The Digital Scoop

Word Sift

From the WordSift site:  WordSift was created to help teachers manage the demands of vocabulary and academic language in their text materials. We especially hope that this tool is helpful in supporting English Language Learners. We want WordSift to be a useful tool, but we also want it to be fun and visually pleasing. We would be happy if you think of it playfully - as a toy in a linguistic playground that is available to instantly capture and display the vocabulary structure of texts, and to help create an opportunity to talk and explore the richness and wonders of language!

Start by entering text and pressing the sift button.  I used Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech.  The text is sifted into a word cloud.

Click on any word and you will see corresponding images and words. 

I could see teachers using WordSift to help them find images to accompany vocabulary words.  Since the images are randomly pulled from Google Images, I would be cautious about using the site in front of students.

Use Google Forms to Create a Wordle

My students love creating word clouds using Wordle and other online tools.  They have created clouds about themselves and clouds to give as gifts to others. 

I really want them to have another purpose for creating a word cloud...and suddenly it hit me.  We could use a Google Form to collect words and turn them into a word cloud to represent our findings. 

I quickly set up a simple form containing one question for my first grade students to answer.  What type of pets do you have?  I used check boxes for the question type so they could select multiple types of pets.  When the students entered the computer lab they quickly filled in their answers and submitted the form.

I was then able to copy and paste their responses into Wordle.  Since Wordle gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text, we could see dog was the largest word while rabbit was the smallest.  We also noticed several pets missing...meaning no one has this type of pet. The data could have been presented in a bar graph, but a word cloud makes it more interesting.

All of my 4th and 5th grade students have Google Apps accounts and can make forms.  I can't wait to have them develop a question, create a form, and use the results to create a word cloud!

Ways to Use Wordle in the Classroom Slide Show

I came across this slide show full of great ideas for using Wordle with students.  I especially liked the Father's Day present and the Student Names ideas.

Wordle Ideas

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Tagxedo

If you like Wordle you will love Tagxedo!  The site urrently in Beta form which means all features are free.  You can create word clouds in fun shapes they provide or you can upload your own image.  They have some fun examples in the gallery.

Story Bird

Storybird is an awesome free online book maker.  I created a short story with illustrations on the site about alliterations.  You can view the stories full screen.  You can also invite others to collaborate on the same story.

:-)