Tutorial Inspiration Project: Zoo Field
Trip Web

Definition: A concept web is a type of diagram which shows various relationships among concepts (according to http://www.netcore.ca/~gibsonjs/dict1g3.htm). Inspiration allows teachers to create webs, graphical organizers, diagrams, and other visual representations of relationships.

Create a concept map showing animals that could be researched during a field trip to the zoo. Use the following sites for additional information about the animals:

Open the Inspiration program from the hard drive (for additional information see the Inspiration Quick start tutorial at http://www.inspiration.com/prodev/index.cfm?fuseaction=insprec at the middle of the page.

1) Set up your main idea:

• Add in your main idea by selecting the Main idea symbol.
• Find the school bus in the symbol palette (hold down the middle triangle on the
  symbol palette; choose Work-School-Transport 1l ).
• When you click on the school bus, the Main idea symbol changes into the school
  bus.
• Be sure the school bus is still selected and click on the text box below the
  picture. Type "On our trip to the zoo, we saw. . ."

2) Set up your page title:

• Place your cursor somewhere above the school bus main idea and click. A symbol that looks like crosshairs appears.
• Click on the text only box (the second box down on the symbol palette under the oval circle).
• Type in the title "Our Trip to the Zoo" and adjust the font to Comic Sans (Format-Font-Comic Sans), the size (Format-Size-24) to 24 points, and the color to your choice (Effect-Text Color). Adjust the size of the text box to fit the title by dragging the corners (Careful! Do NOT drag the the diamonds in the middle of each line. The diamonds are for creating links to subtopics, not for resizing text boxes.)

3) Create your Rapidfire links.

Click on the school bus to make the main idea active.
Click on the Rapidfire button on the button bar. A red lightning bolt appears.
After the bolt, type the word "Giraffe" and hit return.
Type "Lion" and hit return.
Type "Zebra" and hit return.
Type "Elephant" and hit return.
Type "Monkey" and hit return.
Type "Alligator" and hit return.
Type "Peacock" and hit return.
Type "Dolphin" and hit return.
Rapidfire has created 8 links for animals you could see at the zoo. Position the circles around the bus so that they are evenly spaced. Use File-Save As to save the file as ZOO.INS

4) Insert your animal pictures to take the place of the subtopic ovals.

• Select the oval that says Giraffe. The oval will have diamonds appear around the outside lines of the oval.
• In the symbol palette, click on the middle triangle, select Animal-Plant-Animal 2.
• Click on the giraffe in the symbol palette and the giraffe picture replaced the oval. Repeat this process for all of the other animals. You may need to look for the animals under the Animal 1,2,3 menu, or Birds1,2 or Sea 1,2.
• You may need to reposition the animals around the school bus so that they are
  evenly spaced (experiment with the Arrange button on the tool bar). After each new arrangement that you try, use File-Print preview to view the entire page.

5) Add text to the links:

• Click on the line between the picture of the giraffe and the school bus. A text box appears.
• Type a fact about giraffes in the box (example: tallest) .
• Reposition the text box on the line by placing the mouse on the dot and dragging the dot.
• Repeat for at least two other animals.

6) Adding additional information:

Select an animal (click on it) and Click the lower arrow of the horizontal/vertical Create button (one on the left).

Type an interesting fact in the new symbol that appears. If you need information, see the zoo linklist at the beginning of the instructions.

Spell check your document using the spell check button on the button bar.

7) Save your file:

Select File-Save to save as an Inspiration file, choose File-Export-Diagram Format-html to save as a web page.

Sample: Our trip to the Zoo