Kidspiration

Kidspiration is interactive mapping software for children grades kindergarten through fifth grade.  There is an older version called Inspiration for adults that does more in-depth programming.  Kidspiration is very visually appealing and very easy to manipulate.  There are short easy to read directions at each stage of the program to give you direction if you need it, but you may opt to not have the tutorials.  This program is mainly used for Mind mapping or Visual Expression as Kidspiration calls it.  The software is compatible with a Windows 98, 2000 or XP System.  There are several versions of Kidspiration but Kidspiration 3 is the newest.  The software costs $69.00 for a single computer use onetime fee, and 895.00 for a 20-computer license.  The software also has a connecting website for web support or questions at http://kidspiration.com/kidspiration.

This software is supportive with the New York State learning standards that state that children must become proficient at brainstorming collaboratively and individually in a large variety of subjects (https://stateaid.nysed.gov/scripts/sa/pi_find.idc). The objective of this software is to create an environment where students can get their thoughts out in an organized manor that they can sort through and organize later.

This program can be used in elementary school and early middle school.  The program is very visually appealing and easy to manipulate.  The students would not need any prior training on the program other than the introduction by the teacher prior to using it. There is a help bar intended to help the students along the way and gives enough information to complete the mind maps without additional training. I have used this software most frequently with students brainstorming for a project or a paper.  It’s easy to create maps and add branches with different topics you would like to explore.  This program also makes maps for presentations and projects.  Aside from the visual expression, this program also does drill and practice skills in all of the content subjects in conjunctions with each states standards.  The practice skills use branching to get progressively harder for the advanced students and to focus on repletion and explanation of wrong answers for the struggling students.  This program is awesome for younger children because it’s easy to use but there is no limit as to how far you want to go with the maps. It’s also convenient because the teacher can easily manipulate already created maps to adapt to classroom curriculum or tests.  I would recommend this program to teachers looking for new ways for your students to organize their thoughts in a well planned out mind map.  This software can also be used collaboratively for group projects.  I have also used it before for a kind of pre-test for younger students to see what kinds of things they add to their maps after putting one main word in the middle as a starting point. I have not found many limitations to this software.  It is very “kid” friendly and if a teacher wanted to use it for older students there is a similar software called Inspiration for the older student.  One limitation might be the ability to give all students a computer for the brainstorming process, or if there is a student who does not benefit from brainstorming this software would not be useful for them.