Wednesday Web v.2: Wordle

As many of you know I can't get enough of Wordle. It ranks right up there with my passion for Pandora. For those of you that don't know it, Wordle is a java applet (it runs off the Internet and cannot be saved to your hard drive)that generates "word clouds". Basically, a word cloud is a series of words you input that come out in an artistic layout.

Wordles can be saved to the public gallery, but my suggestion is that you create them and print them. If you would like to save them as a .jpeg file you will need to take a screen shot and save the image as a .jpeg from there.

I would also suggest keeping students out of the gallery. Wordle is not an educational program so its content is not monitored (although nothing inappropriate will ever be displayed on the home page). The FAQ section of the site is very helpful.

If you create Wordle or have ideas for how they can be used please comment!

Guess the Wordle

This is a fantastic site written by Jennifer Wagner. She has created Wordles centered around different topics, then posts them for people around the world to view. You can see along the right side of the screen that people from all over the world have logged in to take a guess. This site is amazing- definitely worth your time.

Guess the Wordle "How To" is also from Jen's site. It gives instructions, but even better provides a ton of lesson plan resources near the bottom of the page, as well as a slideshow.

Wordle Ideas

View more presentations from Jenuinetech.com.

Web 2.0 to What includes a section on Wordles that will give you some grade level examples in pdf format.