Wordle Smurdle
I've been writing and talking a lot about Wordle lately and thought I would continue blathering about it here at TechLearning as well. It is a really simple tool that does one thing: takes some text and creates a "word cloud" by analyzing usage and frequency of words. The site calls it "a toy" but educators (myself included) have started to see it as a great little tool to spark reflection, discussion, analysis, and even a great way to make t-shirts!
I took a Wordle shot of the top 300 words I've used in my blog entries here at TechLearning (click image to see it larger):
I can analyze this image until my heart's content. I can take personal pride in realizing that I'm mostly writing about "students" and reproach myself on writing too much about "Twitter." I could use this cloud to decide what to write on next, what to delve into more deeply, what to give a rest. I could use the words to construct questions for further research or statements of my pedagogical beliefs. I could present it to others in a Rorschach-type game and ask what patterns they see. And finally... I guess I could make a t-shirt out of it.
Wordle is such a bare-bones simple tool, that part of me wonders why we're writing about it at all. It's on the level of praising the benefits of duct tape or Kleenex. It's just not that remarkable. What I think we're really writing about is not the tool at all, but the ability to analyze our writing and ideas in this new, focused ---even artistic--- way that invites abstract interpretation. I've never looked at my writing in this way before and I must admit, I find it rather fasinating; taking the writing process in reverse, reducing my words to a refined assemblage of my main ideas, my central thoughts, my main passions.
This is me in concentrated-formula form. Just add water.