By Chris Lord, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

For some time I had been looking for some decent concept-mapping software to run on both Mac and PC, and at a recent INSET course for Special Educational Needs, I found what I wanted. At the end of her session the trainer showed us some concept maps created by children with dyslexia, produced by something called Inspiration. I downloaded a 30-day free trial from http://www.inspiration.com/freetrial/index.cfm, and soon found I had something much more versatile than a (mere) concept-mapper. My colleagues agreed with me, and about 10 are now using it regularly.

Inspiration is hard to describe. At the most basic level it is a tool for the quick development of diagrams consisting of images (symbols), connected by lines (links). Symbols can be boxes containing text, or pictures, either from the 1,300 supplied with the program, or any other image taken from a website, camera or scanner. You can place your own images into your own Inspiration image libraries, to be used again and again. 

A large number of well-designed features helps you do more with the program. Some examples are: sorting out your quickly constructed diagram into a clear hierarchy; viewing a hierarchical diagram as a text outline; exporting in a click or two this outline, with or without the diagram, to a word-processor or presentation software; saving a diagram as a webpage; a full range of keyboard shortcuts to keep busy hands from mice; hyperlinks to websites or other Inspiration documents; recording sound and attaching it to a symbol; adding text notes to a symbol; hiding and revealing lower levels of a diagram. Printing is sophisticated, yet simple to use: large diagrams can be printed at different scales on varying numbers of sheets of A4, useful, perhaps, for wall displays. Limitations? Not many. I think the program began on Mac OS 9 and as a consequence its look and feel are not yet that of a fully-fledged Mac OS X program, and there is no integration with the iLife suite of applications.

I have used Inspiration in a number of ways, in fact in a growing number of ways, as new uses keep occurring to me. I teach Classics, Science and ICT, and some examples of the ways I have used it are: producing topic-overview revision diagrams for Classical Civilisation and Science; explaining Latin grammar at all levels; producing worksheets with practice questions (it is amazing how much more interesting they look than when produced with Word - the software actually makes you think in a more visual way); and, perhaps most interestingly, as a live essay-planning tool in classes with older students (16-18 years) on classical literature, where, with a projector, ideas can be brain-stormed, then ordered, discussed, annotated by the whole class, then printed or emailed. The coupling of projector and printer lets you teach with the colour diagrams on the screen, then print in monochrome for reference.

Buying Inspiration in the UK is easy: details can be found at http://www.taglearning.co.uk.

In addition to concept-mapping, you may also see reference made to mind-mapping, for which software titles are also available. The main difference between the two (and for the purposes of researching software titles, you may find the boundaries blurred!) is that whereas mind-mapping often starts from a single word or idea, concept mapping encourages the use of more concepts at the outset. So whereas a mind map often branches out like a tree, a concept map is more like a network of ideas. In practice, software which can do one of these things can often do the other also.