai is open-source their documentation is often lacking and support is absolutely needed onsite. Internal documentation is more important with Sakai than other services. The Sakai community is fun, passionate, engaged, and absolutely doing their best, but it's an uphill battle against the current market and trends.
Read full review Implementation Rating No, I don't
Read full review Alternatives Considered Other solutions for presentations all fall on the typical slideshow paradigm. So far, only Prezi walked away from this path. Its expanding canvas and freeform path are refreshing in this scenario. In this sense, Prezi is unique in its style of presentation, which makes difficult to establish comparisons based on costs. The still ongoing migration to Prezi Next has been a bit troubled, according to some old users, but it seems the company is working to give Prezi Next the same flexibility that Prezi Classic. And Prezi already has a huge user base that do not want to go back working with the limits of slides.
Read full review As an adjunct professor, I didn't pick Sakai for the university. I have experience with
Moodle ,
Blackboard , eCollege, iBoard and now Sakai. I would have to say that Sakai is one of my all time favorite LMSs to use as it is very easy to navigate.
Read full review Return on Investment Prezi provided us with a unique selling factor when it came to pitching our services to new prospects. While creating a presentation from scratch might be time-consuming, Prezi allows you to easily reuse and utilize old designs to create new presentations with a different vibe and content. An easy way to impress upper management and stakeholders, especially when presenting to the management of our clients. Read full review Sakai makes it easy for students to monitor grades which puts their minds at ease. Sakai makes it easy for teachers to assign and receive assignments from students. Communication is one of the most important and one of the most taxing parts of an educational system. Sakai makes this process just a little bit easier. Read full review ScreenShots