English-Woodle 349


Description:

Wordle is a tool for generating “word clouds” from a text that you provide.  The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.  You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes as well as determine what types of words you would like to see.  The images you create with Wordle are yours to use whatever way you like.  You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends, students, or teachers.

 

Directions:

1)      Visit http://wordle.net

2)      When on the home page, click on the create tab.

3)      Place your desired text into the large text box on the top of the page. This text may be  vocabulary words from a unit, literary terms, themes from a novel or poem, lyrics to a song, students work, or any other material from.  For websites or other sources, paste a URL into the second box. To use a username or tag, paste it into the bottom box.

4)      Once your desired text in entered, click the “Go” or “submit” button.

5)      A preview of your Wordle will display on the next page. To edit your Wordle, click on the features on the top bar. These features will allow you to do the following: edit the language (options include editing spelling, capitalization, use of common words, use of numbers, and apply to a multitude of languages), edit the font, layout, and color of the words.

6)      When you are happy with your Worlde, you have three options:  “open in window”, “print”, “randomize”, or “save to public gallery”. The “open in window” feature allows you to preview your Wordle in a separate window. The “print” feature allows to print your Wordle. The “randomize” feature will change the way your text is arranged in your Wordle. The “save to public gallery” feature allows you to save your Wordle to the public Worlde gallery. Depending on the purpose of your Wordle, select the feature you desire.

7)      Enjoy your Wordle!

 

 

 

Examples:

1)      A wordle on the United States National Anthem would look like this in a wordle. 



From this, one can see that the primary concern with the text is Land with God being another prominent idea

2)      Romeo and Juliet is a commonly read text in school.  This tool can help students see main ideas in the text as a whole,

or can help them understand if their papers on the play are saying what they want them to say.

3)      This tool can work as a summary tool for smaller sections of a book as well.  Here is just chapter five of the Great Gatsby.

This would easily help struggling readers understand the text better

4)      This tool can also be used as a way for students to organize information about authors.

It allows the student to see the information in a much more visual way.

 

Extra Resources:

For more help with the Wordle tool, please refer to the following websites:

http://edition.englishclub.com/esl-magazine/wordle/- For tips and further instruction on how to use Wordle.

http://blog.simplek12.com/education/video-how-to-use-wordle-in-the-classroom/- For a video on how to use Wordle and ways to apply this tool into any classroom.

http://www.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/3/2/1332581/how_to_use_wordle.pdf- For a basic tutorial.

http://edudemic.com/2010/07/45-interesting-ways-to-use-wordle-in-the-classroom/- For forty five ways to use Worlde in the classroom and example Worldes.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/new-teacher-boot-camp-wordle-lisa-dabbs- For an instructional video on how to use Worlde as well as ideas as to how to use this tool in the classroom.