Word Clouds

Word clouds are visual representations of text.  When "you input a large passage of text, a shape is created from the words, with the more frequent words displayed in a bigger font size, and the less frequent words shown smaller." The Knight head posted around the school that is filled with words of varying sizes is a great example.  

Below are some sites to create word clouds as well as some information about how you might use this tool in the classroom.  There are many other sites that work the same; these are just a few:

 1. Wordsift
Incredibly easy to use, simply copy any text you want to create a word cloud out of, paste it into the site and hit "sift."  Wordsift selects the 50 most-used words in your text and displays them. You can then change the shape of the cloud, the style, and sort the words alphabetically.  Upon completion, screenshot the cloud and embed it in a slideshow or document or post to classroom as a .jpg.

2. WordArt
On this site, you can type in text one word at a time, or import a passage of text.  Select "visualize" to create your cloud.  This site has lots more options as far as appearance.  You can choose different shapes for your words to appear in, change the font, style, and layout.  There is a print option, but for school purposes I would hit "print" and then open the image in Preview where you can save it.  Or...you can screenshot it.

3. Answer Garden
This one is a little bit different in that it's designed to crowdsource the cloud.  As the teacher, you will create a question or topic to ask your students.  There are a variety of settings you can choose such as answer length, password protected, etc.  You will receive a link in your email to the Answer Garden for you to post in Google Classroom.  When students submit their answers to your question/poll, the cloud is created in the same way as the other sites with more frequent answers appearing larger.  You can screenshot, embed, or post a link to your completed cloud.  This site would be great to use for brainstorming or feedback.


How do I use word clouds in the classroom?
  • Students can analyze their own writing to see which words they use often (perhaps too often).
  • Brainstormed ideas from the class can be collected to see which ideas rise to the top.
  • Text from famous speeches and writings can be displayed in a cloud to reveal keywords and themes.
  • Submissions from polls and votes can be imported to see the most popular responses.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Insert Learning

Image
InsertLearning is a Chrome extension that lets you turn websites, Google Docs/Slides, or PDFs into interactive lessons, and it is the perfect companion to your blended learning lesson plans.   Click here to give it a try or watch the tutorial below: To start using InsertLearning, visit the website and simply click "Add to Chrome" and you will see it appear in your toolbar.  Sign in using your school Google account info and follow the prompts for a short tutorial. With InsertLearning, you can highlight text, insert a question or a discussion topic, add sticky notes with links to outside sources (YouTube, etc.), and more.  All of this can be done on any website, Google Doc, PDF, etc.!! If you find a news article or other resource, you can click on the Chrome extension to make it interactive and then add it to Google Classroom. You can search by keyword and explore the Dashboard for already-created content or create your own lessons*.  Resources to embed as
Read more

Classroom Screen: Widgets Galore!

Image
Classroom Screen was created by a teacher in the Netherlands because he couldn't find all the tools he needed for his classroom in one place.  It's a website that displays multiple widgets at a time; ideal for bell work, exit tickets, group work, and more. The widgets available are: Traffic light (think Macbook usage) Timer Stopwatch Clock & calendar Work symbols (ex. talk to your partner, work silently, etc.) Drawing tools QR code generator Classroom noise level Random name picker Dice See them in action here: All of these options are available on the website where you can upload your own background or choose from one of the stock photos.  Think about when you have multiple groups working and they need separate instructions: divide the webpage in half and use different widgets for each group.   I can see this website being used for students when they come in to journal or complete bell work and then for the end of class with action items and/o
Read more

Readsy

Image
Readsy  is a free website that " help[s] you skim large amounts of text by focusing your eyes on one word at a time without having to move them."   It was created by a computer science undergrad at Princeton.  Readsy is a great tool for struggling readers or others that get overwhelmed by a lot of text at one time.  Retention and comprehension should not be affected. To get started with Readsy, visit the site and have some text in mind to use, or you can choose a sample and Readsy will choose text for you.  You can copy and paste a URL (news article, blog post, etc.), copy and paste text (Google Doc writing sample, or student work), type into the site itself, or upload a file.  Once you have copied/pasted or uploaded your text, click "Readsy". Readsy defaults to 300 wpm, but you can adjust that speed to be slower or faster as needed. Here is a two-minute overview of Readsy in action: Next week, we will talk about the companion website: Spritz
Read more