INSPIRATION was originally designed for the corporate world
and used for brainstorming, concept mapping, flow charts, webbing
and planning etc.; sound familiar. Educators discovered this marvellous
software in the early 90's and began integrating its powerful
visual learning tools into their classrooms. In January, the folks
who gave us Inspiration announced the birth of its kid sister,
Kidspiration.
*"We were not interested in just creating a lower-grade Inspiration,"
Mona Westhaver, president and cofounder of the company, said.
"We really wanted to tie into the K-3 curriculum."
.......and they have done a wonderful job.
Using Kidspiration, young students build strong thinking skills with visual and audio support using pictures, diagrams and sounds.
Kidspiration is suitable for use with all KLA's. Using this fantastic software, students can plan their OWN projects. Until now, most teachers' have done the planning for their students. Those brave souls who decide to let their students plan activities are beset with students, fiddling about, lacking ideas, changing their minds, the true agony of thinking on cue, and the impossible challenge(for some children) of actually putting pencil to paper.
Enter Kidspiration. Students can now fiddle about, change their minds, use pictures instead of words and go nowhere near a pencil and paper and be productive. Kidspiration allows students to brainstorm ideas using connected symbols very quickly. They can change their minds and change the layout immediately, students can add pictures instead of typing, and the audio tool allows students to hear their work read aloud or even record their own words. Diagram 1(In Classroom Magazine No. 7 2001) is a simple beginning for a story "About Me" I recently completed with a year 1.
From this simple beginning students can add their own pictures and categories to personalise their diagram. Diagram 2(In Classroom Magazine No. 7 2001) is Liam's outline after one half hour session.
Even though this outline is pretty good,
Liam can keep fiddling and changing his diagram on the fly, as
new ideas evolve. Finally Liam has a story plan for his writing
task and fiddling about is OK. And this is where Kidspiration
is brilliant, simply click on the "Writing View" icon
on the toolbar 
and 'Voila´' a text version of Liam's story(Diagram 3(In
Classroom Magazine No. 7 2001)).
Liam can now add details, typing in sentences for each of the headings and sub-headings in his story plan. He can also add additional headings in this 'Writing View' that will be added into his 'Picture View' as well.
Either view can be printed, transferred to other programs or even published to the web, but with spell check and a variety of printing options there is no need to move outside the program at all.
Using Kidspiration, students can:-
Brainstorm ideas with words and pictures
Organize and categorize information visually
Create stories and descriptions using engaging visual tools
Explore new ideas with thought webs and visual mapping, the list
is endless.
INSPIRATION offers more sophistication for grades 4-12 and
beyond.
Inspiration is extremely valuable for:
Brainstorming
Organising
Prewriting
Concept mapping
Planning
Outlining
Diagramming
and Webbing.
It offers both the "Outline" and
"Diagram" views similar to Kidspiration. Graphics can
be imported to enhance the diagrams, and final presentations can
be saved as html pages with interactive links. Here is Rachael's
plan of ´the topic "Gold in Australia." The plan
has been gradually built up from a simple diagram that used mainly
the pink ovals below, to a more complex diagram incorporating
the blue sub categories and the yellow activities(Diagram 4(In
Classroom Magazine No. 7 2001)). For an online version of this
Inspiration diagram including live URLs goto
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/gold.html
Rachael can now turn to the 'Outline View" to add detail and focus further research(Diagram 5(In Classroom Magazine No. 7 2001)).
These two programs are powerful learning tools that allow students to tap their creativity and organise their thoughts. The best critics, are the children themselves; using this programs in a classroom recently there was a great deal of laughter as children collaborated on their brainstorming. Reluctant starters ended the session with their activity planned, and lots of productive chat occurred. Comments like 'That was fun!", " It was great doing the brainstorming", "What can we write about next," This is so easy", were in abundance.
RESEARCH
The good news about using these programs just goes on. For a long
time research has shown that using visual mapping of ideas enhances
learning. Concept maps created by hand using pencils and paper
are not easily modified and changed. The development of software
programs such as Kidspiration and Inspiration have changed all
this, these programs allow students to draw and redraw their maps
in an electronic environment. They minimise the need for text.
Colours, pictures, graphics and sound can be added, promoting
long-term retention of information. Studies abound demonstrating
the effectiveness of these techniques, **"Pankratius (1990),
for example, found that students who created concept maps throughout
a three-week unit on energy had higher test scores than students
who either only created concept maps at the end of the unit or
did not create them at all.
LOTS OF TEMPLATES
There are indeed books of lesson plans for both Inspiration and
Kidspiration (http://www.inspiration.com/book/thebook.html). These
can be purchased separately, but they are certainly not necessary.
Each program comes with loads of templates, which can easily be
used from the first session. I recently introduced Kidspiration
to a class of Kindergarten students, starting with the 'Get Ready"
template(in the "more" activities section). It looks
like Diagram 6(In Classroom Magazine No. 7 2001).
It was simple to introduce all the major
icons and tools using this template, and the children loved it.
Looking at the interface above you will see a number of text components,
this would normally defeat a kindergarten class, however, when
the students clicked on these, the words were read aloud by the
computer. The children heard
"1. Help these children get ready for their special occasions."
as well as
"Jane is going to a fancy party." etc.
In half an hour the students had become familiar with the interface,
and most of their models were reasonably well attired.
TEACHER PROGRAMMING
Teachers of course, use Inspiration for their own planning and
programming and also in developing webquests for their students.
Considering that this product was originally used as business
software this is not surprising. Using Inspiration, teachers can
quickly produce a diagram around a central theme and link all
KLAs to a given topic. Details can be added in the "Outline
View", and changes can be made easily as student needs grow
and change.
ONLINE TRAINING
For both these programs and many others, training is available
at Atomic Learning. Each module, loads fast and demonstrates many
of the features of Inspiration and Kidspiration. Atomic Learning
is a terrific place to start exploring these programs. The videos
range in size from 900K down to less than 200K, and will begin
playing almost immediately, whether you are using a 56k modem
or a dedicated connection! QuickTime is required.
For KIDSPIRATION with Atomic learning
http://www.atomiclearning.com/freekidsmac.shtml
For INSPIRATION with Atomic Learning
http://www.atomiclearning.com/inspiration.shtml
AWARDS
Inspiration has received many awards for excellence including
The HERO Award for Significant Contributions to Education October
2000
2000 Technology Leadership Award from QED
Parent's Guide children's Media Award November 2000
2001 GoldMaster Award Judged "Best of the Best"
See the rest of their awards at:-
http://www.inspiration.com/press.html
THE PRICE - This is the big news, it's amazing. Special state-wide deals are in place for all Australian States, New Zealand and most independent schools. To find out the details for you state goto http://www.edsoft.com.au/Specials/SPindex.htm
THE FREE TRIAL
A free 30-day trial for this product can be downloaded at:-
http://www.edsoft.com.au/Downloads/DLindex.htm
The programs are a dream to load and available for both Mac and
Win platforms on the one CD.
And, you might ask, how did
I write this wonderful article;
I used INSPIRATION of course! The program from the " from
the a-picture-can-inspire-a-thousand-words dept," or even
1,500 words.
REFERENCES
*tech.live@inquirer
Thursday May 24th 2001-07-30 Kidspiration can aid the younger
set
http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/05/24/tech_life/VLNZ24.htm
**Computer-Based Concept Mapping
A Tool for Negotiating Meaning
By Lynne Anderson-Inman and Leslie Ditson
http://206.58.233.20/L&L/archive/vol26/no8/features/anderson-inman/index.html
Why Visual Learning
http://www.inspiration.com/theory.html
TO FIND OUT MORE about "Inspiration" and "Kidspiration"
contact Linda Zugai
"Linda Zugai" Linda.Zugai@bigpond.com
or goto the Edsoft site at
http://www.edsoft.com.au/Specials/SPindex.htm
AN ONLINE VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE with hotlinks can be found at:-
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/classroom/inspire.html
Cathy Brown B.Ed.
(HONS) is a Educator with over 20 years teaching experience from
Pre-school to Tertiary level, she gives seminars and inservice
in Computer Technology and also writes a free email newsletter
'Virtual Teacher" Read it at http://www.virtualteacher.com.au
email cathy@virtualteacher.com.au