Wordle – A Modern Spin on a Word Cloud
Wordle is a great service that allows you to create word clouds in a variety of different layouts, colors, sizes, etc. Wordle allows you to simply type in the words or phrases you wish to include in your cloud. If you want one word to be prominent, you enter that word several times. As you can see below, the Wordle cloud I created has Fairport and all of the schools in a larger text.
When brainstorming ideas for a writing project, why not create a project in Wordle that will allow your students to visualize ideas in a fun way. For oral reports, a Wordle cloud would be a great visual to provide of key topics or pieces of information. To analyze student writing, try having students paste in their written work into Wordle so they can visualize the words that they are repeating throughout their writing.
For more ideas on using Wordle with your students, take a look at Twenty-Four Interesting Ways to use Wordle in the Classroom.
The mathematics department thinks this is totally cool! I made a wordle of trigonometry terms and it turned out great. Thanks!
Glad you were able to put Wordle to use!
Psst…Tanya Hunzek and I used Wordle to create the header art for our class blog. We used terms related to our class curriculum, listed all of the staff and Tanya’s class mascots even made it in there too.
http://lifeskills.blog.fairport.org/
Shameless plug; we love using the blog. Wordle made it visually appealing.
Next year I’m going to make it part of our beginning of the year lessons for a “getting to know you project” as a class.
I completely forgot you used Wordle to create the header for your class blog! I love that Wordle allowed you and Tanya to make your blog personal to your classes. With the Wordle art, you two created a nice custom theme!
Cool Wordle tip:
To keep two or more words together on the finished Wordle product, place a Tilda between the two words.
Boston Red Sox would show up separated and scattered (Boo!)
Boston~Red~Sox would show up on the wordle together (Yeah!)