"Very cool."
"The best thing I saw at FETC."
"Brilliant."

Those are just some of the responses we heard from educators at the Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) in Orlando after they saw a demo of Kidspiration® 3! Thousands of teachers visited our booth and saw the exciting new ways that Kidspiration 3 supports visual learning across the curriculum.

Kidspiration 3 takes everything teachers and students love about Kidspiration and broadens its support for building literacy skills, expands its tools for learning math and makes it an even more powerful tool for developing thinking skills. When teachers saw the new Word Guide with more than 13,000 words and the now-searchable symbol library with more than 3,000 symbols, many commented, "I always loved Kidspiration, but this takes it to the next level," and immediately started to talk about how they would use the visual learning software to help their students think creatively and organize ideas to write, comprehend and communicate.

We also heard lots of great comments when teachers saw Kidspiration 3's new tools for learning math. When they saw that the lessons they previously taught using hands-on math manipulatives, such as base ten blocks or fraction tiles, can now be enhanced with the power of visual learning, they started talking about all of the different ways that they can now use Kidspiration 3 to teach math to their youngest students. They also told us that they were impressed with how the new math tools, such as Kidspiration Pattern Blocks™ and Kidspiration Base Ten Blocks™, illustrate math concepts.

In fact, some educators even blogged about Kidspiration 3 right from the conference. Brian S. Friedlander, announced Kidspiration 3 on the blog, "Assistive Technology" and said he will be back soon with his thoughts after he has a chance to use it. And a teacher on the K-9 Technology CoP blog wrote home to tell colleagues in chilly Minnesota that Kidspiration 3 has an "AWESOME math application" – not evening mentioning that Orlando was 70 degrees out compared to 12 back home!

Inspiration Software had other exciting things happening at FETC as well. We attended the "Technology & Learning" magazine 2007 Awards of Excellence reception where we accepted an award for InspireData® 1.5. Plus, "District Administration" Associate Editor Ken Royal shared with us the great news that InspireData 1.5 was selected as one of the Top 100 Products of 2007 by you – the magazine's readers! Even though we didn't get to spend much (any!) time outside in the balmy temperatures, we had a great time at FETC, seeing so many educators from Florida and around the country and hearing about the terrific things you are doing in the classroom.

But this week, we're in Texas at the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) Conference, where once again we are showing Kidspiration 3. In fact, today is the day that Kidspiration 3 is officially available! If you are in Austin for TCEA, please stop by booth #1247 and see what everyone was talking about at FETC or visit our Web site and download a free 30-day trial.

Every time we release a new product or an upgrade to one of our current products the development is based on the feedback that we get from you—teachers who are using visual learning in the classroom. As soon as you have a chance to start using Kidspiration 3 with your students, please let me hear about it. Send me an email, or post your experiences in the Forum here in the Inspired Learning Community.

We hope to see you this week at TCEA, at another regional conference this spring, like eTechOhio or CalCUE, and here sharing your ideas in the Inspired Learning Community.