Re: Inspiration

[WendyPetti@xxxx]

> ... it was obvious to me that anyone who wanted to could create their own 
> Inspiration in Microworlds very easily and quickly. Anyone else seen this 
program.
> It might be a powerful thing to have students create their own Inspiration 
as a 
> Microworlds lesson.

Gary, this is an interesting idea. I would like to add on to Steve Murray's 
remarks about the Inspiration software, because I think Inspiration does have 
some features which could not be replicated with MicroWorlds:

1) With Inspiration, as you keep adding ideas to your mindmap, the size of 
the map keeps expanding. When you go to print it out, it can print a 
multi-page mind map. With MicroWorlds, you need to determine a project size 
in advance. In MWPro you could set a very large project size if you needed 
to and then scroll around, but I still think it would be awkward, since you 
wouldn't know at the outset how large to set it. With Inspiration, you begin 
at the center of the mind map and can keep adding in all directions. 

2) In Inspiration, you can toggle between the mind map view and an outline 
view. It can be powerful to use the flexibility of the mind mapping layout 
while you are brainstorming and then instantly see your ideas organized in 
outline form. I like brainstorming with a mind map (usually prefer pencil 
and paper, myself) but do like seeing a tidy outline for reviewing thoughts 
or notes later. I find it sort of annoying to have to study my own mind map 
or someone else's mind map later on; for me it is easier to make sense of an 
outline. So having the power to toggle between the two or print out either 
one is a great feature.

Having said that, I have used MicroWorlds for note-taking and brainstorming 
with classes of students. I'm not sure it's a very efficient instrument for 
that purpose, but since I am a MicroWorlds fanatic (and don't like buying 
software which I don't really need), I use MicroWorlds for practically 
everything. (I even created our own sequenced keyboarding timed tests with 
MicroWorlds.)

For those interested in learning more about mind-mapping, I ran a quick 
Google search and this link seems to have some useful info and some links to 
a variety of resources (including summaries of book chapters and several 
sources of mind-mapping software):

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~caveman/Creative/Mindmap/

Wendy Petti