Creately

=Creately - A Visual or Graphical Organizer= Visual or graphical organizers can be one of the most powerful ways for students to organize and view information. There are a number of online tools which can be used, each with it's own style and benefit. One of the challenges is that they never know what to call themselves, "visual organizers", "graphical organizers", "online diagram tool"? Creately includes nearly 50 K-12 Education specific templates. The free version is limited to no more than 3 collaborators and 1 team project. Image can be exported or printed. It does have a somewhat bothersome pop-up when exiting a screen, asking for feedback.
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Practice
Create an account in Creately and start a diagram. You will have to access your email to validate your account. With a partner who also has a validated account, work collaboratively on a diagram or graphical organizer. Consider a KWL on a topic such as Twitter. Remember you can include hyperlinks.



Graphical Organizer Websites
Webspiration is from the same people who developed Inspiration, the popular graphical organizer application used in many schools. It has been in beta for almost two years as Inspiration decides how they can get people to use it but still make some money. It's unclear about the future direction and if it will always be available in free beta. A strength is the number of images and ease in sharing (can create collaboration groups and chat while working.)
 * Webspiration** www.mywebspiration.com

**Gliffy** [|http://gliffy.com] Gliffy is an online graphical organizer similar to Inspiration. It is jammed packed with symbols and allows users to easily create, share, and collaborate. Users can create and share diagrams, flow charts, brainstorming and more. It allows collaboration, but does not support multiple users working on the same diagram at the same time. A user can share a diagram and another user can work on the same diagram. Refreshing is a little clunky, often requiring a user to log back in to have a diagram refreshed. Gliffy offers free accounts and premium accounts. The free account limits users to 5 diagrams. The $30 premium account provides additional features. A very nice free brainstorming program. Users are limited to rounded rectangles and collaboration is weak. You have to try it out just so you can delete a bubble to see it disappear in a puff of smoke.
 * Bubbl.us** [|http://bubbl.us]

Another alternative with both free and premium versions. A community library of maps is available for everyone to access. No realtime ollaboration.
 * Mindomo** [|www.mindomo.com]

An online collaboration tools which allows synchronous users to collaborate on the same diagram. It also provides both free and premium accounts. The limitation is that the diagrams support lines with text and small icons. You give up the cool symbols Inspiration using educators have become familiar using.
 * Mindmeister** [|www.mindmeister.com]