About Inspiration Software Inc.
Our Mission
Our company strives to support improvements in education and business and to make a positive difference in our users’ lives by providing software tools that help people of all ages use visual thinking and visual learning to achieve academic, professional and personal goals.
Click here learn more about Inspiration and their committment to visual learning and thinking through the Inspired Learning Community.
Leader in visual learning
Inspiration Software®, Inc. is recognized as the leader in visual thinking and visual learning. We develop and publish innovative software tools that inspire thinkers and learners of all ages to brainstorm, organize, plan and create. With more than 25 million users worldwide, our award-winning software is revolutionizing visual thinking and learning in education, personal and business use—inspiring students to develop strong thinking and organizational skills and improve their academic performance and tapping the power of visual thinking to help personal and business users enhance productivity and creativity.
Recognized commitment to excellence
Inspiration Software is dedicated to championing the growth and improvement of technology in education. In addition to creating software and support materials that build a solid learning foundation for students of all ages, we offer professional development scholarships for educators. Company leaders demonstrate their commitment to encouraging the use of technology to improve education by serving on industry boards and committees such as the Software & Information Industry Association's (SIIA) Education Division Board.
Our flagship product, Inspiration®, has earned many industry awards including four prestigious SIIA Codie Awards, most recently in 2007, a 2006 Award of Excellence from "Technology & Learning" magazine, the 2006 Editor's Choice Award from "Children's Technology Review" as well as multiple awards from the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP), including a 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award for Reading and Language Instruction Software for Grades 6-8. Kidspiration® has earned three SIIA Codie Awards (2006, 2005 and 2003) and two AEP 2005 Distinguished Achievement Awards for most innovative educational software and the best educational software for reading. Inspiration® for Palm OS® earned a 2004 Award of Excellence from "Technology & Learning" magazine.
InspireData®, launched in 2006, has received several accolades as well. Winner of a 2007 Best Educational Software (BESSIE) Award, the visual way to explore and understand data was also a 2007 Codie Award finalist in the "Best Science Instruction Solution" category. In addition, InspireData earned a 2006 Seal of Approval from the National Parenting Center, as well as a 2006 iParenting Media Award.
Our company has been recognized for its corporate accomplishments, receiving the 2007 EdNET IMPACT award as well as prior HERO and PIONEER awards for making significant contributions to education technology and the education market. In 2002, we ranked 310th in our first appearance on the Inc 500, Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing U.S. private companies, and in 2003, we were included in Deloitte & Touche's Technology Fast 50 (fastest growing technology companies in Oregon) for the fourth consecutive year. In 2005, we were selected by Oregon Business Magazine as one of the state's "100 Best Companies to Work For" for the third time. Our company prides itself on being a fun, creative and casual place to work.
Inspired products
Inspiration: Powered by the proven strategies of visual learning, Inspiration® is the essential tool students grade 6 to adult rely on to plan, research and complete projects successfully. With the integrated Diagram and Outline Views, they create graphic organizers, develop ideas and expand topics into writing. As a result, students gain and retain a better understanding of concepts and demonstrate knowledge, improving their performance across the curriculum.
InspireData™: The latest addition to the Inspiration Software family, students in grades 4-12 use InspireData to collect, explore and interact with data in a visual, dynamic inquiry process. They learn new ways to work with data to question, explore, solve problems and draw conclusions in science, mathematics and social studies.
Kidspiration: Created for K-5 learners, Kidspiration provides an easy way to apply the proven principles of visual learning. Students build graphic organizers by combining pictures, text and spoken words to represent thoughts and information. Younger learners develop early literacy skills and more advanced students improve comprehension skills and organize their ideas for writing.
Inspiration for handhelds: The learning benefits of Inspiration combine with the natural ease of handhelds to give students grade 4 to adult handheld power to develop ideas and organize thinking. With Inspiration® for Palm OS® , it's easy to capture ideas and show relationships by sketching symbols and arranging thoughts directly on screen with a stylus. It's an innovative, versatile way to help students achieve clearer thinking, better writing and improved performance across the curriculum.
With Inspiration, InspireData, Kidspiration, Inspiration for Palm OS, educators of all grade levels and curriculum areas have the ability to fully integrate a wide range of visual learning techniques into the classroom and the curriculum.
Company history
Founded in 1982 by Donald Helfgott and Mona Westhaver with a focus on business software products, their first product was for the CP/M operating system to help systems analysts build products to meet business needs. Next they created a line of products for the Tandy Model 100, the original notebook computer, used primarily by outside sales staff, writers and editors.
In 1987, they began to focus on brainstorming, thinking and organizing tools. The first version of Inspiration, the premier tool to develop ideas and organize thinking, was released for the Apple® Macintosh® in 1988. Subsequent releases included a Windows® version, major upgrades and a native Japanese version on both platforms.
1996 brought an exciting change - a new focus on developing Inspiration to meet the needs of educators and students. Inspiration 5.0 Education Edition was released in 1997. To extend the power of visual learning to younger students, they released Kidspiration in January 2001.
Committed to improving their products and meeting the needs of our customers, they are continually evolving their award-winning software lines. In 2004 they released Inspiration for Palm OS, followed by the release of Inspiration for Pocket PC in 2005. The newest version of Inspiration—Inspiration 8—launched in 2006, featuring expanded visual capabilities, increased support for writing and easily accessible resources for curriculum integration.
In July 2006, their flagship products were joined by InspireData, a tool for investigating, manipulating and analyzing data. With InspireData, students in grades 4-12 can apply the proven strategies of visual learning to data analysis in science, mathematics and social studies to build deeper content knowledge, strengthen critical thinking skills and develop data literacy.
Today, according to market research firm Quality Education Data (QED), a division of Scholastic, their products are in use in more than 60 percent of U.S. school districts.
Click here learn more about Inspiration and their committment to visual learning and thinking through the Inspired Learning Community.
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