Leader in visual learning Inspiration Software®, Inc. is recognized as the leader in visual thinking and learning. We develop and publish innovative software tools that inspire learners of all ages to brainstorm, organize, plan and create. With more than 25 million users worldwide, our award-winning software is revolutionizing visual learning in education—inspiring students to develop strong thinking and organizational skills and improve their academic performance.

Our mission Our company strives to support improvements in education and make a positive difference in students' lives by providing software tools that help students learn to think.

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, mostly 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. The newest member of the Inspiration Software family, InspireData™, has begun to acquire 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 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. See our great benefits.

Inspired products Educators agree that visual learning is one of the best methods for teaching thinking skills. Using visual learning techniques—associating ideas, concepts, data and other information with images and graphics representations—students are better able to focus on meaning, reorganize and group similar ideas, identify misconceptions, analyze information and make use of their visual memory. 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 build critical data literacy skills. They actively explore and analyze data in science, mathematics and social studies using dynamic Venn, bar, stack, pie and axis plots to interpret information and draw conclusions. Kidspiration: For K-5 learners, Kidspiration develops thinking, literacy and numeracy skills using proven visual learning principles. In reading and writing, Kidspiration strengthens word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension and written expression. With visual math tools, students build reasoning and problem solving skills. Across the curriculum, students express their creativity and thinking with pictures, words and numbers. 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 and Inspiration for Pocket PC, 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 and Inspiration for Pocket PC, 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.

Educator resources Inspiration Software offers educators tools and resources for integrating visual learning into all areas of the curriculum. The Thinking Classroom: Using Inspiration® to Meet Curriculum Standards is designed to support teachers as they help students develop their critical thinking strategies. Each of the book's six sections focuses on a fundamental thinking skill and includes an overview of the cognitive strategy and its application in the major curriculum areas: language arts, science and social studies. Developing Data Literacy with InspireData™ was designed by educators, and offers 27 content-rich, standards-aligned lessons to help teachers incorporate InspireData into their science, mathematics and social studies curriculum. Each hands-on lesson contains step-by-step instructions that can be easily adapted for students in grades 4-12, working individually or in teams.

Company history Founded in 1982 by Donald Helfgott and Mona Westhaver with a focus on business software products, our first product was for the CP/M operating system to help systems analysts build products to meet business needs. Next we 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, we 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, we released Kidspiration in January 2001. Committed to improving our products and meeting the needs of our customers, we are continually evolving our award-winning software lines. In 2004 we 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, our flagship products were joined by InspireData, the visual way to explore and understand 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. In September 2007, we released InspireData 1.5, with new and enhanced features to increase data literacy, including more than 100 content-rich databases, the e-Survey tool and database templates to jumpstart data collection. In February 2008, the newest version of Kidspiration was released. Kidspiration 3, the visual way to explore and understand words, numbers and concepts, introduced exciting new visual math tools to help students build conceptual understanding in math. Today, according to market research firm Quality Education Data (QED), a division of Scholastic, our products are in use in more than 60 percent of U.S. school districts.