According to Jonathan Feinberg, the creator of the Web 2.0 tool Wordle, “Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text” (Feinbert, 2009).
Using Wordle: This tool is very user friendly. The home page has a navigation menu that looks like this:
To create your wordle, you click on “create” and it brings you to a page that looks like this:
All you have to do is type your words into the text box, or copy and paste text into the box. There is also an option to enter a URL of any blog or RSS feed, or a del.icio.us user name to see tags. I typed in my del.icio.us name and this is what was automatically created:
Once the wordle has been created, there are ways to edit it. Using the tools, you can change the language, font, layout and color. You also have the option to open in window, print, randomize and save to public gallery.
During my exploration with the tool, I created a quick wordle using a few of the terms that my students need to include in their science outlines during their study of animals. After I finish the animal unit, I plan to use Wordle as an assessment tool. I plan to give my students a blank outline with blanks where the animal terms need to be added. Then if I give them a Wordle that I create using all of the words that need to be included in the outline, students will need to organize their outlines based on the vocabulary we learned throughout the unit.
While doing additional research on Wordle, I found myself on a site titled Why Wordle-By Steven. W. Anderson. His blog is categorized as Tech & Learning. On his blog he explains why and how teachers use Wordle. His ideas are great. I really think you will also enjoy them. Visit his site to read them all: http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/24518
Resources
Anderson, S. (2010, October 9). Why Wordle. Message posted to Tech& Learn: http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/24518
Feinberg, J. (2009). Wordle. Retrieved April 15, 2010, from http://www.wordle.net/
Wordle is awesome! This post is done nicely...the multiple screenshots display the variety of styles you can create.
ReplyDeleteOne idea I had recently for Wordle in the classroom is to have students paste their essays, stories, etc. into a wordle. The words that are the biggest are most likely overused (think "very"). Students could then use a thesaurus to find synonyms or more precise words.
Thank you for your description of Wordle- I was not familiar with it at all before this. I liked your idea to create a word bank for your students to outline the unit with. This would be a creative and fun way for students to do this with. I also liked Paul's idea very much- that is a very visual way to see overused words. I added the link to my de.licio.us bookmarks to use later.
ReplyDeleteThis would also be a great tool for creative writing. Students could use it to create something like a poem of themselves (early icebreaker) or of a famous person, inventor, etc. It would also be an interesting activity to use right before breaks- something on task and with high interest for the students.
I love this web tool also. I have used it a number of times in the last week and plan on allowing my students to use it as one of the web tools for their glogs (my AR project). I really like how versatile it is and creative too. I like Paul's idea of using an entire written work in Wordle and the advantages of seeing over used words. Thanks for the tool.
ReplyDeleteThis tool is pretty amazing! I saw this post before but had not tried it. This time I went to the web site and put in the poem by Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken, and was impressed by the wordle image that was produced. This quarter I am teaching a typography class and I plan to introduce this took for the students to work with. This will help the students make the connection to using words as a dynamic graphic.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Shawn