Wordle

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimaraner)

 

Wordle is a free on line application created by Jonathan Feinberg, an IBM programmer, solely as an amusement. It can generate ‘word clouds’ from any texts whatever anyone selects, and then, can highlight the words in a wider or bigger size according to the frequent usage ratios. You can see the beautiful and stylish looking words to the text you supply, which will be randomly produced within a few moments. I personally love this symmetry or asymmetry beauty.

The procedure is outstandingly simple. 

-      Prepare a text.

     (Wikipedia is a convenient site to find a text; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki )

-      Go to http://www.wordle.net , and click.

-      Paste in a bunch of text/enter the URL of the link, and go/submit.

 

All graphics you create with this tool belong to you.  You can edit the created words, and change the fonts, layouts, color et cetera as you like. In addition, you can save/print/ embed/share them as you wish. If you click ‘Randomize’, the graphic changes automatically and repeatedly.

Why is it adopted for language learning?

 

Word clouds are multimodal tools for arranging words in more original ways than a plain text, which are used on gift cards, highlightening texts, and embedding blogs. 

The variety of selections in creation and changeable patterns arouse learners’ interests, and also, discoveries of the most frequently used words enhance their motivation. Moreover, it has flexibility in the usage, and therefore, nowadays it is used for an educational purpose.  After saving your Wordle, you can print/convert it to PDF/embed it into a web page.  You can also use Jing to capture the graphics.

 

How can teachers foster this tool as a classroom activity?

-      For warming up; introduction of new vocabulary,  review of words, or oral practice

-      Speaking activity; discussion about frequently/less used words, or talk about the meaning of words

-      Writing activity; re-construction of the text

-      Reinforcement of grammar; classified the words by nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

-      Collaboration; art work such as poster creation

 

Advantages:

-      Simple and interesting; it can be also used for illustrating our own blogs.

-      No words limit

-      A variety of options for customize a Wordle; it even includes a language/word choice in Edit device.

-      Speedy manufacturing process

-      Wordle makes words more attractive

 

Limitations:

-      The created graphics disappears unless you save it. In other words, you cannot find the same graphic when you move to another.  Remember to save it as soon as you create a favourate one.

-    Wordle does not show up some particular words such as 'the','and' or 'but', and also numbers since it may think these words are 'stop' words. If you wish to include these articles or conjunctions, please refer to 'Language' menu in order to change the setting.
 -    There is no sound.