Gliffy
From LIS 460 Summer 2007
Gliffy is an internet based diagram design program. It is similar to programs like Inspiration, however there is no software to download and users can collaborate and share documents with others. Gliffy offers a wide variety of icons and graphics to add to the browser, and the diagram page has the option of a gridded format, and snap to grid feature to help format objects where they belong. Gliffy can also be used to design floorplans, and has many icons that are specific to a floorplan format. Color and size of document can be edited to the user's liking, and all documents can be shared with as many collaborators as needed.
How Gliffy Works
In order to access Gliffy for free, users need to sign up using a valid email address. Once a user is registered for a free basic account, they have 5 public documents that can be created on that user name. After the diagram is created, the owner can choose to share or add collaborators to the diagram via email. Every user who shares or is a collaborator on the document must sign up for a Gliffy account. See an example of a Gliffy diagram and an example of how the online collaboration works here. Documents can only be deleted by the original creator of the document, and shared documents only count towards the original creator's 5 public documents.
Gliffy does have a premium service available that is paid for a low price yearly. The price is $30 for one year, and $45 for two years. Included in the premium service is the ability to create unlimited documents and make them private (all free Gliffy accounts can only create public documents). Free accounts are ad supported and have the Gliffy logo on published/exported documents. Premium accounts can remove the Gliffy logo and all services are ad free.
How Gliffy can be used in schools
Gliffy can be used in schools by students, teachers, and administration. Because it is free online software, the school does not need to purchase or download any programs onto computers. Students can sign up for free accounts and create diagrams for projects. They can collaborate with peers on diagrams using Gliffy's collaboration tool, and the document can be imported directly into the work they are creating. Creating diagrams and flowcharts are useful tools for students and staff to be able to use and create. This software is a cost efficient and practical program for students to learn how to diagram online.
One way of using the premium service to support a school would be for the media specialist to purchase one premium account and make a main user account for the school. This user log-in can create and share as many documents as needed. The main user can either let teachers use the log-in and password to create documents, or the librarian can create blank documents that she can then share with students and teachers so they can create their own diagrams. This saves the cost of having many premium services, while still allowing the students the use of the software. Because each free user only gets 5 documents to create, all documents that users are collaborating on are not taken away from their 5 free diagrams. Students would be able to have their own 5 documents, plus as many documents as they need shared by the main user.
Gliffy vs. Inspiration
There are benefits for using both Gliffy and Inspiration software in schools. Gliffy is free, and users can create their 5 free diagrams whenever they need to after they register. Inspiration, however, only has a 30 day free trial, and students and staff could only create documents for free during the 30 days after the software is downloaded. This is impractical because students are rarely in school for more than 20 days in one month, some months much less. Inspiration costs about $69 per user license for an individual license(prices based on this) but can be used for as long as the software is installed on the computer. Gliffy's prices seem more affordable initially, but if a school plans to use the software for more than 2 years, it is not any cheaper than Inspiration.
Inspiration definitely presents a more kid-friendly approach to creating documents. The graphics are nicer and the functions are a bit clearer to understand. Gliffy is designed for use in the business world, not necessarily the school environment, and has less appealing graphics and functions for students. However, Gliffy's collaboration tool is one thing that Inspiration does not have. Documents have to be saved and emailed as files to be shared, where as Gliffy documents can be sent directly through email without having to save it first on the computer the user is working on. This is beneficial for students who don't have a home computer and do a lot of their work at school or the library. Their document will always be available to them online, and it does not matter if they are on a different computer every time because the work is never saved onto the hard drive of the computer.
I think Kidspiration is definitely beneficial for teachers to teach students how to create and use graphic organizers in their note taking. Because Gliffy is not designed for young students, it might be beneficial to teach young students on Kidspiration and as they get older, the higher grades could use Gliffy instead of Inspiration - since they are so similar.
Overall, while there are some drawbacks to using Gliffy over Inspiration, the simplicity of the software and the ease of creating and sharing documents definitely makes this a tool worth using in a school and library environment.
