Magical Middle School Musings
Web 2.0 Blog
Link: http://www.wordle.net/ Link to this example: Not Applicable Description: Wordle is a tool that's been around for awhile. I've seen it used but never attempted to create one before. At first, it seemed quite simple to use. You enter text into a box, press go, and it creates a word cloud that displays the words in the text. Words are emphasized (with large, bold font) depending on how often they appear in the text. Unfortunately, the experience of creating the Wordle was not as easy as I had hoped. Because it's an older program, it requires Java to run, which is only available on Internet Explorer. I only found this out after I attempted to create a Wordle in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. It took some time to configure Internet Explorer correctly, but I was eventually able to get it to create a word cloud. Once the Wordle was created, I could customize the layout, font, color, and language.
The text I used in the example shown here is the text of the Common Core Standards for Grade 6 Math, The Number System. I think using the text of the standards in a word cloud provides an excellent visual for terminology emphasized within them. It's a great way to show students some of the key terms that will be highlighted in a particular unit. It could be used to introduce a topic and talk about vocabulary. Because of the issues I had with creating the Wordle, I would not recommend it for student use. Now that I know how to use it, I think it would still be appropriate for teachers to use. It's a tool I can see myself using during certain topics and units. Once a Wordle is created, it can be downloaded for future use. Wordle does not provide a link or a way to embed the image, so the only way to view it again later is to download the image.
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