using word clouds in class

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Places to

create clouds

How to use clouds

#1 - Write "All About Me" Students type in their strengths. Put these writing pieces in word clouds, make posters and display them.

#2 – cloud a Book

Use sites like Project Gutenberg and grab the text from copyright- free books.

#3 - share criteria Use grade-related criteria to highlight the main areas students need to concentrate on to gain the best grades. The example below is SQA criteria for General Writing in MFL.

#4 – Discussion point

Use as a discussion point at beginning or end of lesson.

#5 – Analyze criteria

Students work alone or in small groups to identify keywords and terms for the assignment criteria and create a word cloud out of the target terms.

#6 - Guess What?

In this case, it’s a French fairy tale, but it could be anything! The students guess what it is, and then use the cloud to highlight

key words so they can write their own tales.

#7 - Make the syllabus look interesting!

Copy and paste the entire syllabus and print out (or use as part of a display).

#8 - Improve students' essay writing... Copy and paste students' essays - compare the results and discuss what has/hasn't been included in the essays.

#9 - Study an author's diction in-depth: Have them choose color to match the tone! (This is page one of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.)

#10 - norms Have each student write expectations he has of the classroom. Combine all lists to create a Classroom Norms poster.

#11 - Find out what ideas are most important in a famous speech. The word cloud below is from the text of President Obama's Feb 24, 2009 speech to Congress. Here, the 25 most frequently used words in his speech are displayed.

#12 - Defining Skills

Before the dictionary comes out, give your students a new vocabulary word and ask them to brainstorm all the words they associate with it. Gather up all the brainstormed words for a word cloud.

Source: Build Literacy Skills with Wordle

#12 - Defining Skills (cont.)

After the term has been formally defined, repeat the process and compare to the "pre-dictionary" cloud.

Source: Build Literacy Skills with Wordle

#13 - Summarizing Skills

As a pre-reading exercise - copy/paste text of reading into a word cloud and ask students to predict what the main ideas of the reading will be.

Source: Build Literacy Skills with Wordle

#13 - Summarizing Skills (part 2)

Another pre-reading option - give them a word cloud of a non-fiction reading and ask them to use the word cloud to generate a title or headline before they see the real article.

Source: Build Literacy Skills

with Wordle

#13 - Summarizing Skills (part 3)

Post reading - ask them to reflect on the reading based on a prompt (main idea, what you've learned, funniest element, etc.). Collect all their reflections into a word cloud.

Source: Build Literacy Skills with Wordle

#14 - Comparison Skills

Comparison skills - Give them two different accounts/ essays on the same theme/event - let them compare the word clouds generated by each.

Source: Build Literacy Skills with Wordle

#14 - Comparison Skills (part 2)

Or, generate word clouds for two different readings - then let student see if they can match the word cloud to its corresponding reading.

Source: Build Literacy Skills with Wordle

#15 - Classroom Polls

Talk about favorite anything (here, we used colors).

Each child then types their favorite.

The word cloud created automatically shows the most favored color.

Other ideas - birthday month, fave animals, hardest spelling word, feelings, etc.

Could easily adapt to higher tasks and polls.

#16 - compare/contrast lit themes

@mjelson Ro

me

o a

nd

Juli

et

West Side Story

#17 Act as archaeologists of a text's vocabulary

Step 1: paste in a text, then selectively begin to remove words.

Source: www.antheald.com/blog

#17 Act as archaeologists of a text's vocabulary (cont.)

Source: www.antheald.com/blog

Step 2: Start with the most prominent (character names and the most common words)

#17 Act as archaeologists of a text's vocabulary (cont.)

Step 3: As you 'excavate' text, patterns and sets of vocabulary are revealed.

Source: www.antheald.com/blog

#18 - Analyze Presentation Notes

Students (or teachers) create a slide presentation. The notes are written in the Notes section of the slide. Once the presentation is ready, all notes are copied and pasted into a word cloud.

source: @njtechteacher

#18 - Analyze Presentation Notes

Students can analyze where their words are repetitive (such as like, love, or also) and adjust their presentation notes. It can be used as a teaser slide at the beginning of the presentation.

source: @njtechteacher

#19 - Create a Custom Image Header for Your Blog

Use your class blog url to create a word cloud and use the resulting image as the custom image header for your blog. Change the header periodically to reflect your blog's changing themes and content. source: Michael Fawcett @teachernz

#20 - Compare History to Historical Fiction

Make and compare

word clouds -

remind them to make the genre title bigger by typing it

several times. Post

to discuss, then post

in the hall or library.

Can also make use to compare other

genres or topics (solid v. gas).

source: @mtechman

#21 - Character Traits Analysis

source: @mwacker Michael Wacker

#21 - Character Traits Analysis

source: @mwacker Michael Wacker

#21 - Character Traits Analysis

Step 3: Type in the character’s name 10 times. Then type the other character traits, typing the most important one five times, the next most important four times, etc.

source: @mwacker Michael Wacker

#21 - Character Traits Analysis Step 4: Generate the cloud, choosing the color, font (s), and layout to match the character.

source: Michael Wacker

Earth Day 2009 Billboard Winner. This poster was created by Sophie, a sixth grader in Portland, OR. She chose environmental concepts, submitted them to Wordle, and found a type style she liked. Once the Wordle was printed, Sophie taped it onto a window & traced the image. She drew on additional elements and colored the whole piece.

#22 - Create Art

#23 - Character description

In reading groups (or alone) have students choose a character and

add as many words as they can. Compare results - why do we know

more about some than others? (This is Iron Man)

Source: @melhutch

#24 - Define characteristics

Adapted from an idea from @thespian70

What does it mean to be an American? An atom? A planet? An earthquake? A mammal? An ecosystem? A prime number?

#25 - collect vocabulary For pronunciation practice, type words with the same sounds. (TIP: Link words with a tilde [~] to keep them together (e.g. les~enfants). The tilde doesn't show up, but the words stay together.

source @kaymcmeekin

#26 - Do a “”” "cloud Walk"

Instead of a “picture walk” do a “cloud walk,” where students visit other students’ word clouds and hear explanation.

adapted from an an idea by @fisher1000

#27 - Make a Unique Gift

Students can create word clouds out of wedding vows, family stories, favorite love songs of their parents or grandparents, or just the names of the people in their families to create a very personal, but creative and artistic gift that’s suitable for framing.

source: @fisher1000

Cloud your State Standards during curriculum planning or as an introduction for your students to what they will learn that year.

#28 - Prioritize Curriculum

source: @fisher1000

#29 - Compare for bias Cloud news articles from several sources and compare to look at bias or to evaluate credible sources. These Wordles are of Ashton Kutcher's victory over CNN to reach 1,000,000 followers on Twitter. To the right is the cloud of the FoxNews article, lower right is CNN, and below is MSNBC.

source: @fisher1000

Cloud a collection of words that represent parts of speech. Change the colors to white words on a black background and print on an overhead transparency. Project onto a large sheet of butcher paper and ask the kids to come and color nouns a certain color, verbs a different color, etc.

#30 - New Levels of Interactivity

source: @fisher1000

#30 - New Levels of Interactivity

source: @fisher1000

An extension of this would be to cloud characters and character traits and use a color to connect characters with their specific traits.

#31 - Power Writing Prompts

Cloud vocabulary, science text, or poem text. Display for students as idea prompts. Students think for thirty/sixty seconds, then write continuously 2 - 4minutes without st opping without worry of conventions. Stop. Count words. Repeat two more times. Want more info on Power Writing? See this Slideshare.

source:@grammasheri teacher.se@gmail.com

#32 - Create an Audible cloud

Cloud some text, and then ask students to read the cloud, one word each, with volume and tone appropriate to size and meaning of word. (optional: record the result)

source:@NeilAdam neil@beaconict.co.uk (Idea first heard on BBC R4 iPM program.)

If, by Rudyard Kipling (Top 30 words, no common words)

#33 - Spelling with Wordle

Cloud the weekly spelling list.

#34 - Wordle WORD WALLS!

source: @fisher1000

Instead of a traditional "Word Wall," create a cloud wall. Using a student as a “ recorder," have students brainstorm definitions, adjectives, and synonyms for words, create a cloud, including the the key word. Hang on the wall so that students can get a contextual reference of that class's vocabulary.

#35 - Create a Learning Poster

Ask students to write five words that describe what they have learned to do. Explain that they can use verbs, nouns, facts, skills or strategies. (Tip: Use blockposters.com to turn it into a big poster!)

source @derrallg

#36 self-esteem boost & relationship builder

Write each child's name on a separate sheet of paper. Circulate each sheet around the class so each pupil writes at least 1 positive attribute about every other pupil. They can repeat words others have used. Collect the sheets, type each pupil's list of attributes (editing where necessary!) with their name repeated 10 times & cloud the result.

source: @yzfreeman

#37 Clarify values for RE or ethics

This gives a picture of those values the class as a whole values most; or done separately for two or more groups/classes it can compare/contrast the value systems of separate groups/classes and serve as an excellent debate trigger.

source: @yzfreeman

#37 Clarify values for RE or ethics

Brainstorm a list of at least 25 personal values that the class feels are important to live by, or use a checklist like this one to select <50. Give each pupil a list of the result to choose their top 5. Collate & cloud the result.

source: @yzfreeman

#37 Clarify values for RE or ethics

Or do the exercise in slightly amended form before & after exploring a particular ethical topic to see how the class's values have changed as a result of their learning.

source: @yzfreeman

#38 Language News Copy the front page of a news website (in a second language?). Pick out the most important / common vocab to focus on...

#39 An alternative to a word search

source: Judy Valentine

#40 animal classification

#41 Assess confidence or concerns

Learners make a list of things from recent work they feel confident they can do or that they think they need more practice on. Compile results into two clouds.

#42 Mathematics Vocabulary When introducing a topic or for review, ask students for all the vocabulary they can think of associated with the work they are studying. (optional: add poster of math vocabulary to their learning journals)

source: Colleen Young

#43 Animals in a biome

#44 Animals in a food chain

#45 climate

Create clouds for different elements of climate or location

(rainfall, snowfall, temperature, natural resources, etc.), sizing the

countries from greatest to least.

#48: Number line

Have students either spell out or use number

values to show relative size of numbers along

a number line or place value within the

metric system.

#49 statistical analysis

Can you

find the mode?

#50 food journal

source: http://www.denverfoodrescue.org/

What

did you eat this week?

At Wordle Advanced

you can choose the

hex number color and

size of the text here,

simply and easily