Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Word It Out

Word clouds are the new thing. You see them all the time on the sides of articles and other web pages. Ever want to create your own? Now you can.

Word It Out allows you to create custom word clouds, and then do things with them. Want to put it on a mug or a shirt? You can. Wanna place it on your web page or blog? You can.

I am fascinated by this for an application for my English class. This program allows you to take text from anywhere -- a chapter from a novel, a primary source document, or a vocabulary and definition list -- and will make a word web out of it. Why might this be cool? Let's see...

How about create a word web for a chapter of a novel we are reading and use it as a quiz? Students would have to pick four or five words from the web and explain why they are important for the chapter and the novel.

Same could apply for a primary document. Take the Declaration of Independence. Have kids explain why words were placed in the web and the concepts that those words represent from the document.

How about as a study aid for vocabulary? Webs could be created with words and their definitions, and students would need to match the words together. Or how about antonyms? or synonyms? Endless possibilities.

What would you do with a word cloud?

Check out the one I made for the first chapter of Fahrenheit 451:






Word cloud made with WordItOut

4 comments:

  1. Word clouds are awesome. It would be a good idea to show how topic words and detail words!

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  2. Since I teach a primary grade I think students could use it to introduce themselves in the beginning of the year.

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  3. What a great idea to drive home the importance of key words to a novel. This is something that I wish I could have used when reading "Atlas Shrugged" LOL, maybe I would have enjoyed that book a bit more than I did. :)

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  4. This reminds me of wordle.net but much cooler. I would love to use this to introduce focus words for a story in reading or unit words in math or social studies/science. What a cool idea. They could even make their own with words to help them study.

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