Inspiration/Kidspiration

In my last blog, I added a link to a project I created using Inspiration. I really enjoyed working with the software last week; I feel like it really would be a positive tool for me as a Language Arts teacher. It's great to use a tool that encourages students to build models and connect ideas in a way that organizes their thoughts and helps them to communicate clearly about concepts. Today in Dr. Kobashigawa's Multicultural Education class, she was explaining to us that in her graduate level work, she and her peers were often instructed to do projects similar to the one that I did on Inspiration (except on paper), because they were told that if you are not able to visually model your ideas, you are probably not able to fully grasp or explain them in your mind because they are lacking in organization. I feel like Inspiration would be a great place for my students to build similar models, hone down organizational skills, and brain-storm for major papers and projects using conceptual models.