Techie Tuesday: What's your Inspiration?

Inspiration Software has been around for several years, but have you been inspired to check it out?  For this week’s Techie Tuesday we will look at Inspiration and how it can be used in the classroom.

According to their company website, Inspiration is an essential tool to visualize, think, organize, and learn.  What makes this software special?  With the explosion of web 2.0 sites, there are numerous free online graphic organizers such as bubbl.us and Mindmeister.

If you simply want to create semantic maps/webs, one of the free online organizers would probable fit your need.  If you want more, keep reading for highlights on Inspiration Software.

One nice component of Inspiration is how you can create a graphic organizer and with one click it can be changed into a formal outline.  Students can create a web with shapes and/or clip art filled with information.  Then it is transformed into an outline using the hierarchy of the web.  These graphic organizers include concept maps, webs, and idea maps.  The outline can be built upon using other components such as a dictionary.

Other key components include the following:

• Video and sound integration
• Templates
• Curriculum Packets

To get a varieties of class integration possibilities, I asked my fellow teachers for ways to integrate Inspiration in their classroom.  Of course bribing them with a free copy of Inspiration always helps them respond quickly:)  Here is a list of ideas to integrate Inspiration into your classroom:

• Draft and Revise writing assignments
• Research
• Visually explain math concepts and problems
• Planning (project, web site,etc)
• Semantic web of a Country
• Transform the semantic web to an outline
• Use the audio part for students to review
• Concept mapping
• Brainstorming
• Story maps
• Character analysis
• Book reports
• Creating storyboards for PowerPoint presentations
• Defining new terms
• Assist teachers in planning lessons or units
• Plot Summaries
• Historical Cause and Effect
• Cycles (recycle, weather, etc.)
• Developing a course or workshop
• Lab Procedures
• Show relationships
• In foreign language classes create an organizer that shows the English word on one side and the foreign language word equivalent on the other side with pictures as hints.
• When studying a poem, in the center concept list the name of the poem and the connecting lines contain phrases from the poem. The sub-concept explains the words in the phrase and the literary technique used such as personification.
• Faculty/district – responsibilities of committees

So are your Inspired?  What other software or sites for graphic organization are your favorite?

It's always nice to share:)