Integrating Technology & Genius Hour: My Journey as a Teacher & Learner
Find me on
  • My Blog
  • About Me
  • Genius Hour
  • My Other Websites

3 Ways to Use tagxedo.com With Your Class

7/22/2012

6 Comments

 
I am rediscovering my love for word clouds and thought I would share a few ways to use them in the classroom!  But first, a quick explanation: tagxedo.com is a word cloud creator.  You put in the words that you want to appear in the picture OR you enter the URL of a website.  The more times a word appears in a document, the bigger it will be in the word cloud.  Below is a word cloud I made using the URL for this blog.  The largest words are TECHNOLOGY, INTEGRATING, GENIUS HOUR, BLOGGING, LEARN AND LEARNER.  That is because those are the words that I use the most when I write my blog!
Picture
3 ways you can use word clouds with your students:

1.  In September I have them do an All About Me picture.  I tell them to type in their name 10 times (so it will be the largest) and then have them type in words that describe themselves.  This is a great ways to get to know your students, for them to get to know each other and also gives you something to decorate the room with at the start of the year.  Last year, I made word clouds with all of the grades 5s and 6s at my school and we decorated the whole computer lab.  In my example below I used my name, interests, hobbies etc.
Picture
2.  You can use them to create title pages.  I had them put all of the words that they thought had to do with science and then we printed them and put them at the beginning of our Science Duotangs.  They looked so great!  And it also got them thinking about what science really is.  I made this example using wikipedia's definition of science.
Picture
3.  Students can use them to make visual representations of their poetry.  They would type up their poems and could then add to their poetry booklets OR save the jpeg of their cloud and put on their ePortfolios, blogs, etc.

There are so many other ways to use this cool web 2.0 tool (character study, mother's day cards...the list goes on and on...) If you haven't played around with word clouds yet, I suggest you do...a perfect rainy day activity for the summer break & we get lots of those here in the Lower Mainland ;)
6 Comments
Joy Kirr link
7/22/2012 09:49:40 am

Hi, Gallit!
Just wondering... Have you seen Michael Gorman's blog? It's my favorite! Anyway, here's his post re Tagxedo, just in case: http://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/tagxedo-amazing-word-cloud-generator-and-101-ways-to-use-it-word-clouds-in-education-series-part-4/ . Thanks for your practical uses - I love word clouds!
-Joy

Reply
Gallit Zvi link
7/30/2012 04:05:33 am

HI Joy,

No, I haven't seen his blog! I will check it out :) Thanks for the link!

Gallit :)

Reply
dougpete link
7/22/2012 08:27:12 pm

Great list of ideas. Another suggestion is having students create their own "Digital Footprint" - http://dougpete.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/digital-footprint-2/

Reply
Gallit Zvi link
7/30/2012 04:07:51 am

Hi Doug,

Thank you for that great idea! I love it!

:) Gallit

Reply
Harry link
9/10/2014 09:10:43 pm

Awesome post :)

Reply
Live Nifty Future Tips link
12/2/2015 03:30:37 am

Good observation about on the technology which is very essential for me as well. I am sure the article will be informative to us.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    My name is Gallit Zvi and I am an Elementary School Teacher and Vice Principal in Surrey, BC. I am also a blogger and co-author of The Genius Hour Guidebook.
    Click to continue...

    Picture
    Tweet
    what is genius hour?
    My Genius hour posts
    geniushourguide.org
    geniushour.ca
    Picture
    Tweets by @gallit_z
    Gallit on Pinterest

    Archives

    April 2020
    January 2019
    July 2018
    October 2017
    April 2016
    March 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011

    Categories

    All
    Appsmashing
    Assessment
    Blogging
    Byod
    Capp
    Collaboration
    Community
    Cooperation
    Creativity
    Critical Friends
    Cross-curricular Connections
    Differentiation
    Digital Literacy
    Digital Storytelling
    Eportfolios
    #ETMOOC
    Field Study
    Genius Hour
    Hac
    Imovie
    Inquiry
    IPads
    Iste
    Media Literacy
    Mr. Rogers
    Museum Box
    Picture Books
    Place Based Learning
    Powerpoint
    Prezi
    Reflection
    Stations
    Teaching
    Technology
    The Genius Hour Guidebook
    Twitter
    Web 2.0
    Web 2.0
    Wifi
    Youtube

    RSS Feed

    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.