Word Clouds, also known as text or tag clouds, are a visual representation (image) of words from a particular subject. The size and/or boldness of a particular word indicates its frequency of use or importance. Depending on the tool used to make the word cloud you can make the word cloud a particular shape or add color.
Why use word clouds in your classroom?
Seeing the words represented in a more non-linguistic manner appeals to more visual learners. It also allows learners to see the importance they have given to certain words as indicated by their size and boldness. It is a different way to summarize information.
How do you use word clouds in the classroom?
There are so many ways; these are just my top five.
1. Use word clouds as a getting-to-know-you tool.
At the beginning of the school year have your students create a word cloud using adjectives about themselves, their likes and dislikes, what they did over the summer, etc. This works very well for those quieter students who prefer not to have the spotlight on themselves.
2. Use word clouds as a self-assessment tool for writing.
You can have students make a short list of the main ideas they were trying to convey in their writing then have them input their writing into the word cloud tool to see if their main ideas occur as frequently as they assumed they did.
3. Use word clouds for vocabulary development.
Put key vocabulary from a unit into a word cloud. Ask students to create a word cloud with adjectives and synonyms for those adjectives describing a character they are reading about. This is a great way to use a word cloud collaboratively as students, in partners or groups, make word clouds of key words from texts.
4. Use a word cloud to introduce a new topic.
You can make a word cloud of your learning objectives, essential questions, key topics, ...
5. Use word clouds as a collaborative tool to activate prior knowledge.
Ask students what they know about the topic and create a word cloud showing the class what they know/remember about the topic. You can go further and also make about what they want to know and end the lesson with a word cloud about what they've learned.
What word cloud maker should I use?
This is a list of many popular word cloud generators. By no means is it all inclusive! Each word cloud generator has its pros and cons so you will need to try them out and see which one best fits your classroom needs.
1. Wordle
2. WordItOut
3. ABCYa!
4. Tagxedo
5. TagCrowd
6. Word Cloud Generator (chrome extension)
7. Tricklar
8. Word Cloud Generator by Jason Davies
9. Tagul (WordArt)
10. Word Mosaic
This is a very brief screencast showing how I made the word cloud at the top of the page using Tagul.
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