Today we were writing a simple flow diagram for an explanatory text about drive belts. So I planned to use Gliffy, the online diagram tool, to do the job. I was really pleased with how things worked and the user friendly nature of it all.

It is a free to register site and has all the functionality you would expect. I was happy with it but I did ask myself whether I could have got similar results using SMART Notebook? What was I doing that is different?

Well the transformation of the activity lies in it’s potential. Today I scratched the surface and we just used it to create a diagram, but when you plan to collaborate on a diagram with others – then it becomes a different game entirely. Two classes could collaborate on the same diagram, maybe two classes in the same year group (same school) and then from the wider community too.

There is also the inherent “Share” feature as with many web 2.0 tools nowadays – the ability to embed into websites or blogs using, in this case, java or linking quickly to an image file of various sizes. I found this very useful.

I did find the resizing of text to be a little fiddly it could do with being able to resize along with the shape it lies in.

The images you can see in my example were straight from the Image Search tool in the left panel – which is a nice touch, being able to search right there. (You can also upload your own images to the left panel to insert)

All in all a good tool to have in the locker when exploring this sort of diagram authoring.