Inspiration 7.5 A Tutorial

Part 1: What is Inspiration? Inspiration is a Visual Learning tool. If you think visually, but aren’t sure how to structure your ideas, Inspiration can help you create a Concept Map which is a visual display of your ideas and their structure.

Brain Dumping One way to make a concept map is by doing a Brain Dump: Put down all of your ideas at once- don’t worry about ordering them.

Embedding and Linking You can represent those ideas with text and any graphical objects you like, and link those ideas to external files such as office documents, web pages, audio-visual content, or other inspiration diagrams. Inspiration comes with a large symbol library; you can import your own graphics as well

Diagramming You can connect those ideas, move them around, and individually color them to better decide how they relate to each other.

Outlining and Exporting Inspiration can turn your concept map into a hierarchical outline, and export that outline to your word-processor, HTML or to PowerPoint.

Ready Made Templates Inspiration also comes with many ready made templates to help you with your work. This is a template for an opinion statement. It can help guide in gathering the ideas necessary for this type of essay- commonly assigned in beginning writing classes. After filling in your ideas, you can export an outline to MS Word or AppleWorks and expand it into a complete essay. Writing goes much more quickly when you have the planning already done. Inspiration makes it easy to visualize and organize your ideas!

Part 2: Getting Started Click the Start button, point to Programs, point to Adaptive Software, and then click on Inspiration 7.5. Inspiration opens in a new untitled diagram.

Inspiration’s Diagram View Diagram Toolbar Most of Inspiration’s functions are available as buttons in Diagram view. The Diagram toolbar on top has the buttons most often used. The Symbol palette on the left of the Inspiration screen can be dragged to any convenient location. Colors, styles, and fonts are changed using the Formatting toolbar along the bottom. Inspiration opens with a new Main Idea symbol, ready for you to use. Main Idea Symbol Symbol Toolbar

Using the Create Tool to Add New Linked Symbols Use the Create tool to add linked symbols in the location you choose. Select the upper right corner of the Create button to create a new symbol on the upper right of an existing symbol. Select the lower right corner of the Create button to create a new symbol on the lower right of an existing symbol. Create Button 

Using RapidFire to Grab Ideas Quickly RapidFire saves you time when you want to “Brain Dump” all your ideas and get them down quickly. With the main symbol selected, clicking RapidFire allows you to type your ideas without creating new symbols. Each time you hit “Enter”, Inspiration creates a new symbol with your idea as the title. Typing Chimpanzees -> Enter -> Big Ears -> Enter -> Fish for termites and ants -> Enter -> Dark hair -> Enter… creates your diagram. You can drag and drop symbols and connecting arrows later when you decide how they should be related.  

Adding an Unconnected Symbol Using Point and Type Adding an unconnected symbol is easy. Point and click at the position you want your text, then type. A new symbol with your text appears in that position. Note how the symbol “Endangered Species” is unconnected from the others.

Replacing a Symbol with One From the Symbol Palette To replace a standard balloon symbol with one from the Symbol palette, select the balloon you want to replace. Then, on the Symbol palette, select the symbol you want to replace it with. The replacement proceeds automatically.  

Using Drag and Drop to Add a Specific Symbol Symbols can be added by dragging and dropping from the Symbol palette. For example, you can add a plant symbol from the “Plants”. Symbol palette. Click on the symbol you want and drag it onto the screen. Add a subject title in the blank space provided and connect the new symbol to existing symbols.

Linking Symbols To link two unconnected symbols, click the Link button. A line forms between the last symbol selected and your Mouse arrow. This line follows your mouse’s movements. Select the second symbol and a line forms between it and the previous one. Link Button 

Adding a Note to a Symbol Note Button Sometimes you want extra information attached to a symbol. A good way to do this is to add a text note. Select the symbol to which you want to add a note, then select the Note button. A note box appears near your symbol, with a cursor ready for you to insert text. Although this note is associated with the symbol you have chosen, you can click and drag the note anywhere on your diagram. When you switch to outline view, Inspiration remembers where it belongs in your diagram’s structure and puts it in the appropriate spot in your outline.

Changing the Color of Symbols If you prefer a different back ground color for your idea Symbols, select the symbol whose background you wish to change. Then click the Fill color button on the bottom toolbar, as shown at the left. Select your new color and the background changes automatically. This is a good way to create subgroups of ideas within your diagram.

Moving a Note or a Symbol Once you have made your diagram you may want to change the positions of the notes and symbols. All notes and symbols are moveable by dragging and dropping. The tree Symbol below has been moved in this way. Inspiration moves the connecting idea arrow automatically. 

Saving Your Work To save a document for the first time, or to save a document you’ve already saved before under the current name, use the Save command. On the File menu choose Save. The dialog box appears with the main idea as the name of the file.. Select the folder in which you want to save the diagram. Click Save. In Windows, the file is saved with an .isf extension.

Part 3: Outline View Inspiration will turn your concept map into an outline which you can use to write a paper, create a presentation, or desig a website. 

Switching from Diagram to Outline View To switch to Outline view, select the Outline button on the Diagram toolbar. Outline Button

Outline View This is an example of the Outline view. Click the Diagram button take you back to Diagram view. The symbols have been transformed into topics and subtopics, according to the position of the linking arrows. The Down arrows to the left of the topics are Subtopic Quick Controls. Clicking one of these collapses a subtopic so that it is hidden; clicking it again shows the subtopics. Notes are hidden in the same way, using their own Notes Quick Controls. Diagram Button

Printing the outline You can determine layout, margins, and header/footer values from the Page Setup menu. You can access this menu by clicking File  Page Setup. This menu also lets you see a Print Preview of your outline. To print your outline, in the Page Setup menu, click Print.