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Pieces of Eight
Tech Treasure #1.....10/9/14
Word Clouds
Create with Wordle
Create with WordItOut
Created with Tagxedo
What are word clouds?
Word clouds and fun! Basically, word clouds are creative images of text with key repetitive words emphasized. They are organized in random fashion with lots of possible colors, fonts and arrangements.
How can I use word clouds in the classroom?
The possibilities are truly limitless! Here are just a few suggestions to get you started.
- Create a visual rubric. List the assessment criteria for a project. To make key criteria 'pop', repeat those words or phrases you will be looking for during grading or presentation.
- Do your students seem to use the same words over and over again in their writing assignments? Have them copy the text of their last essay into a word cloud generator to create a visual 'ah-ha' moment.
- Plug in classroom rules and expectations - repeat the really important ones.
- Take a poll and show the most popular and least popular answers.
- Have students list positive words about each other then create a word cloud for each student, plug in the student's name several times for emphasis.
- Have students create an "All About Me" and why not one for yourself too.
- Foreign language classes can practice their language skills by playing 'guess the story', paste in words from fairytales, poems, speeches or short stories, etc.
- Compare and contrast to selections from two pieces of literature.
- Introduce units or lessons with word clouds using vocabulary terms and ideas then discuss which are familiar and unfamiliar.
- Classify objects in Science.
- Describe climate for a certain location.
- Compare and contrast two states showing resources, state symbols, etc.
- Make a word cloud from a math story problem.
- Create word clouds using geometric shapes and vocabulary terms. (certain tools allow shape designs)
- and the can go on and on....
Online
Wordle
- Wordle.net
- Free to create
- Save to public gallery
Word It Out
- WordItOut.com
- Free to create
- Merchandise options
- Embed cloud to website
- Email address required to save
- Can mark public or private
- User account will then have a url link to word cloud
Tagxedo
- Tagxedo.com
- Free to create
- Merchandise options
- Requires quick Silverlight install
- Works well with Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer broswers
- Shape options for word cloud
- Merchandise options
- Save in various formats to computer
Apps
Word Salad
- Free / $3.99 iPad app
- Clouds will have watermark unless removed by in app purchase
WordClouds
- Free (limited time) iPad app by ABCya.com
Cloudart
- $0.99 iPad app