PB4_Wordle

This week I reviewed a Web2.0 tool called Wordle. I had heard of some of the uses of Wordle and decided that I needed to try it for myself. I went to 100 Essential Web Tools for Teachers. I liked how the site had all of the tools laid out with a brief description of what the tool's main use is. It made it very easy for me to browse the list and make a few choices. 

Wordle is a tool for generating “word clouds” from text provided by the user. You type your words into a source text box and then hit 'go'. Greater prominence is given to words that appear more frequently in the source text.  You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. Once you've created your Wordle it's yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. You can also publish it to the web. You have to be careful with publishing to the web because once it's published you can't get it back or delete it.

What I liked about this tool was learning that you can choose the actual size of each word if you want to. I have found several great uses for this tool. I created a "name" cloud with all the members of my Corps Cadet group. I will use this to have then work together to brainstorm reasons why all the names used are in the cloud. I also want to see what reasons they may come up with for the different sizes in the names and find out what they think about the ordering of the names in different Wordle clouds.

This is a very user-friendly tool and it has a vast number of potential uses. The 'cloud' is the limit with Wordle, and the best part? It's free!