Writing an organized paper or creating a persuasive presentation can be difficult for even the most intelligent of individuals. The reason is not lack of creativity, nor is it lack of verbal skills.
Many individuals have difficulty organizing their thoughts. They know what they want to say, but cannot present it in a clear and logical manner. The result of their efforts is a jumble of thoughts and words. This is even more so in the case of young writers.
Inspiration
Writers are encouraged to play with the idea, to group them and arrange them, and to find gaps that may exist.
Combining both Zaner-Bloser’s proven program for building writing skills with the power of visual learning, students have the incredible tools to help them build critical written skills. Since first launched, Inspiration has won more than 10 awards in kids writing and education software.
The latest version on sale is the Inspiration v9 and is currently priced at $69.00
OS Requirement
Inspiration v9 runs well on both Pc and Mac. The system needed for running the software is:
PC: Windows 95,98 or Windows NT 4.0, 486 processor or higher, 5 MB hard drive space, 20 MB available for all symbols and Help, 8 MB RAM, VGA SuperVGA or other Windows compatible graphics card, CD-ROM drive,
Mac: System 7.0, 8.0 or higher, Macintosh or Power Macintosh, 5 MB hard drive space, 30 MB for all symbols and Help, 2 MB available RAM, 640 x 480 display, 16 colors or better, CD-ROM drive.
Features
Inspiration helps young writer wade through the initial moment of lack of idea organization. With the powerful conceptual diagram tools, writers can immediately dolls out ideas, rearrange them, and deleting them in the process of writing. The mind maps is a wonderful tool that helps kids to organize and shows relationship between the ideas.
Inspiration also provides an outlining section to help students develop their ideas into organized written documents. In this section, or ‘view’, users input and edit as with word processing programs. Because the program is fully integrated, users can switch between ‘views’, converting diagrams to outlines, and outlines to diagrams.
Inspiration feature a powerful engine that include the ability to add URL hyperlinks to documents, graphic support that enables user to create symbols both in .jpeg and .gif formats
Inspiration features an online diagram library for both young writer and teacher. Not only that, they also offer curriculum integrated ideas.
Inspiration 6 features language arts. Using graphic organizers, language arts students can learn to gather, evaluate, and analyze increasing complex information for writing essays and communicating understanding.
Plan and map out your next web site or multimedia project using Inspiration. With Inspiration you can easily set up live hyperlinks to a variety of files, helping you gather, manage and present multiple resources for projects.
Inspiration gives students the tools to analyze, interpret, illustrate and present complex scientific concepts. Working in Diagram View helps them see how concepts are related, while the integrated Outline View provides an easy way to bring writing into the science curriculum.
Graphic Organizer is available for writer to use for their work plan which will enhance the paper into better organized projects.
Pros
All you need to install this software is your name and a valid registration number. After inputting the information, the installation will install Inspiration v6 without a hitch.
Inspiration offers a range of videos and webcasts teaching new user about all the feature available from the software. The program is simple and even a new beginner could use it without reading guides or instruction booklet. Additionally, there is a feature help of the day that gives hints and tips every time Inspiration is accessed.
Users who have an earlier version of Inspiration on their computers are advised that this version does not overwrite earlier versions. This enables users to keep custom templates created in earlier versions of the program. Once these templates and any custom symbol libraries that have been created are copied into the Inspiration 6 folders, the older version of the program can be uninstalled.
Inspiration covers a huge lot of educational theory. It is a great writing and teaching tools as well as a wonderful learning and thinking tool for kids.
Cons
It does get tedious watching all the webcast and videos on what features is available and how to use it.
Developer’s website: www.inspiration.com