What is Wordle?

Wordle is a tool that looks at the text you provide (students can type in words that describe themselves; words that describe their choice for presidential candidate; words that describe what they want to learn about this school year; words that describe a time in history they are learning about; their vocabulary words they are having a difficult time with; words that describe a country they are learning about, and on and on) and generates a “word cloud” summary from those words.  The word cloud gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.  You can change the font, change the layout, and change the color scheme.  Once you have created your “word cloud” the students can take a screenshot to save and paste into an application or save to Paint/Photoshop to then save as a jpg image to use in a project — PowerPoint, Slideshare, PhotoStory, Blog, Wiki, etc.  Or, they can choose to print it out and make a bulletin board in the classroom of the words.  So many uses for this very easy tool.  Caution: The Wordle Gallery — if they browse through the Wordle Gallery, could be inappropriate content; but they don’t have to browse to create.

Summarizing Mr. Freedman’s article on the 5 ways:

• Summarizing the content of an essay or any piece of work.  Useful way of telling people what the essay is about.
• Wordle can be used by the teacher as a means of assessment. Student creates a Wordle of their presentation and uses that as the basis for a discussion.
• Self Reflection.
• Summarizing survey results from text fields. 
• Illustrate a student’s writing with a picture.

How Do I Use Wordle?

• Write your text – article, essay, text fields, or just words.
• Select the text and then copy it to the clipboard – Edit/Copy or CTRL/C.
• Wordle Web Site: http://wordle.net.
• Click on Create your own.
• Paste the text – Edit/Paste or CTRL/V.
• You can click on Randomize to generate a different “look” to your Wordle.

You can print out your Wordle.  If you want to save, you can use your computer’s screen capture (Print Screen) to copy into a Word document or PowerPoint.  To save as an image, copy the screen capture to software program such as Paint or Photoshop to save as a graphic.

Another option is to save the Wordle in the public gallery and use the embed code to show in your blog, wiki, or web page.

For frequently asked questions: http://wordle.net/faq

Lastly, Mr. Freedman created a Wordle from his writing; so, copying his idea, I did the same.

http://wordle.net

Wordle is a tool that looks at the text you provide (students can type in words that describe themselves; words that describe their choice for presidential candidate; words that describe what they want to learn about this school year; words that describe a time in history they are learning about; their vocabulary words they are having a difficult time with; words that describe a country they are learning about, and on and on) and generates a “word cloud” from those words.  The word cloud gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.  You can change the font, change the layout, and change the color scheme.  Once you have created your “word cloud” the students can take a screenshot to save and paste into an application or save to Paint/Photoshop to then save as a jpg image to use in a project — PowerPoint, Slideshare, PhotoStory, Blog, Wiki, etc.  Or, they can choose to print it out and make a bulletin board in the classroom of the words.  So many uses for this very easy tool.  Caution: The Wordle Gallery — if they browse through the Wordle Gallery, could be inappropriate content; but they don’t have to browse to create.

For frequently asked questions: http://wordle.net/faq

I have been requested to put together a summer training for the TPDS in our district.  What to present took quite a bit of thought.  First, I went back to the Google on-line survey (using Google Docs) they filled out at the end of the year asking them what they would be interested in learning more about.  Almost every one of the responses noted that they would be interested in learning more about Presentations OnLine using tools such as Slideshare, BubbleShare, VoiceThread, Animoto – you get the picture. 

It just so happens that I was lucky enough to attend NECC this summer for the first time and had a FABULOUS time.  I attended a session entitled One Hour PowerPoint: A Strategy for Improving Presentations by David Jakes (http://jakes.editme.com/onehourppt) and Dean Shareski (http://ideasandthoughts.org/).  Check out Wesley Fryer’s excellent notes at http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2008/06/30/one-hour-powerpoint-a-strategy-for-improving-presentations-by-david-jakes/.  Yes, I thought the same thing – PowerPoint?  Isn’t that so old news?  Well, it also mentioned Visual Communication and Literacy, so I thought – why not give it a try!  Went with my boss and a colleague of mine.  We all loved the presentation and picked up some great info.  PowerPoint presentations can be quite fascinating if done correctly!

Some of the highlights of what we learned –

• Move away from text
• Presentations are Performances
• Dual Processing: Visual and Auditory
• Teach Students how to find Images
• Teach them about Intellectual Property
• Teach them Design
• Teach them to Sell a Message
• Color is Important
• Teach them to incorporate multimedia

David Jakes notes that it all starts with a bit of biology of the brain — http://strengthofweakties.org/?p=280 and how the brain works.  This ties together so well with the graduate course I took this summer entitled Brain-Based Learning.  So, my TPDS training started to come together.  I also thought it needs to be beneficial to all – elementary teachers to high school teachers in addition to satisfying those with varying skill levels.  Let us not forget what the ultimate product is – a student or teacher-created product which can reach many types of learners.

It is with this that I am focusing on “The Thrill of Presentations” for my training.  This title opens up so many doors – Slideshare, Bubbleshare, Voicethread, Animoto, WebSlides, One True Media, Slide, Flickr, Flickr Storm, Creative Commons.  I will be introducing the tool and giving them time to explore it online.  On my wiki, I put together information for each tool on where to sign up for the tool, where to get help, examples, and more. 

One of the two days I have to go over our new e-mail package.  Of course I will do this, but hopefully will quickly move into what I call “extras” to our Presentation training – TeacherTube, SchoolTube, Flip Video, and a couple great new tips on the latest version of SMARTBoard software.

OK, I know I have way too much here, but there are so many great tools out there, how could I just pick a few?  Hopefully, they can look at one tool a month and by the end of the school year, think of how many new tools they will have tried?

My Resources:

Wiki Page Listing Tools for “The Thrill of Presentations”

http://juliazanglcolby.wikispaces.com/Presentations+OnLine

Wiki Page Listing Tools on “Photo Management”

http://juliazanglcolby.wikispaces.com/PhotoManagement

Wiki Page Listing SMARTBoard Sites

http://juliazanglcolby.wikispaces.com/SMARTBoard

 To view the WebSlide I created which shows a screen shot of the Internet sites, visit http://www.diigo.com/list/jzcolby/pps-technology-summer-training

http://slides.diigo.com/list/jzcolby/pps-technology-summer-training

Google Docs Spreadsheet has introduced a new feature — the ability for users to create a web-based form.  This is great for teachers/students doing research, working in collaborative environments where they want to conduct a survey, for sign-ups, or any other reason you would want input from others.

You can create the form and send users an e-mail with a link to the form.  Users do not have to log in to Google to fill out the form.  Once the user fills in the form, the data is automatically populated into the spreadsheet where the form was originally created.  How easy is that? 

If you have an iGoogle page, you can add the Form widget to your page and find out when new entries are added to your form.

To create a form:

• Log into Google Docs
• File > New Spreadsheet.
• Click on SHARE
• Give your Spreadsheet a Name and Click OK
• Now, where you usually choose to invite people as collaborators or viewers, there is a new option – To fill out a form.
• Choose this option and click on Start Editing Your Form button.
• Now you get creative and make your form.

Enjoy!

Google Earth users need to download a new version from http://earth.google.com.

Google View of Mars: http://www.google.com/mars
Google View of the Moon: http://moon.google.com

Source: Cape Cod Times, August 23, 2007