{MARTI} Wordle - Word Clouds

[Margie]

http://www.wordle.net/

Have any of you used this site before? I just heard about it through
another student in an online class that I'm taking, and it looks like
a wonderful reason for any classroom.

[Ramsey Ludlow]

Yes- I use it all the time for various things:
1. it's fun

2. We can test our skimming/ predicting pre-reading skills by copying an
online article into wordle and seeing if the words or ideas that we would
expect to be big are indeed big (you'll want to test it first to be sure
the article you choose demonstrates accurately what you want to
demonstrate.

3. we can copy our essays into wordle to be sure that the thesis that we
think we have made clear comes out in big letters

4. we can copy our essays to be sure we have not repeated secondary words
so often that they appear as major important words- nice way to check on
those pesky repeating words and force more creative vocab.

5. you can paste the declaration of independence in and see what concepts
were most important in that document- and of course you can do that with
any document, but the Dec of Ind always prompts major discussion. this can
be helpful for history lessons using many other documents and pulling out
the main concepts through keywords.

Experiment and you will find a bazillion uses!

You have to pick the right fonts/colors/orientation, etc to make the word
cloud as clear as possible when you want concepts or key words to pop out-
otherwise it looks pretty and cool, but will be messy and confusing.

How are other people using it?

Ramsey Ludlow
Oxford Hills / Buckfield Adult Education
256 Main Street
South Paris, Maine 04281
743-8842 x 9527