Wordle

What is Wordle? According to the Wordle web site, "Wordle is a toy for generating 'word clouds' from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

You can create a Wordle from text you input. Wordle will also analyze a blog, blog feed, or any other web page that has an Atom or RSS feed. (Not sure what RSS is? Ask me!)

Here is a Wordle created from the text of Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death."




In the September 2008 issue of the New Hampshire Society for Technical Education newsletter, Nancy Keane describes 50 ways for using a Wordle in your classroom.

I would encourage you to explore Wordle. Read the FAQ on the Wordle to learn more about its features. Keep in mind though that Wordle is not filtered so beware when you are searching the Wordle gallery. You may want to create your Wordle ahead of time. If you are using a Promethean board, this post from ActivEducator blog talks about Wordle. Here are some ideas from the Promethean Planet forum as well.