Word Clouds -Technology Thursday

It is the last week of school. My students have been antsy for 3 weeks. Thanks to the snowy winter we are just going too late this year.  I needed a simple activity that was fun, still educational, and would not lose their interest.  A word cloud.  My first year, 6 years ago, was the last time I made world clouds with students. Why... while fun there a bit too simple. I love word clouds I just never create them with students, I always... go "bigger".

This year I had the perfect project.  I'm always looking for a way to keep students MOVING in the computer lab.  YES MOVING.

First, we opened up Wordle, http://www.wordle.net/ (but you can easily use Tagxedo, http://www.tagxedo.com/) and I had the students type their name THREE times.  This means when we create the cloud their name will be bigger than anything else in the cloud.

Next, we began to move around the room.  We moved one seat at a time and students looked at the name on the top of the screen.  They thought about what they know about the person and wrote an adjective. (I walked around the room and fixed spelling)

In the end students rotated back to the seats and were so excited to read all the words their classmates had written about them.  We pressed GO and began customizing their world cloud.

Each student printed and was able to take home a word cloud all about what their classmates thought about them. It was such a nice end of year activity and gift.