Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I teach 5th grade and we use wordle to find the meaning of greek and latin roots. I give the students the root on Mondays. Then the students list all of the words they can think of that contain the specific root - for example, if I give them the root "tract" they list all of the words that contain "tract" = tractor, retract, contract, extract, etc. Then the next day the students look up the definitions for the words. Finally on Wednesday we put the definitons into wordle and when you run the wordle - the meaning of the root will be displayed. This way i am not just saying what the root means, the students are discovering the meaning. When they enter the definition into wordle I also have them use the following format - root - word - definition. For example: tract - extract - To draw or pull out, often with great force or effort. It is important they follow this format so that the root is one of the largest words. This words amazingly well for greek and latin roots. Sometimes I do have to give the students words that I am confident will lead to the wordle with the correct meaning of the word. I love all of the ways to use wordle listed here!

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

My 5th graders use it to create graphic representations or our 26 character building Unity words. They quickly understood how to use it and had a great time changing the style to make it their own. I also plan to have them create Wordle self-portraits

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I used Wordle for the first time this year with my 1st and 2nd grade students during their computer lab time. We created Halloween wordles and accomplished several things. First, it was a very effective way to show them the importance of using only ONE space between words when typing; Second, I modeled the creation of a wordle and then asked them if they could tell me why some words were larger than others (higher level thinking skills); Three, the students created their own Wordles, and armed with a bit of knowledge about how the wordle works, were able to express their own knowledge and feelings about Halloween in a fun and creative manner. P.S. Thanks for the post about blocking portions of the Wordle site. That is an excellent solution to a potential problem.

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

If you are interested in an information summarization tool please look at Context Organizer- contextdiscovery.com Brian

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

There are some great ideas here in the comments. I recently wrote a Top 10 of Wordle Lessons for the Classroom. You can see the article here... http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/58905.aspx

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I teach in an elementary school and was so excited after hearing about Wordle at a tech conference. However, I became very disappointed because of the inappropriate material on the site. Has this changed?

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I teach in an elementary building and we were also concerned about the obsene language and so we followed the following steps that we found in another blog (would like to give credit but can't remember where I got it) Simply have your networking administrator block the following base URLs (i.e. block all URLs that begin with the given text, and not merely those literal URLs.) : * http://www.wordle.net/gallery * http://www.wordle.net/next * http://www.wordle.net/random and your users will not see anything that's not safe for classrooms. You'll still be able to save your work, bookmark your individual Wordle creations, print them out, and share the URLs of saved Wordles with each other and with families.Please let me know whether this works out for you in your school or other institution." We also have the link on our page go directly to the create page... http://www.wordle.net/create

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I would like to raise one POSSIBLE issue with Wordle, the program appears to represent magnitude in a two dimensional graphic. If this is true, then that leads the reader to perceive the area of the word as a representation of its magnitude (occurrence) the result is that the reader sees the larger words as occurring more than they really are. A nice discussion appears on the following link http://lilt.ilstu.edu/gmklass/pos138/datadisplay/badchart.htm

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I have had students writing biographies about each other. After their final copy was edited they posted their biography to Wordle. The students love seeing the transformation!

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I think we just need to find some good tutorials and learn there as much as possible about wordle. Then everything will become much more clear!

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

That's very helpful. Thanks a lot for sharing it. Eva

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I have used Wordle in my class and school in the past. I use it for our discussion on bullying. I have the students each create a list of words that describe a "friend" and a list that describes a "bully". I then take all of their words and create a "friend" Wordle and a "bully" Wordle. I then made a classroom poster that had each Wordle on it and in big text had the question "Which one are You?". I have it posted on the classroom door so everytime they leave the classroom, they see this question.

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I introduced a teacher friend to Wordle and she used it when she was ready to retire mid-year--she had her students write a few paragraphs about themselves and each student entered it in Wordle. They posted these in the room to introduce themselves to the new teacher who was coming in. I thought that was a neat way to introduce them and the word clouds were very colorful and fun posted in the room.

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

Getting kids to pay attention to words, and language in general, is challenging when so many have under developed sensitivity to words. Wordle is a helpful tool in getting them to see words.

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I used wordle for test corrections. Students typed in the questions and answers that were missed on a test. Then they color schemed the words to their individual talents. It was a great way to "jazz" up the dreary review after a test.

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I have not found any explicit instructions on creating a wordle. I like the idea but the website's "create a page" is a dead link for me.

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

Hi Steven -- Thank you for the shout out and the kind words. I am using wordles for reflection and reviews with my students. I also used it as a "getting to know you" with my High School home school class and believe I got to know them faster -- and perhaps they shared a bit more than standing in front of the class talking. I am learning each time I create wordles -- especially the level 2 and 3's. In fact, on a few of them, I realized what I thought I knew was indeed wrong -- and creating the wordle helped correct my understanding. (especially on the history wordles!) :) I have heard that they have been used for essay review on repetitive words and also for spelling errors. Personally, I just think they are a fun, quick, and (if used correctly) a highly effective tool. However, on the other side -- some teachers who are using Guess The Wordle are using it as they would just a handed out worksheet -- and no extended conversations at all. And that, frustrates me. Thanks for the post, the mention........ sorry if I rambled. Jen

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

Thanks for sharing this. We are trying to focus on academic language this year on our campus and this seems like a helpful tool. sometimes the vocabulary seems to go in one ear and out the other, but I think this visual might help. I wonder if you have any thoughts on which level Wordle has the most impact on. I work on a high school campus and wonder if the kids or staff might think its too elementary.

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

Thank you for all the ideas.

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I learned of Wordle at the NCTIES conference in March, 2009. Thank you for sharing your ideas of ways to extend the use of this great tool!

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I was looking forward to using Wordle with my Jr. Hi Language Arts and Social Studies classes until one day I went to the site to see that it would work in our computers and the homepage example was full of obscene words --the worst you could imagine. And to think I may have put the students on the site without checking first!!! I can't take the chance of that happening again with students so I will not ever use the site.

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

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Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

My student love Wordie! Such a useful, fun tool. Makes learning so much more fun

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I never used this program but I think it is very useful. In my class we do not use Wordle... I'd like to try it!

Why Wordle-By Steven W. Anderson

I think that this is great to see that there are so many different things you can do with this software! That is just way cool! If you guys have any other cool software that you can mess around with let me know.

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