On Sunday Adobe released Project Rome. I was able to get a sneak peak and let me tell you, this is a pretty cool program. Think of it as an interactive portfolio and project manager. Students (or teachers) can use the amazing features of Rome to create highly engaging presentations. And with the integration of Google Apps, Moodle, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and more, this program has the potential to really change the way we think about projects and presentations.
They put together a really great video about it.
The other thing that is great is that while the product is aimed as several markets (home, business, etc) from there is a heavy focus on using this product in education.They even created a video for that.
What I like are the possibilities. No more boring Power Points or even Prezis. (Yep, I said boring Prezis.) The ability for students to add interactivity and animation simply to their projects and presentations is awesome. The example I saw was was a project on the solar system. Instead of one slide with one planet on it with all the information, Project Rome allows the student to create a journey across the solar system. They can animate the rotation of the planets around the sun. Do fly overs of each of the planets. And so much more.
The program runs on the Adobe Air platform so it will run on a PC, Mac or Linux with ease and it is a light install, about 20 mb. It can be accessed from the web as well. Students can save their work in the cloud and can work collaboratively on projects. Finished works can be viewed on the web or embedded on webpages as flash files.
Right now it is free but that will change in the future. No word on pricing, however. (Let's hope it will be reasonable for schools and districts.)
I encourage you to head over to the Project Rome website to learn more and check out all the features. If you do come back here and tell us what you think.