Students quickly start assignments by selecting from the library of cross-curricular templates accessed easily from the new Inspiration Starter screen. Enhanced drag-and-drop capabilities make it easy for them to add text, images and links to files and web resources as they gather research.
Inspiration 8 introduces powerful capabilities to improve writing proficiency. The Word Guide—an innovative dictionary and thesaurus—helps students choose words with more precision and build vocabulary. A contextual spell checker and added editing features also streamline the revision process.When it’s time to finalize a project, new transfer options allow students to format and move just the information they need to a word processor.
 Diagram View
In the Diagram View, you can easily create and use concept maps, webs, and other graphic organizers. With the integrated Outline View, you are able to instantly transform your thoughts into the foundation of written projects. The result is clearer thinking, more creative projects, better organized writing, and improved performance.
In the Diagram View you can:
- Brainstorm ideas quickly with the RapidFire® tool. Capture thoughts with or without automatic links to symbols.
- Add as little or as much text as you want — symbols grow automatically to record your thoughts
- Represent thoughts and information with pictures, images, words and multimedia-such as QuickTime® movies and MP3 files.
- Illustrate ideas and convey meanings by inserting symbols from the web or other applications using the insert graphic, drag & drop, or copy & paste functions
- Explore ideas, record research and begin writing with visually integrated notes. New drag-and-drop capabilities make it easy to quickly gather research
- Show relationships between ideas with the Link tool
- Explain relationships between ideas by adding text directly on the links
- Rearrange symbols by dragging without breaking links
- Differentiate among ideas with colors, shapes, patterns, shadows, fonts and styles
- Bring writing power with visually integrated notes
- Organize ideas effortlessly using the Arrange tool or use AutoArrange to automatically format diagrams as you work.
- Plan projects and track ideas using the Checklist feature
- Explore multiple main ideas simultaneously
 Transform a diagram into an outline instantly!
With the simple click of your mouse, you can transform an Inspiration diagram into a traditional hierarchical outline. In the powerful Outline View, you can quickly prioritize and rearrange ideas, helping you to create clear, concise essays, reports and more.
Use the Outline View to:
- Organize topics by dragging — subtopics move automatically
- Plan projects and track ideas using the Checklist feature. Simply mark off completed items in either the Diagram or Outline View
- Export your outline to popular word processing or presentation programs
- Manage notes, audio and subtopic information with Quick Controls.
- Develop topics into written reports using notes text. Students can add up to 15 pages of notes text for each topic.
Develop ideas and organize writing easily with intuitive toolbars
Diagram Toolbar
Outline Toolbar
Formatting Toolbar
Major Inspiration functions are at students' fingertips with our smart toolbars. No need to memorize keyboard shortcuts or search through menu items to find features — just click on the toolbar and keep working! Plus, the fully indexed and searchable help system provides answers to Inspiration-related questions.
Jumpstart projects with templates
Start assignments quickly with inspiring templates that offer frameworks for gathering information and organizing ideas in language arts, science, social studies, thinking skills and planning topics.
- 65 templates - A wealth of ideas from across the curriculum inspires students and teachers to plan, organize and create. More than 60 additional templates are available through Inspiration Web Resources.
- Template Wizard - Create customized visual learning activities! The Template Wizard gives teachers step-by-step help for designing templates to support any curriculum area. Custom libraries may also be created and saved with templates for sharing with other computers. Teachers can also limit the symbol library for targeted study.
- Flexible template access - Use and share templates with ease! Templates can be stored and launched from any location, making them readily available for students and teachers.
Integrate video and sound
Use multimedia to create more engaging and informed projects. Students insert and play video and sound, such as QuickTime® movies and MP3 files, right in Inspiration. Students can also record their own audio and attach it to a symbol or topic.
Audio supports multiple learning styles
Inspiration users can hear work read aloud or record their own words, adding a new dimension to their projects. A talking interface increases accessibility in a variety of special situations.
Write with clarity and accuracy
Students write with clarity and build vocabulary using the Word Guide, an innovative dictionary and thesaurus. Information—including parts of speech, definitions and synonyms—is displayed in a familiar way to help students quickly find and choose words with precision.
 Connect directly to research and information sources
Enrich Inspiration diagrams and outlines by adding hyperlinks that connect to other documents, including web sites, Inspiration documents and files created in other programs. This provides students with a simple way to gather research and keep their work and materials together.
You can set up live hyperlinks in Inspiration and tie the immense resources of the Internet into your diagrams and outlines. Just type in a web address and Inspiration automatically creates a hyperlink.
You can also create web pages with URL hyperlinks through the HTML export function, and drag & drop JPG and GIF images into Inspiration diagrams straight from the web!
It's easy to gather and present information from multiple sources, including documents created in Inspiration or any other application, by hyper linking to any file.
Turn Inspiration documents into robust final projects
- Export Inspiration diagrams and outlines to continue working on projects in word processing documents, PowerPoint slides and graphics files.
- Use the Site Skeleton® export to seamlessly convert outlines and diagrams to HTML and incorporate the diagram's symbols, video and sound into web pages. Each symbol becomes a separate web page, complete with appropriate hyperlinks. Inspiration even creates a site map.
Get more visual learning power with Inspiration Web  Resources
Use Inspiration with an Internet connection to seamlessly access these additional complimentary resources:
More than 1 million symbols
Students better demonstrate their understanding and communicate their ideas by including symbols in their projects. An online Inspiration symbol collection, containing more than 1 million searchable illustrations and photographs, offers safe image choices for any topic. And, if you want to customize your work, you can re-colorize an existing symbol or import images from other applications and the Internet.
50+ Curriculum Packets
Curriculum Packets help teachers effectively integrate visual learning techniques as they address multiple learning styles. Each comprehensive online Curriculum Packet provides an integrated unit plan with multiple templates and exemplars. Each of the 50+ Curriculum Packets offers standards-aligned supplemental instructional units for high-school level language arts, social studies or science.
On-demand training videos
Learn how to use Inspiration and complete projects efficiently with on-demand training videos. These online videos cover Inspiration's most commonly used features.
Inspiration contains over 1,300 colorful, high-resolution symbols, including several hundred photographic quality images and animated symbols. You can easily scroll through the floating symbol palette to find exactly the right shape to express your thoughts. And, if you want to customize your work, you can re-colorize an existing symbol or import images from other applications and the Internet.
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