Wordle
Wordle is definitely one of my favorite internet tools, since its functions are really easy to understand but its effect is awesome. I like to work with it, both in my private life as well as for university purposes.
Once you are on Wordle you could spend a lot of time on creating word clouds of texts that you provide but you also could be finished within a few minutes. The clouds give greater prominence to those words that occur more frequently in your source text. Moreover, you are able to choose between different layouts, fonts and colors.
Below you can see a word cloud I created which deals with the basic ideas of new media.
Once you are on Wordle you could spend a lot of time on creating word clouds of texts that you provide but you also could be finished within a few minutes. The clouds give greater prominence to those words that occur more frequently in your source text. Moreover, you are able to choose between different layouts, fonts and colors.
Below you can see a word cloud I created which deals with the basic ideas of new media.
Reflection
As already mentioned I really like Wordle. In my opinion one can insert it into lessons easily, since it is fast done, but nevertheless offers a great spectrum of different possibilities. It is interesting to see how a text could look like in a word cloud. Just one click and an ordinary text can change into something special. Moreover, students learn to work texts in a new way. Written texts are splitted into single words and hence show a new visual experience. I think it shows a different but innovative way to work with literature. A lot of pupils are bored by too long texts. Since Wordle put the focus on the most written and hence important words students are introduced to texts easier. With almost one glance they can identify the direction the intention goes to. Teachers can introduce into a new topic by showing a word cloud to their class. Furthermore, they can show a word cloud at the end of a teaching unit which sums up the most important facts. They can make their pupils creating a word cloud on certain topics. Moreover, word clouds are nice, visual elements that upgrade every poster.
As you can see I think Wordle is a really good online tool since it is quite handy and without much effort a great result can be achieved. Moreover, it does not reveal any personal data which always is a big advantage in order to surf the Internet wisely.
All in all I will highly recommend Wordle to my students and maybe I can enthuse one or two about literature.
As you can see I think Wordle is a really good online tool since it is quite handy and without much effort a great result can be achieved. Moreover, it does not reveal any personal data which always is a big advantage in order to surf the Internet wisely.
All in all I will highly recommend Wordle to my students and maybe I can enthuse one or two about literature.