Word Clouds

Word clouds are a great way to encourage students to use technology to "show what they know."  They are so much fun and have so many different uses. I have students use them to tell me about a book character, the elements of a book, to illustrate a theme, or to determine what words they used too much in their own writing.  They could also be used to illustrate the theme of a piece of writing.  Below are a variety of word clouds from some different sites.

I love Wordle.  They are easy to create and flexible to edit for adults and kids.  The wordle below is one I made by entering in all of the Presidents' first, middle, and last names.  If you are hoping for a successful son, it looks like you might want to name him James, William, or John.  :)

Tagxedo is another fun word cloud generator.  It works very similarly to Wordle, but you have the flexibility of creating your tagxedo into a shape, and when you hover over a word in the shape, it will pop out...
This is one I made just by entering the URL of this blog.  I was unable to find a way to embed it, so it appears as an image and loses its interactivity.  However, still cool!

Word it Out is another word cloud site.  It is easy to use, also.  The one I made here uses the words from this year's classroom expectations that my students created.

TagCrowd doesn't have quite as many options, but it does allow for a word count.  This would be a good one for students to use to review their papers for repeated words.  This one was made by entering the URL of our class website.

ABCYa also has a word cloud generator.  It is easy to use.  It just doesn't have the options that some of the others have.  Here is one I created for The Gettysburg Address.

Word Mosaic is another one that is easy to use.  You import your words and determine the shape.  It will allow you to embed the image.  The one below is one I created for Valentine's Day..."How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways..."

Share with me any other ideas you have for the use of word clouds.  They don't always have to be printed out.  Students can put them into blogs, you can place them in your blogs, wikis, or online portfolios.  Leave me a comment about any of these sites.  I love hearing your ideas!