Wordle and Tagxedo By: Sharon Baxley and Nicole Dove

Wordle and Tagxedo
By: Sharon Baxley and Nicole
Dove
Examples
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http://www.wordle.net/gallery
http://www.tagxedo.com/gallery.html
Wordle (http://www.wordle.net)
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A free tool that creates word clouds from text
provided by the user.
Text can be from an original source, or from a
URL.
Generates word clouds and gives greater
prominence to words that appear most
frequently.
Can change font, color and layout.
Can save by taking a screenshot, printing out, or
save to a public library.
How to use Wordle
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Personal narratives:
Write, or copy and paste, a personal
narrative into Wordle. Students will be able to
see what is important to their peers from the
words that are produced from the Wordle word
clouds. Compare the words that are used most
often by boys, or girls, by age group, or by
class/grade level. These Wordle lessons make
great displays outside a classroom.
How to use Wordle
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Famous Speeches
Enter the text of a famous historical speech into
Wordle. Analyze the results by looking at the
most commonly used words, or even the words
that are not used. What does this tell us about
the orator and their intentions? Go
to http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/previo
us.htm orhttp://www.americanrhetoric.com/top1
00speechesall.html for a list of historical
speeches you may want to get started with.
How to use Wordle
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Classroom Polls: Instead of your traditional bar
graph or pictograph, try using Wordle to
organize your data. What is the favorite activity
in your class? Have all students take turns at
entering their favorite activity in to Wordle and
generate the resulting cloud. Bigger words =
more popular activities. Can use after a test to
see what was difficult and if there is a common
theme, or what activities in class students would
like to see utilized in class.
How to use Wordle
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Compare and Contrast
Use Wordle as a compare and contrast
tool. Compare and contrast the word
clouds of two or more students' writing,
famous speeches, song lyrics, news
reports, book reviews or whatever else
you may need to compare in your
classroom studies.
How to use Wordle
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Current Affairs Analysis: Copy and
paste a news story into Wordle. What
could the story have been about? Can you
guess what the headline would have
been? Where could have it taken place?
These questions and more make this a
worthy discussion exercise.
How to use Wordle
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Wordle Word Walls: Brighten up your word
walls with this fun idea. Students can brainstorm
synonyms, antonyms, or definitions for their list
of vocabulary words. Add your word clouds to
your existing word wall work to help stimulate
those higher thinking skills in your students.
Keep a tally of the targeted vocabulary words
that the students use in speech on a daily basis,
and add them to a Wordle cloud to show which
are used most often.
How to use Wordle
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Unit Review/Preview Posters:
Students can create KWL charts on what
they would like to learn and find out about
a given topic. Alternatively, create word
clouds at the end of a unit to summarize
the key learning points or vocabulary from
a given topic.
How to use Wordle
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Historical Document Analysis:
Have you ever wondered what the Magna Carta
or Declaration of Independence would look like
when pasted into Wordle? Try it and see. There
will be lots of talking points from the resulting
word cloud. What do you predict you will see?
What themes can you identify? How does the
word cloud fit in with the historical context of
the document?
Wordle
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Wordle
www.wordle.net
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Click on CREATE.
In the text box, paste the words you typed in your Word document.
To create the Wordle, click on GO.
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The more times a word is typed in the text box, the bigger it will appear in the Wordle. For example, a word
typed 5 times will be larger than a word typed once.
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To keep words together, use a tilde (~). You can find the tilde in the top left of your keyboard. For example, if
you want “George Washington” to stay together in the Wordle, you need to type George~Washington.
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When the Wordle appears, you can change the font, the layout, and the colors.
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To make your own colors:
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Click on COLOR.
Click on EDIT CUSTOM PALETTE.
When you click on the squares of color, a rainbow color palette will appear. You can pick the four colors that you like.
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If the computer you are using is connected to a color printer, you can print by using the PRINT button
underneath the Wordle. If you are not connected to a color printer, your Wordle will be printed in black and
white.
Tagxedo
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Very similar to Wordle but enables users
to manipulate and customize the shape
and visual features of the cloud.
Tagxedo
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Tagxedo
www.tagxedo.com
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Click on CREATE.
In the left sidebar, click on LOAD.
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To change the colors, click on the arrow next to THEME.
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In the box where it says ENTER TEXT, paste the words you typed in your Word document.
Click on Submit.
Close the text pop-up box by clicking on the X in the upper right corner.
Scroll down to see all of your choices.
You can close the theme pop-up box by clicking on the X in the upper right corner.
You can change the font and orientation the same way you changed the colors. Click on the
arrows next to those options.
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Under OPTIONS, you can change the SHAPE.
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Click on the arrow.
Scroll down to see all of the shape options.
Close the box by clicking on the X.
If you click on INVERT, then the shape is left empty, and the words fill in around the shape.
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Near the top of the sidebar, under LOAD, you will find options to SAVE and PRINT your Tagxedo.
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If you SAVE, make sure to save your Tagxedo as a JPG.