On February 25, 2008, we announced the 25 talented educators who will receive the 2007-2008 Inspired Teacher Scholarships for Visual Learning. The scholarships recognize educators' "Best Projects" using Inspiration Software's visual learning software tools.

The top honor for "Best Overall Visual Learning Project" scholarship award goes to Kathie Thuillez, a sixth grade social studies teacher at Fort Settlement Middle School in Sugar Land, Texas.

All 25 recipients will receive $1,000 to support professional development or new technology for their classrooms in recognition of their creative use of visual learning to help their students think and learn. In addition, Kathie will receive a bonus of $500 for classroom technology and a $500 personal award for her exceptionally innovative and creative use of Inspiration.

Faced with the challenge of teaching sixth-graders the ins and outs of economics, Kathie used Inspiration® for the unit's culminating project. Her students created diagrams to demonstrate their learning and summarize major economic factors of production, types of industries and economies. Taking advantage of Inspiration's hyperlinking capabilities, the students' webs linked to information about events affecting current economic conditions as well as definitions and examples of terms. With visual learning, Kathie's students were able to delve deeply into understanding the complexities of economics, using their projects as study guides for the unit test. Download Kathie's project.

Congratulations to Kathie, and to these 24 other talented teachers who received Inspired Teacher Scholarships this year:

• Heidi Bradford, a sixth grade teacher at Horace Mann Elementary in Ottumwa, Iowa, used InspireData™ to teach forensics.
  
• Art teacher Cathy Bullington helped eighth grade students at Bedford Middle School in Bedford, Ind., see the connection between art and science by using InspireData and Inspiration. Download Cathy's project.
  
• First and second grade students in Dawn Capobianco's classroom at the Robinson School in Westford, Mass., used Kidspiration® to learn about character traits and create their own personal character trait webs. Download Dawn's project.
  
• Lisa Caswell, a teacher at Perrysburg Junior High School, Perrysburg, Ohio, had her sixth grade students use Inspiration to create visual aides that identify signs of bullying and solutions to the problem.
  
• Susan Cherup, a professor of education at Hope College in Holland, Mich., trains future teachers to use visual learning technologies and processes with their students, and also has her students develop familiarity with the software by creating concept maps to understand recent education legislation.
  
• Robyn Chrast, seventh and eighth grade language arts teacher at Sandburg Middle School in Golden Valley, Minn., began a multicultural literature unit by having her students use Inspiration to gather research and present information about a foreign culture. Download Robyn's project.
  
• Sixth grade science teacher Richard Comeau at William Diamond Middle School in Lexington, Mass., used InspireData while working at Mount Washington Weather Observatory to analyze, use and present data demonstrating how scientists could improve the observatory’s solar-powered data transmittors. Download a case study describing Richard's project.
  
• Amy Conlin, fifth grade teacher at Tamarac Elementary School in Tamarac, Fla., created a project in Kidspiration to help students develop environmental awareness. Download Amy's project.
  
• Second-graders in Amy Goodrich's class at Woodland Elementary School in Brooklyn Park, Minn., used Kidspiration to show off their writing skills as they developed "All About Me" projects. Download Amy's project.
  
• Fifth-graders in Dennis Grice's class at St. John's Lutheran School in Orange, Calif., used Inspiration to explore the cultures of Native American tribes and develop multimedia presentations.
  
• Craig Hyatt, health and fitness teacher at East Valley Central Middle School, Moxee, Wash., had his seventh grade students use Inspiration to create a wellness action plan. Download Craig's project.
  
• Nedra Isenberg, a technology teacher at Holland Patent Elementary School in New York, used Kidspiration for different projects across the curriculum with all grade levels. Download Nedra's project.
  
• Teacher Jennifer Lee Kelly at Central Elementary School in Calhoun, La., used Kidspiration to differentiate instruction for fifth grade students with dyslexia. Download Jennifer's project.
  
• At Calvert High School in Prince Frederick, Md., Erin Kimbro used Inspiration to help her American Government students develop an understanding of the three branches of U.S. government. Download Erin's project.
  
• Donna Klayder at Alliance High School in Alliance, Ohio, used Inspiration to create a web showing tenth through twelfth grade chemistry students the connections among vocabulary words from a unit on water.
  
• Joy Lee, master teacher for South Cluster 2 in the Republic of Singapore, used Inspiration as part of a research project to discover the effects of using visual learning strategies to help her students improve narrative writing.
  
• Melinda Leitner teaches English as a Second Language (ESL) students at two elementary schools in Henrico County Public Schools, Glen Allen, Va. Her kindergarten through fifth grade students used Kidspiration to understand content and create diagrams to demonstrate their learning. Download Melinda's project.
  
• Mijana Lockard, technology teacher, used Kidspiration with her first-graders at Lincoln Avenue Academy in Lakeland, Fla., to explore the climate and geography of the Arctic. Download Mijana's project.
  
• Ninth grade students in Maryanne Porter's physical science classes at Academy Park High School in Sharon Hill, Pa. used Inspiration to develop thinking skills as they created diagrams and concept maps to review test material on "Test-Prep Tuesdays." Download Maryanne's project.
  
• Margaret Rothblatt's fourth grade social studies students at Woods Road Elementary School in Hillsborough, N.J. used Kidspiration to explore events in their school's lifetime that changed history.
  
• Eighth-graders in Caron Sharp's English classes at O. Henry Middle School in Austin, Texas used Inspiration to create a character analysis web.
  
• Teacher Kenneth Shelton's students at Walter Reed Middle School in Studio City, Calif., learned the critical elements of story development and built writing skills by using Inspiration to create a "Choose your ending" story web. Download Kenneth's project.
  
• Second grade teacher Diane Stolz used Kidspiration to help her students at Colwich Elementary School in Kansas become "Biome Experts." Download Diane's project.
  
• Susan Yerino, science lab teacher at Woodvale Elementary School in Lafayette, La., used Kidspiration to help her fourth grade students understand food chains. Download Susan's project.

  For information about future scholarships and other opportunities from Inspiration Software, visit www.inspiration.com/scholarship.