Online diagramming and design tool

Creately

Diagramming tool OK for some, but too tricky for most kids

Learning rating

Community rating

Based on 1 review

Privacy rating

Expert evaluation by Common Sense

Grades

6–12

Subjects & Skills

Creativity, Critical Thinking

Great for

Productivity

Price: Free to try, Paid
Platforms: Web

Pros: A few built-in templates and object sets address some specialized, upper-level content areas.

Cons: The confusing interface and editing features will challenge most kids, distracting them from the actual learning at hand.

Bottom Line: For a few specialized uses it might be just the thing, but there are better diagraming options for most kids.

Some specialized high school teachers may find Creately useful in courses like drafting, chemistry, electric and auto shops, or, say, in a robotics club. English teachers might have students do some pre-writing activities like story webs or other diagrams for note-taking, and employ Venn diagrams for work with logic or interpreting literature. Statistics teachers might want students to use tree diagrams to illustrate or interpret probability concepts.

Some of the shape sets could be useful in a chemistry classroom; logic gates can be good for debate clubs. User interface mockups might be useful in a computer science class where students are programming or designing a website. While online, real-time collaboration is a great feature for group work, Creately might only confuse on this front.

Creately is mainly a productivity tool for business use, though it may have a few school-related applications. Users can create all kinds of diagrams, including mind maps and flowcharts, among some more complex and specific types. There's a dashboard-type page for file and folder management and an editor page for working directly with the diagrams. Users can build their creations from scratch using text, lines, objects, and imported files, or they can choose from a selection of templates that come with relevant objects and images. Objects can be rotated, enlarged, connected, ordered, and linked to other diagrams or URLs.

Most templates and objects are specific to business, software engineering, or design, but there are also some general templates as well as a few related to chemistry. There are few education-specific templates, but they're mostly teacher-centered. With an account, users can also share and collaborate in the cloud. Selected objects highlight and lock temporarily when two or more users are working on the same document -- changes update from one user to another relatively quickly, if not immediately.

Creately promotes a skill -- diagramming -- that if more fully integrated into school curricula would better prepare kids for all other types of learning. While the specialized capabilities here are nice, the site is likely too advanced for most students. Lots of products allow users to create diagrams, but diagramming software like this keeps objects connected even when moved or nudged around the workspace. Creately is one of a handful of cloud-based options that have sprung up around Microsoft's professional software, Visio.

Another of these options, MindMeister, would be a much better fit for use in school. While roughly comparable in price, MindMeister is more visually appealing and definitely easier for kids to use. With Creately, manipulating text boxes can be tricky, as they resize and bounce around the screen a bit. Bumpy editing, sharing, and updating features will likely turn teachers and kids off. The synchronous sharing works relatively well, although there can be some hiccups -- updates don't always migrate between users as quickly as they should. For teachers, templates for school use are sparse -- expanded options here could make the site a more appealing teacher tool. For most uses, go with a different, more kid-friendly option.

Learning Rating

Overall Rating
Engagement

Aside from some of the diagram templates, there aren't many appealing bells or whistles here. As a commercial product, the templates trend mostly towards use in business settings.

Pedagogy

Diagramming is an empowering skill for kids -- the key to unlock lots of learning. However, it's likely that Creately will only be useful for older, more advanced high schoolers. A few of the templates may interest teachers.

Support

There are some help pop-ups, but overall, support for newbies is lacking – most kids won't find it easy to use. There aren't any obvious tutorials or explanations of the various diagram types.

Common Sense reviewer

Community Rating

Creately has recently improved its interface. It is more intuitive. The brief tutorial upon entering (~4 slides) is enough to get students started with their flow chart.

I like that you can use it without a login to have students quickly show processes in the form of a flowchart. The pricing is not set up for classroom use, so the trial is a better option. If Creately wanted to market this for the classroom, the teacher should have a login and the students should enter a code each time they come to create. Flowcharts would then appear in the teacher acct.

Continue reading

Privacy Rating

Data Safety How safe is this product?

  • Users can interact with trusted users.
  • Personal information can be displayed publicly.
  • User-created content is not filtered for personal information before being made publicly visible.

Data Rights What rights do I have to the data?

  • Users can create or upload content.
  • Processes to access or review user data are available.
  • Processes to modify data are available for authorized users.

Ads & Tracking Are there advertisements or tracking?

  • Personal information is shared for third-party marketing.
  • Unclear whether this product displays traditional or contextual advertisements.
  • Unclear whether this product displays personalised advertising.

Continue reading about this tool's privacy practices, including data collection, sharing, and security.

See complete evaluation

Learn more about our privacy ratings