Background:
I'm teaching biology to 12th grade students. The syllabus I'm teaching is huge. I mean literally, very huge. There is a lot for students to remember. There are no less than 1000 facts (weird names, dates etc) for students to remember. They'll have to remember all of them, they don't have a choice. The notes I compiled for their learning itself is upto 80 printed pages(Just the bullet outline & facts). That's just one chapter. We have 34 chapters. Also my students are very hardworking, they study upto 8-10hrs per day (Yeah! we are from India :).
So, I want to ensure maximum retaining by the students at each and every stage (Teaching & Learning). I'm trying to as many memory training techniques as possible. I'm trying to incorporate, mnemonics, strong visual aids (pictures, 3D-animations, real videos etc.), spaced repetition etc.
I think MS powerpoint is not suitable for my needs:
There are about 200 slides per chapter. Its very easy for students to get lost while teaching. Because the problem with powerpoint is that it gives facts (as bullets) but it doesn't exploit the association & organization (Concept Map) of the content, which helps students learn quickly.
I found an amazing software called XMind. You can see the screenshot here. Problem is that it is not as powerpoint in terms of powerpoint. This software can be used for just for concept maps. In the above screenshot, each topic occupies a single slide. I have an Image/picture(Detailed huge picture) and about 5-10 bullet points and probably a video or an animation of somethings. And this XMind is not good at presenting, in terms that it doesn't allow me to set what to present after what. I want to present a top down view, with a slide for each topic.
PS: I Don't like prezi.com. I tried but it simply is too confusing for my students. It zooms here and there. I didn't tried it but I've seen few presentations.
