Digital Diagram

Prior to learning about digital diagrams, I had seen and utilized diagrams but not through this program. I believe the diagrams I have seen utilized for classes were constructed simply in Microsoft word or PowerPoint. These programs do not have a multitude of graphic, text and resource options.

The program we used for this project, which will be reviewed below is very simple to navigate and create graphics for lesson plans.

Before actually creating our diagram on the software "Inspiration," we created our story board, basically serving as a draft on paper to what we were going to create for our lesson plan. Like I said above, most of the diagrams I have seen were very simple and didn't virtually "tell a story" like I am capable of creating with Inspiration. My lesson for the 4th grade music class was titles "Classical Composes" and I was able to create simple facts and add notes in the bubbles so that the diagram was not overly busy. I was able to change colors for each sub-topic to make for easy navigating if the students were observing form their seats. In addition, you can essentially type in any name or word, and the graphic resources will search for animated pictures to add to the diagram. Kids love pictures! These really added to my diagram. I used small graphics for each sub-topic like a bright purple "?" for the "fun fact" and a treble clef symbol for "musical works." For each composer I included a picture by their name.

These diagrams would be a fast, simple, way to enhance lesson activities. Although it is not interactive, it is much more interesting than handing out a worksheet or reading from a textbook.