Trying Wordle

I’ve seen Wordle clouds many times over the past several years & have always thought they looked great, but I just got around to making my own the other day.  Now that I’ve found out how easy it is, I think it’s an even better tool.  I’ve already had each of my science classes create a wordle  together to introduce our force and motion unit.  We’re working on a Wordle for what it means to be an engineer, but we need a few more ideas to make it really interesting.

I can see how Wordle is a great tool to get students thinking without having to write a lot of sentences.  I’m going to ask students to create a Wordle based on the next nonfiction book that they read.  I think they’ll enjoy doing this more than just writing a reflection, summary, or even review of what they read.

Obviously lots of other people are using Wordle, too.  There are many ideas, tutorials, and examples on YouTube and SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/katygal/19-interesting-ways-to-use-wordle-elementary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J-s68cO7-A&feature=related

One of the things I like most is that using Wordle is so easy, but there are many possibilities for using it.  I’ll be posting a few examples soon.