@joe_edtech
One of my colleagues loves word clouds because they are pretty. Well, of course they are, but they can also be great tools for analyzing articles and speeches, or beginning class discussions about assigned readings, or even for quickly encapsulating group responses to questions.
I once worked with an AP Econ teacher who frequently used Word Clouds with his students to analyze text. Do you remember President Obama's "Jobs" Speech? Before his class started discussing the economic implications of the speech, they took the text of the speech, created a Wordle Word Cloud. The words that were used most frequently in the speech appear as the largest words in the cloud. With a quick glance, you can probably hone in on the President's analysis of the problem and some of the solutions he suggests. This is a great way to get kids thinking and talking about the speech, or really any text you want them to discuss.
Another teacher used Word Clouds in one other really interesting way. After the first test he asked all of his students what they could have done to improve their scores. He collected the responses in a Google Form and pasted all of the text into Wordle. This helped kids assess their own study habits and plan for their own success for the rest of the year.
History and English teachers have been using Word Clouds for a couple of years to compare and contrast speeches from different times and different sources. For instance, if you take the text of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address and make a Word Cloud, and put it side by side with FDR's First Inaugural Address, what would that tell us about both the issues confronting these two men and the values and concerns of the American People at the time these two Presidents took the oath of office?
There are several free Word Cloud generators out there and they all work about the same. Wordle is the one that gets the most publicity, and is probably the most popular.
Tagxedo allows you to customize the shape of your Word Cloud (I once used Tagxedo to make my resume into a giant "J" word cloud).
While most of the Word Cloud generators aren't iOS friendly, Word It Out works pretty well and has most of the same features as Wordle. The last image on the right was made by pasting the text of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address into Word It Out.
If you are working on a Chromebook, you can use the Free Chrome Web App "iLanguageCloud" to create word clouds very similar to the ones made in Wordle.
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Do you have other Word Cloud or Text Analysis tools that you use with your students? If you do, please tell us about them below.
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| Created with Wordle from the "Jobs" Speech |
History and English teachers have been using Word Clouds for a couple of years to compare and contrast speeches from different times and different sources. For instance, if you take the text of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address and make a Word Cloud, and put it side by side with FDR's First Inaugural Address, what would that tell us about both the issues confronting these two men and the values and concerns of the American People at the time these two Presidents took the oath of office?
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| Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural on Word It Out |
Tagxedo allows you to customize the shape of your Word Cloud (I once used Tagxedo to make my resume into a giant "J" word cloud).
While most of the Word Cloud generators aren't iOS friendly, Word It Out works pretty well and has most of the same features as Wordle. The last image on the right was made by pasting the text of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address into Word It Out.
If you are working on a Chromebook, you can use the Free Chrome Web App "iLanguageCloud" to create word clouds very similar to the ones made in Wordle.
______________________
Do you have other Word Cloud or Text Analysis tools that you use with your students? If you do, please tell us about them below.
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