This week as a part of my technology course, I had the opportunity to use the two programs Inspiration 9 and Kidspiration design. I was actually excited about these two assignments because I love learning about new programs that I can incorporate in my lessons and the classroom. Both programs reminded me of lessons and activities I have come across and used on the smart board.

I found Kidspiration to be a really great kid-friendly program that I think would be wonderful in the classroom. Personally I think a draw back to the program is the scary sounding voice that speaks when you hover over a tool. I think that a voice is great for younger children but why didn’t they use a sweet kid-friendly voice? I think it would be more appealing if they used even a child’s voice instead of the one on the program. Other than that I found it to be a really wonderful program that was easy to use and navigate. I especially liked the math activities they had; it’s a great way for children to interact with the computer to understand harder math concepts in an easy way by being able to move around manipulative.

            Inspiration was also a good program, but it had less appeal than Kidspiration. I found it to be a bit duller and not child-friendly. Even though it wasn’t as appealing as the first I still found the templates they offered to be really nice. I could definitely see potential with a little sprucing up. I was excited to see a cinquain template because I just taught a lesson on cinquains and this program definitely would have added a lot to my lesson. It was easy to add pictures to my template once I completed it and I could see my students having a blast with it. What I didn’t like was the presentation part of this program, I wasn’t able to have a lot of creative freedom designing it and honestly I did not see the point. I much rather prefer power point or the smart board.

            Overall I’m glad I was introduced to these two programs and I hope to learn more about them and how to use them to their fullest in the classroom.