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Tuesday, October 5, 2010

BP5_Web 2.0 Tool



BP5_Wordle

Wordle is a wonderful tool that can be used at any grade level to visually enhance a lesson or to kick one off. I have used it with my kindergarteners as both an introduction to some lessons as well as a culminating activity at the end of others. Wordle is a tool that allows you to create word clouds from words you either type in as text or retrieve from the web. You have the option of changing font color, size, and shape or layout of the text. If there is text that is entered more frequently, that particular text will appear larger in the world cloud. This feature allowed me to use this tool to survey my students and for them to see the results instantly. An example is asking students their favorite color and giving them the opportunity to type in their answers. The color chosen most often will appear large than the others. Your completed Wordles can also be printed or shared.

I have used this tool with my students to create word searches where they were given words to find and highlight. This was reinforcement and review to previously learned sight words and high frequency words.  Students also created their own Wordles by typing in these same words. This was also a great reinforcement and practice for these words.

At the end of themes we have created Wordles to summarize things we learned or words we associate with the topic. An example of a Wordle we created for Fall was words we associated with the fall such as pumpkin, leaves, acorns, etc.
My students love this tool as much as I do. It is a great way for the class to collaborate to achieve a product as well as present information in an attractive and creative way.

 


http://www.wordle.net

2 comments:

  1. Thank you opening my eyes to new possible of Wordle. When I was introduced to Wordle in month 2, I saw it as an attention-grabbing tool that others could use, show my friends and share ideas of how they could use it. But I was at a lost when it came to how I could use Wordle in my classroom, until now. I love your idea of using it for a word search. I plan on using it next week with my students. Thank You.

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  2. Monica,
    What great ideas for using Wordle. I had never thought of using it as a wordsearch, that would be fun. I try to use worlds a lot in my classroom for each unit as well, but I really like how you only use a select number of words for your young students. I am going to start shortening the number of words I use for the youngsters. Great post.

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