Playing With Words

A Word Cloud is a compilation of key words or terms from a text.  A word cloud can be created to enhance reflection, discussion, and deeper learning.  This visualization tool can be used to engage students in reading assignments as a prereading strategy, to heighten understanding of major themes, to identify and define unfamiliar words, and to connect with previous readings.

I copied and pasted my previous blog posting, Mining Pew - Teens, Social Media, and Privacy (5/30/14), into Wordle.net, a free online word cloud.  Wordle creates word frequency representations, making words that appear more frequently larger.  There is no sign-up for this tool and no account to be created.  This might be good for using with students.  The cloud can be printed, projected, or saved to a public gallery.  The fonts can be changed; I changed mine to Teen because my blog post is about teens and social media.  The layout can be changed, but I left mine at the default of Rounder Edges and Mostly Horizontal.  I changed my color scheme from Firenze to yramirP with wild variation.  You can save it to a public gallery, but should think twice about doing this if it includes any personal information. The copy of my Wordle posted here appears blurry, perhaps because I sized it a little bigger to appear in my blog.  The original is much more distinct.  I will definitely have students use this.

Next, I experimented with Tagul.com.  Tagul requires signing up for a free account.  I was able to choose how I wanted to set up my word cloud: with a URL, text, or a table.  With the table, you can specify which words are used and how large they appear.  Since I had recently served as the Master of Ceremony at my school's hosting of UIL, I decided to see what happened when I used some of the text from one of my speeches.  We had promoted UIL as the UIL "Hunger Games" and I was  as Effie Trinket.  After I copied and pasted my text, I was given a cloud shape with words sized by frequency in the text.  I decided to play around with the other options.  Under Appearance, I had the following shapes to choose from: Cloud, Heart, Star, Triangle, Pentagram, Circle, Rectangle, or Custom.  I clicked on Custom and found that I could download a picture from my files.  I looked for a mockingjay shape in Google, saved it to my pictures, and chose that shape.  I was also able to choose my fonts and background color.  Each time I was able to Visualize my changes before Saving them. The words enlarge when you move the mouse over them.  The next time I will probably take out words such as "the" and "and," but I really liked that I could choose my shape.  I will play around with this more when I have time.

Tagxedo.com is my favorite of the three word clouds I experimented with because it has so many shape and color options.  I decided to use some of the words from the song, "Popular," from Wicked.  I copied and pasted some select lines, then pasted them into the text box.  Then I changed the shape into a shoe, because I knew that Galinda would like that.  I also knew that she would like pink, so I chose the Punk Princess color scheme.  At first there were some words that I didn't feel were important to the theme of the song, so I went under Word Advance Options and told the tool to skip those words.  When I was satisfied with my word cloud, I saved it to my pictures and pasted it here.  This is a great tool to use with students!  I showed it to another teacher and we discussed how the ESL kids could use it.  They will love working with it!  As Galinda would say, "Follow my lead, and yes, indeed, you...will...be...POPULAR."

I experimented with Quipio, a phone or tablet application which combines text and pictures.  Because I have a 19-year-old pet pig, I decided to post a quote of Winston Churchill over the face of a pig.

I found a picture I liked on Google, and downloaded it into my pictures on my iPad.  Then I used the picture as my background, and typed my text.  I was able to highlight words that I wanted to stress and then choose a style and color.  I was able to save the Quip to my pictures, but had difficulty saving it to Facebook because of how my iPad was set up, I guess.  I had much more success with my iPhone.

For my second Quip, I decided to use a quote from a book I loved, The Fault in Our Stars.  The book cover wouldn't work because it is already covered with large title words, so I found this photo in Quipio which expresses the sentiment  exactly as I wished.  Later that evening, I got a message that Quipio had selected this as a top 20 Quip. This is such a cool app.  I could have students select their favorite quote from something they are reading to make one of these. 

Lastly, I used the same text from my Quips to make two Recite This pictures.  The website is http://recitethis.com/.  First, you type in the text.  Then you choose a background.  There are not a lot of choices, but enough to make it fun.  Here is my first: 

However, I became very frustrated trying to create a second one.  Every time I typed in my new text from The Fault in Our Stars, chose a new background, and clicked on Create, I was given the same "pigs" quote and background that I first created.  I tried closing the web site and reopening it, using a different computer, and using my iPhone.  How weird!  It seems to know who I am and refuses to let me create another.  I sent a message under the Feedback tab.  The only thing it WILL let me do differently is select a provided quote under the FIND A Quote tab.

Here is a quote I found under the Quote heading of LOVE.  It's a great quote, just not the one I wanted. I hope I can make use of it in the future.  Since it doesn't require an account, I would like to use it with students.  I would have them to use quotes from something they read, or to write something they think a particular character would say.  They might use the given quotes if one is appropriate.