Well I have been trying to play around with Tagxedo for the last hour now and my computer will not let me do anything. Says that I need a newer version or something and then locks up. So Not having used Tagxedo but have used Wordle on a few occasions which seems to be the same thing but not as fancy I will talk about that. I co-teach 9th grade English and my co-teacher just loves Wordle and is very excited to use Tagxedo. I personally don't get the hype. Moving words around into different shapes and "clouds" just not my type of thing I guess. I laugh every time I see it now.(running joke between myself and co teacher) I think I will try to use one or two in my Animoto video and then maybe I will see the greatness known as "Word Clouds." Is there anyone else out there that feels what I am feeling about these things?
In the classroom we have used them a couple of times for the students to fill with descriptions of books, characters, and feeling towards a topic. Another use that we have done was to copy different famous speeches and come pare them to see if students could tell which belonged to which speaker. That was a little interesting to me. What else you got fellow students, help me see the light.
Well you can see that I did get it to work and I have to say that this is better than Wordle. Still not sold on it. Might help make a great cover page or something. Can't wait to hear what others think and use it for.
ReplyDeleteIt is way better! Easy to save, print, and share on Twitter!
ReplyDeleteLike I said on my blog, I like to use it for students who are giving a presentation. They put in key words and can look at the cloud to give them a trigger while they talk. I have also framed these speeches to give to senior citizen partners as a keepsake.
Another idea: You can also copy and paste two inaugural addresses of presidents and compare word choice in their speeches.
I also don't get into the whole word cloud thing too much. I think it can be a valuable resource once and awhile but I see you point. I will try to incorporate it into a couple lessons and see what types of responses I get form the kids. Expanding it to make different shapes adds a little bit more excitement to it.
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