• Open Inspiration and prepare to create your first diagram.
• If Inspiration is already open, click on File | New to open the default diagram.

Along the top is the Diagram Tool Bar; the Symbol Palette (click View | Symbol Palette) is on the left with over 1300 symbols, including animated symbols and photographic images.

You can also draw your own symbols using the Draw Tool Bar across the bottom of the window; and you can re-size your diagram on the screen with the Zoom buttons in the left corner of the bottom scroll bar.

• Do you see a symbol in the middle of the screen with the words “Main Idea” highlighted? Type All About Me. Then click in the white away from the symbol.

There are several ways to add symbols to your diagram.

There are two Create buttons on the Diagram Tool Bar. There is a Create button to add symbols horizontally and vertically and there is a Create button to add symbols diagonally. The Create buttons create a linked symbol in the direction of the arrow you select.

Add a symbol to the lower left diagonal of All About Me.

• Click on the All About Me symbol to select it.
• Position the mouse over the diagonal Create button. Do you see how the arrows highlight in blue? That tells you in which direction your symbol will be created.
• Click on the arrow to the lower left. You now have a new symbol to the lower left of your main idea.
• With the symbol selected, type Family and click away from the symbol.

Add a symbol to the right of All About Me.

• Select All About Me and position the mouse over the right arrow on the horizontal/vertical Create button.
• Click on the arrow pointing right. You now have a new symbol to the right of your main idea.
• With the symbol selected, type Hobbies and click away from the symbol.

Since ideas don’t wait patiently or come in any order, brainstorm some things you like to do under Hobbies.

• Click on Hobbies and then the RapidFire button. A red lightening bolt after Hobbies tells you that RapidFire is turned on.
• Enter each idea and press Enter. Inspiration automatically puts each idea into a symbol and draws a link for you.
• Add, Sports (and press Enter), Hiking (and press Enter), Computers and click away to end RapidFire.

When you have a random thought, the easiest way to add it to your diagram is as an unconnected idea with Point and Type.

• Click in an open space above Computers and type Inspiration. Inspiration puts a symbol around the idea and you can work with it later.

You can also use symbols from the symbol libraries. Let's begin by adding a sub-idea to Hobbies.

• From the Basic Symbol Library, click on the Book symbol and drag it to the right of Hobbies and drop it there.
• Type in Reading to label your symbol and click away.
• Click on the down arrow in the Symbol Palette to see a list of topics in the libraries. Select Animals-Plants | Animals1.
  
• Drag and Drop the kitten to the upper left of All About Me. Prefer a dog? Click on a picture of a dog to change the graphic in your diagram and click away.

• Select your kitten and click on the Add Notes button.
• Type My kitten is six months old (type up to 15 pages here to expand your ideas about a symbol).
• You can close your note by clicking on the x. Notice the red handle. This lets you know there is a note for that symbol. You can open your note by clicking on this handle.

  

Note: Students can expand their thoughts and ideas, and begin writing.

You have been working with symbols, the shapes and images that represent your ideas. Look at your Links, the lines and arrows that connect your ideas and tell you more about the relationships between them.

Link the new additions to your diagram. The order in which you select items in this activity is important!

• Link Hobbies to Reading to create the relationship between them. First, click on the Link button, click on Hobbies, and then click on Reading.
• Now create a relationship from All About Me to the kitten. Click on All About Me and then click on the kitten.
• Finally link Computers to Inspiration. When you are done, click on the Link button on the tool bar to turn it off.
• Some of the arrows may not be pointing directly at the subtopic. You can alter the angle of the link arrow by clicking on it, then by dragging one of the red circles at either tip and stretching it to be positioned to look best for you.

  

Did you notice that when a link is selected, it has a dotted rectangle on it?

• Position your mouse over the link from Computers to Inspiration and click. The box that appears is where you add link text. Text on the link tells you more about the relationship between the two symbols.
• Type the words, favorite web site, on the link between Computers and Inspiration.

Note: Link text illustrates the relationship between two symbols or two ideas.

You can replace an existing symbol with an image from your Symbol Palette.

• First, select your symbol that reads Sports.
• Then click on the down arrow of your Symbol Palette, and select Fun | Sports.
• Replace Sports with an image of your favorite sport - golf - by clicking on the golf image.

You can bring other images into Inspiration and save them as symbols by simply copying and pasting them or dragging them and dropping them.

• Open a browser and go to http://www.flags.com and find your state flag.
• Copy and paste it anywhere on your diagram as an unconnected idea.

Reposition Sports.

• Click on Sports and move it a bit. Notice how Inspiration keeps the link connected as you move the symbol. That way, you don’t lose the relationships between your ideas when you move them.

You can change the size and shape of a symbol. Select Sports and and drag from any of the corners to resize it. Make Sports smaller.

Using the Zoom mountains in the lower left corner, zoom in or out to resize your diagram. Make it bigger. Now take it back to the original size.

You can create a hyperlink to either an e-mail address or an Internet address.

• Type the URL, www.inspiration.com, below the word Inspiration in its graphic symbol.

Note: Inspiration’s new hyperlinking feature allows students to tie the resources of the Internet and e-mail into their work.

• Highlight All About Me in the Main Idea symbol.
• Go to the menu and select Utility | Internet | URL Hyperlink. The top window shows you the text you have selected All About Me.
• The bottom window is where you enter the link, either a URL (include http://) or an e-mail address (include mailto:) will work.
• Click away.

• To switch view, make sure the Main Idea is selected and click on the Outline button on the Tool Bar. You can work in either view and your changes are reflected in the other view.

You just remembered that you didn’t type in Kitten to label your kitten symbol. Inspiration will automatically add the title for you when you go from Diagram view to Outline view. You may edit the label in either view.

To further develop your ideas, you can add topics in the Outline view, just as you added symbols in the Diagram view.

• Add Pets as another topic. With your main idea selected, just click on the Add Topic button on the Outline Tool Bar and then type Pets.

Now that you have a Pets topic, move your favorite pet, the kitten to your new category.

• You simply select the topic, Kitten, and drag it to just under Pets.
• You can also use the Move Left and Move Right Tools to reposition Kitten as a subtopic.
• Since hiking is a kind of sport, you can first move Hiking below Sports and then use Move Right to reposition Hiking as a subtopic of Sports.

  

Often when you are working with a big or very detailed outline, it is useful to hide or show levels of subtopics. The +- Sub tool is used to hide or show the subtopics for a specific topic. It works as a toggle. You can hide the subtopics of Hobbies.

• Select Hobbies, click on +- Sub button on the toolbar.
• To bring them back, you click on the button again or you can also double-click to the left of the topic prefix to hide or show subtopics.
• Double-click to the left of the Hobbies prefix to show the subtopics again.

Just like you can hide topics, you can also hide and show notes. The +- Note button is used to hide or show the notes for a specific topic.

• Hide and show the Kitten notes.

  When you want to expand your outline into a complete document, you can use Inspiration notes just like you did in your diagram. You will notice that you can see notes you typed for Kitten. We can add more Notes to Kitten or add notes for another topic.

• Select the topic Kitten and click the Add Note button on the Tool Bar.

Inspiration lets you format your outline any way you like. For example, using the Prefix button on the Tool Bar, you can choose a different type from the predefined list or choose custom to create your own.

• Click on the Prefix button on the Tool Bar and select several of the options to view the different Outline styles.
• After viewing the styles, return the style to Roman Numerals.

With a click of the Spell button, you can check your spelling in either your outline or diagram.

• Click the Spell button in the Tool Bar and correct any misspelled words.

You can use the Outline Properties to change many facets of your outline just like you would with a word processing program.

• From the menu, select File | Outline Properties. Here you can change your font, colors, headers, footers, and more.
• When you are done, you can print your work directly from Inspiration, or select File | Export from the menu.
• Click on File and Export and Inspiration gives you options for exporting your work into another program.

Now that you have done some organizing and prioritizing in the Outline view, you can jump back to your diagram by clicking on the Diagram button on the Tool Bar.

Note: See, the changes you made in the Outline view now appear in the Diagram view.

You have been working with a freeform diagram. Inspiration also gives you options for automatically arranging their diagrams with the Arrange button. Arrange lets you organize your diagram into different styles, including different types of trees and webs.

• To have Inspiration arrange your work into a Top Down Tree with Standard Links, click on Arrange and select Top Down Tree and Standard Links. Click OK.

We can use the Position button to place our diagram exactly where we want it on the screen.

• Click on the Position button and note that your pointer becomes a grabber hand.
• Click on your diagram and move it to the middle of the screen.

You can also click on the Zoom window down by the Zoom mountains and tell Inspiration to automatically fit your diagram to the maximum window size.

Remember the reds, whites, and blues from our election example earlier? Note: We can use colors to show relationships and groupings in our Inspiration diagrams.

• Select all of your Hobbies symbols by Shift + clicking and change them to lavender by clicking on Effect | Fill Color. By changing the colors of the entire group, you can tell they are related when you look at the diagram.

• Select your Sports symbol and then click on Effect | Multicolor, choose a color from the graphic, and then a color you would like to change the original color to. Repeat for different colors in your graphic.
• Or, you can click on the paintbrush and accomplish the same thing. Make your graphic match the rest of your color scheme.

Can you find the Inspiration online Help?

You can either print your diagram out from Inspiration and know your diagram will automatically print on one page. Or you can click on File Export and export your work in one of the graphic formats.

Select Open | Templates | Teacher - Lesson Plan.

Fit to window quickly and close the Symbol Palette.
(Either close it with the mouse or hit F8.)

Using this template, you could quickly plan a lesson or unit. Follow the instructions to put text in each symbol and then delete the instructions.

Note: Select Utility | Show Checklist and Inspiration puts a checkbox on each symbol. Simply click in the box when you have completed that activity.