tech in ten september 2012: the wonderful world of word clouds
DESCRIPTION
Preso for monthly 10 minute tech in ten segments presented during Pikesville High School's monthly faculty meetings.TRANSCRIPT
The Wonderful World of Word Clouds
The Panthers Library Presents:
A Tech in Ten PresentationSeptember 10, 2012
“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
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?
Shape Word Cloudshttp://www.tagxedo.com
http://daily.tagxedo.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitcycle/favorites/?view=md
Why use Word Clouds?
quick and easy
all content areas
critical thinking skills
class discussions
creativity
Sources: http://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/108-ways-to-use-word-clouds-in-the-classroom-word-clouds-in-education-series-part-2/
108 Ways to Use Word Clouds in the Classroom…Word Clouds in Education Series: Part 2
How can
I use this in
my content area?
BullyingHave 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
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.
Any Content Area
Have students create word clouds that generate
understanding of a concept, standards or vocabulary word.
Any Content Area
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?
SCIENCE
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?
ENGLISH
Historical Document Analysis: Have you ever wondered what the Magna Carta or Declaration of Independence would look like when pasted into Wordle?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?
Source: http://preview.tinyurl.com/c526eob
The Top 10 Ways to Use Wordle at School
SOCIAL STUDIES
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?
MATH
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.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
If a picture paints a thousand words… then why not paint a picture looking at words you have input into a word cloud?
ART
Animate a Wordle using stop motion capability.
Multimedia
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.
TECH ED
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
HEALTH
WORLD LANGUAGESThese 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/
www.pikesvillehslibrary.pbworks.comThis presentation and additional Wordle resources are
located on The Panthers Library Site in the Tech in Ten Teacher Folder
Flickr Image via woodleywonderworks
Joquetta Johnson, Library Media Specialist @ The Panthers Library