Inspiration in the Classroom

I went to the Inspiration quick tour at http://www.inspiration.com/Videos/Inspiration. I have a few comments about this program. First, it is very obvious that it is targeted for the students. The abundance of graphics and pictures are meant to make organizing their thoughts more entertaining. Secondly, a main cause to poor grades is that students do not have proper study skills. This program seems to be something that could help with making it easier with encouraging students to take the time to study. Inspiration would be a great form of encouragement in the classroom. What interested me most is that the templates can be used by the students or the teachers can use them to help with creating lesson plans. It is great to use a program for both the students and the teachers. One way I would use Inspiration in the classroom is the tour said the students can print any of their "creations". I would let the students print and then share their work with other students in the class to encourage teaching and answering their peers.

The best writing activities that Inspiration could be used for would be research papers. They can enter any keyword to pull up numerous symbols and can outline a timeline clearly. Allowing the students to have neat and clear notes/outlines will make writing the finished product easier and less stressful for the student. Like I mentioned before, to encourage peer feedback the students could print their outlines and notes off and ask their classmates to read them. If the notes and outlines are easy to follow then the students know their thoughts and research are ready to be in written form. Once they write a rough draft they can allow their classmates to read and correct if needed. A way to use technology with peer feedback is the students could create a diagram and have one of their peers add text to the links that they have between each symbol they made using the rapidfire.