Inspiration: Part 1 – Getting Started

Inspiration is a mind mapping tool that supports a range of visual learning methodologies. The software will help plan, research and create projects and documents.
When you launch Inspiration you will see the starter screen. This screen allows you to select how you want to work either in diagram view, outline view, map view or with one of Inspirations range of cross-curricular templates. We will look at an overview of these features in turn.
A finished project or document can be exported into Microsoft Word, iWorks Pages or Open Office, it can also be transformed into a presentation using Inspirations Presentation Manager. Whether you use Inspiration on a Macintosh or a PC the interface is identical and easy to use.
When you click on the diagram view icon from the Inspiration Starter screen you will see a blank page with a Main Ideas symbol in the centre. This will be your starting point for entering ideas. At the top of the window is the menu bar where you will find all of Inspirations features. Underneath that is the main toolbar with Quick Link icons to Inspirations most common features. On the left of the window is the Symbols Palette where you will find a range of useful images. At the bottom of the window is the Quick Formatting toolbar to change size, fonts and colours. The main ideas symbol will become the title of the document or project that you are going to create.
In this example I’m going to plan a document about Assistive Technology. This will be the title, click on the background to finish entering the data. Now its time to add more ideas to the diagram. Inspiration will allow you to quickly capture ideas and thoughts about a topic and you can do this in a number of ways. You can click on the blank background and start typing, or you can use the Rapid Fire tool or the Create tool, both of which are located on the main Inspiration toolbar.
Lets have a look at how these method work. If you click on the background around the Assistive Technology symbol and start typing, you will see that while inspiration creates a new symbol with your text in it, it does not automatically add a link from one symbol to another. You will need to use the Link tool on the main toolbar to do this. Click on the Assistive Technology symbol as we want the link to originate from this symbol and then click on the link tool. You will see that a link line appears from the Assistive Technology symbol and is attached to the mouse pointer. Hover over the new symbol, which inspiration will temporarily outline in green, and then click to attach the link to it.
The second way to create a new symbol is to use the create tool on the main toolbar. This tool allows you to position the next symbol where you want to in relation to the current selected symbol. You can do this by choosing a specific branch from the Create icon. If you want a branch on the left of the Assistive Technology symbol click on the icons corresponding left hand branch. Don’t worry if you make a mistake you can press control and z on the keyboard to undo the last action.
A quick way of capturing lots of ideas is to use the RapidFire tool. Select a symbol then click on the RapidFire tool in the main toolbar and you’ll see a small red lightening bolt appear within the selected symbol. Now all you have to do is start typing your ideas pressing enter on the keyboard after each one and inspiration will automatically create a new symbol and link.
Now you can see that the diagram is starting to fill out and its looking a little cluttered. Symbols can be moved around to create a bit of structure by clicking and dragging on them with the mouse. You can also click on the arrange tool on the main toolbar and select a different arrangement. Click on the ok button to confirm the choice. Now you will see a different structure to the diagram.
That is the end of part one, in part two we will look at more features of inspiration to help complete a project.