I LOVE Swivel (all the data... not so much the graphing) and Google Documents is nice, particularly in its flexibility. I work on multiple computers and its a great way to work on something without having to email it to yourself or save it on a flash drive. The only bug I found is that when I inserted a table, it didn't print a table, instead it looked like lists which had been created using a tab. (???) Swivel is awesome... tons of data. I wasn't too thrilled about the graphing aspects... As a math teacher I'm not convinced that the students would have to do enough "thinking" (i.e. having to decide which data should go on the x axis vs. y axis... scale... etc.). It appears that you can import the Swivel data into Excel, or simply use it as a starting point for finding linear regressions, etc. I'll definitely be using this site this coming year.
My problem with Thinkature is that I really like the Inspiration software for creating concept maps, etc. and Thinkature was quite limited compared to Inspiration.
I had problems getting my document that I had made using Google docs to post to my blog. The reason is that I use two different accounts (gmail for google docs vs. hotmail for my blog) and the two accounts wouldn't talk to each other. I tried inviting one account to join the other, but I lost patience. Now I see why you should always work with only one account... ah well... live and learn.
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Thinkature is not a mature enough product yet. I hope they will continue to develop it however. There's really only a few more features it needs to get up to speed. (I would be happy if they just added the ability to label the relationship lines ... that's a huge drawback!)
The multiple accounts and logins is an issue. I want to go through all the sites I use and do it over "right" ... just have not got up the gumption to do that yet (and then there's the issue of all the content I would have to move.
I completely agree that Inspiration is the better, more complete tool - the elementary kids love to use Kidspiration. But, I liked the easy drag and drop nature of Thinkature, and the instant, one-computer, on-the-fly concept map for someone who didn't have access to the more expensive application.
I like getting your take on the Swivel - I found the instant data displays interesting, but you have to know what you are looking for to know which of the graphs are meaningful. But I can see, especially as a high school teacher, not wanting to give all the answers, but rather to have students discover and create what those charts might look like.
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