Kidspiration® 3 Technical Support
System Requirements
Upgrade Information
Quick Tour
Quick Start Tutorials
Getting Started
Contact Technical Support
Frequently Asked Questions
Version 3.0 (released February 2008)
The current version is 3.0. Kidspiration® 2 users, click here for Help Center. Kidspiration 1 users, click here.
System Requirements
Windows® : XP or higher, including Windows 8
Macintosh® : OS X 10.4 or higher
Recommended:
- Compatible printer
- Internet connection*
- Soundcard and speakers
Optional:
- Interactive electronic whiteboard
- Microphone
* For downloaded products, the computer on which the downloaded product is installed must be connected to the Internet for the product to be activated.
Upgrade Information
Learn what's new in Kidspiration!
If you are a Kidspiration user, you will still be able to read your files and use your previously created templates and symbol libraries with Kidspiration 3. One of the many great features of Kidspiration 3 is that you can save your Kidspiration 3 files as Kidspiration 2 files, for exchanging with others who haven't yet upgraded.
Single license upgrade
Click here to purchase a single upgrade license for Kidspiration 3. Serial number is required.
Volume license upgrades
For multiple license upgrades, please call 800-877-4292, ext. 136, email sales@inspiration.com or contact an Inspiration Certified Dealer.
Quick Tour
See first hand how Kidspiration helps K-5 students explore and understand words, numbers and concepts!
View the Kidspiration Quick Tour, a comprehensive tutorial illustrating the key features of Kidspiration. You'll see how easy it is for students to express their creativity and thinking with pictures, words and numbers.
In addition to the system requirements listed below, you will need a QuickTime® player to view the Quick Tour. To get QuickTime, click here.
Quick Tour System Requirements
Macintosh
Power Macintosh G3 or greater
Mac OS 10.2.x or higher
300 MHz or faster
64 MB installed RAM
800x600 color display
Windows
Windows 98, 2000, ME, XP or Vista
300 MHz or faster
64 MB installed RAM
800x600 color display
Quick Start Tutorials
Download these Kidspiration quick start tutorials
To view these files you may need to install Adobe® Reader®.
Picture and Writing View
Picture View
SuperGroupers
Using the Teacher menu
Writing View
Math View
Base Ten Blocks
Color Tiles
Fraction Boxes
Fraction Tiles
Pattern Blocks
Using the Free Workspace
Working with steps
These tutorials are a great starting point for learning how to use Kidspiration. You'll learn how to use Kidspiration's Picture, Writing and Math Views. These small, manageable mini-lessons make it easy to learn the basics quickly. Before you know it, you'll be using Kidspiration to develop your students thinking, literacy and numeracy skills!
Use these tutorials when you download your trial version and when you begin using your own copy of Kidspiration.
Contact Technical Support
If you don't find what you need here, please feel free to email techsupport@inspiration.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: I just finished installing and registering on my Windows XP computer and all I see is a blue screen.
A: Click on the Taskbar button, or press Alt-Tab, to bring the Starter dialog to the front.
Q: I can't switch to another view from math view.
A: That's as designed, because Math View has a toolset and purpose quite different from the other views.
Q: I can't save a document with a math view to Kidspiration 2 format.
A: Because Math View is brand new, the earlier versions of Kidspiration can't interpret it, so saving it to an earlier version's format is not allowed.
Q: What happened to the Voice Menu option?
A: To keep things simple, Kidspiration now uses standard voices - no need for set up.
Q: Is there a way to add fonts to Kidspiration 3?
A: No, but the font set is now better defined, so there should be a choice that will work for most educational purposes.
Q: Can I open an Inspiration 8 document in Kidspiration 3?
A: No, but documents created with Kidspiration 2 will open successfully.
Q: Is Kidspiration 3 supported on the Apple operating system called "Leopard"?
A: Yes, but there are a few minor issues to be aware of. Kidspiration file previews are not displayed when using Apple's new Quick Look feature, and you'll need to use the search feature within Kidspiration help rather that searching by keyword or directly from the help menu.
Q: I just upgraded to Activinspire on my Promethean whiteboard and now handwriting recognition doesn't work anymore.
A: Inspiration applications do not support handwriting recognition under the latest version of Promethean's software, although most other features should work as expected. However, we do support ActivStudio 3, Promethean's next, most recent major version, for handwriting recognition on the PC and Mac (on the latter, prior to OS 10.6, for which a separate issue exists)
