Technically Teaching

Be a Wordsmith with Wordle August 2, 2009

Many of you have seen “Tag Clouds” on websites before.  A tag cloud is a “map” of a document, with each word in the text displayed.  The size of the is proportionate to the frequency – the larger the word, the more it appears in the text or website.  This is a great tool to save you time making sure the website you are looking at is actually going to “hit” your desired topic.  However, wouldn’t it be great if you can dynamically generate a tag cloud based on any text you choose.  Enter: Wordle (http://www.wordle.net).  Wordle allows you to paste in a URL or a selection of text, and it automagically generates a tag cloud based on that text.   It’s easy to do, the tag clouds are colorful and can be printed, and can the a launchpad for some really great lessons.  Examples:

• English/social studies: Paste a selection from a book or a primary source document into Wordle to represent the “big ideas” (literally) of the speech.  Take a look at the example below, where I have a Wordle of the Gettysburg Address (click on it for a larger image).
• English teachers: Have students paste their writing into Wordle to look for overused words.
• Guess the Wordle: Great web site with a generated Wordle which you must guess.  Sometimes it’s a story, sometimes the words are associated by a common theme, you have to guess.  Monday’s Wordle is easy, and they get increasingly more difficult throughout the week.

Other ideas?  Share in the comments.