Have you ever considered using Wordle in your classroom? If not, you should! It's a free tool that allows you to create word clouds that show prominent words in a body of text. You can copy and paste any text, including individual words. You can also use the Advanced feature to specifically tell the program which words should show more prominently. (http://www.wordle.net/)
Here are some quick ideas on how to use Wordle in class -
• Analyze Presidential addresses - google a President's speech, then copy and paste it into Wordle; do two or more speeches to compare
• Use as a cover for a report - at a quick glance, the teacher can see what is being emphasized in the report
• Use for vocabulary or spelling words - introduce a unit, a story or the weekly spelling words in a Wordle word cloud
• Use for reading comprehension - design a Wordle with the important terms from some content area; ask students to make predictions of what they will learn as they read or ask students to review what they've read by writing sentences using the words in the Wordle
• For math or social studies, easily see results of surveys - for example, take a survey of the class as to their favorite colors or favorite foods, then use the Advanced feature of Wordle to input the results; at a quick glance, the entire class can see what the favorite color or food is (the one that was answered most)
• For language arts or social studies, use Wordle to find bias in news reporting - take a news article and copy and paste it into Wordle, then look for the prominent words
Wordle is very easy to learn and use. For more information, go to http://tedteachersnetwork.pbworks.com/w/page/30355297/Wordle. This is a Wiki page that includes 1) What is Wordle?; 2) How to make a word cloud in Wordle (video); 3) How can it be used in class? (list and video); and 4) Useful Links (at the time of this writing, there were 48 ways to use Wordle in the classroom listed).
Try using Wordle in your classroom today! It's that simple and easy to do!
