Tech in Ten September 2012: The Wonderful World of Word Clouds
1. The Panthers Library Presents:
The Wonderful World of Word Clouds
A Tech in Ten Presentation
September 10, 2012
2. “Graphical representation or word
frequency that presents a picture of the
most common words used with those used
more often displayed larger…” University of Oxford
3. Wordle is an application that creates Word
Clouds (pictures made of words) based on the
frequency of the words that are entered in the
Wordle Site.
Can you guess this Wordle?
4. How to create a Word Cloud with
Wordle.net
Can you guess this Wordle?
10. Why use Word Clouds?
quick and easy
class discussions
all content areas
critical thinking skills
creativity
11. How
can
I
use
this
in
my
content
area?
108 Ways to Use Word Clouds in the Classroom…Word Clouds in Education Series: Part 2
Sources: http://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/108-ways-to-use-word-clouds-in-the-classroom-word-clouds-in-education-series-part-2/
12. Have the students each create a list of
words that describe a "friend" and a list
that describes a "bully". Take all of their
words and create a "friend" Wordle and
a "bully" Wordle. Then, make a
classroom poster that has each Wordle
on it and in big text has the question
"Which one are You?". Have it posted on
the classroom door so everytime they
leave the classroom, they see this
question.
https://edunology.wikispaces.com/Word-Clouds
13. Use a word cloud to
create a discussion either
in class or posted on the
web for a discussion
forum. Try to create it so
that a question of inquiry
can be used.
14. Have students create word
clouds that generate
understanding of a concept,
standards or vocabulary word.
15. Have students read a science related
news or journal article. Have them
compose a science fiction story using
scientific terms found in their reading.
Have students create two word
clouds. One from the original news or
journal article and the other from their
story. Can members of the class tell
the difference?
16. Copy and paste various
author and writers styles to
see what can be learned.
Identify parts of speech to
see amount of adverbs,
adjectives, etc. How do
author and writer styles
differ?
17. Historical Document Analysis: Have you
ever wondered what the Magna Carta or
Declaration of Independence would look
like when pasted into Wordle? There will
be lots of talking points from the resulting
word cloud. What do you predict you will
see? What themes can you identify? How
does the word cloud fit in with the
historical context of the document?
The Top 10 Ways to Use Wordle at School
Source: http://preview.tinyurl.com/c526eob
18. Have students analyze a writing
and give statistical information
using
percentages, proportions, and
numbers of used words.
Remember that you can use a
word count to analyze words.
What kinds of graphs could be
used to illustrate this data better?
19. Students create a word cloud to
illustrate their favorite athletic
personalities and do not include
the name. They then present
word cloud to class and
students try to guess. Finish by
including their word cloud as
part of a poster with a picture
of athlete, name of athlete, and
paragraph about him/her.
20. If a picture paints a
thousand words… then
why not paint a picture
looking at words you
have input into a word
cloud?
22. Ask students to come
up with terms that might
lead to a new product or
innovation and put the
terms in a word cloud in
order to brainstorm a
new idea.
23. Have students keep food journal of
what they eat for a week. If they
eat French fires three times they
record that. They then enter their
entire journal entry being sure to
give a number value in the
advanced more or pasting the
word the correct number of times.
They should end up with a word
cloud of their diet
24. These word clouds can be used as
a pre-reading activity in a a second
language. Students can look for
the most prominent words and
begin to decipher what the text will
be about. Student writing can also
be put into a word cloud and you
can have other students visually
look at the text.
http://wlteacher.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/using-wordle-in-the-world-language-class
/