Word Cloud

Hopefully you have got yourself back into the swing of things after the March Break.  To help you here is something you might use in your class.  The above are examples of word clouds.  I posted previously about wordle, see November 22, 2012 by clicking here.  Tagxedo is another word cloud site that allows you to pick outlines to place your words in or to frame with (see above). To see their site click here. Some examples used in  a foods class are shown below.

Here is an example that I made using a list of award winning books we have in our school library.

Some other ways that are used in class are (thanks educatorstechnology.com):

Use word cloud tools to brain storm a topic or create a discussion either inside the class or online
Use them to teach vocabulary
Use them in reading activities to promote comprehension
Students can use them to feature important ideas from a  discussion or a video content
The entire class can use word clouds to react to a certain topic
Have students create word clouds that generate understanding of a concept, standards or vocabulary word.
Illustrate classroom thoughts or views using a word cloud to survey students.
Create a class word cloud that highlights class expectation
Post students first names to create a class or group word cloud
Bio for Students as an Introduction to Wordle/Tagxedo-"All About Me"
Create a marketable product to present and sell to the general market.
Create Job Descriptions/Responsibilities for Career Pathways
Vocabulary Words from their core subjects
Introduction to Resume and Job Interviewing Skills

Word Clouds by Tagul

There are many Word Cloud sites such as Wordle, TagCrowd, Wispy (based on Twitter or Facebook feeds), ABCya  (for kids), Word Cloud by Jason Davies, HTML5 Word Cloud, and finally Semantic Word Cloud. Thanks Nathan Hall.  I tried Tagul the other day and what I find great about it is that you can put the word you want into a picture/clip art.  They have some stock clip art (hearts, stars, etc.) but they allow you to add clip art.  I wanted to put all of the last names of  my sons hockey team in a cloud that was a hockey player.  I was able to do that.  When I was done I went to the print button and then before printing I screen shot it and put it in paint.  I then cropped it and put it in word and was able to put a nice title and a few other things around it.  To see the website click here.

Monkey Learn Word Cloud

 

A word cloud (also known as a tag cloud) is a visual representation of words. Cloud creators are used to highlight popular words and phrases based on frequency and relevance. They provide you with quick and simple visual insights that can lead to more in-depth analyses.  I have posted about several other cloud generators see here.  Here is another one that can be seen by clicking here.  The nice thing about this one is that if you put in source text you can find out how frequently a word or phrase is used.  You might do this for your own work to see if you use a phrase a bit too often.

Silhouette collage art

The following Silhouette collage art lesson is from Christine Theodore.  The students used flashlights to trace each others silhouette then covered them with magazine clippings with words that described themselves.  I think this could work with Tagul as a word cloud after the silhouette image has been placed in Tagul.