My Learning Tool - Wordle

Wordle is a digital tool for generating word clouds from text that you provide. It organizes these various words in a visually appealing way, giving emphasis to some words over others. Ultimately, it aims to visually display important terms/concepts relevant to a particular theme, similar to a mind map. Thus, it can be utilized in an educational context as a tool for organizing student thinking. Students can brainstorm and insert words that they believe represent a particular topic/concept, which would be especially valuable when introducing a new idea to the class. Moreover, it can serve as a great diagnostic assessment tool by organizing their initial ideas of a topic. Students can also contribute to creating a Wordle for the class, by having each student submit their ideas/words to one comprehensive word cloud. This promotes collaboration and knowledge building among students.

Due to these potential benefits of using Wordle as a learning tool in the classroom, I decided to try out the program for myself. The word cloud Wordle I created was based on the initial ideas I had about my Genius Hour – and learning how to make gluten-free cooking easy, quick, and cost-efficient. Although I am pleased with the final product, it was not developed without some difficulties. First off, this program utilizes Java Script, a plug in that not all browsers and computers operate. Therefore, before beginning you must check on the settings of your computer and the details of the browser you are using. I found using Safari (on a Mac) was most successful, however I did still need to download the most updated version of Java Script (click here to download).

Another challenge I encountered was a result of the program failing to load, which caused me to lose my work, twice. My suggestion? SAVE. SAVE. SAVE. Before entering in the words you (or your students) would like to use, type them out in a separate document. Once you have your list, copy and paste them into the text space. This way, if you click create and it doesn't load, you can begin again with a simple copy and paste without losing your work.

This is also beneficial if you want to make changes/additions to the words afterwards. The program itself does not let you edit the initial product you created, so once I had the initial set of words, I was able to start a new product by copying and pasting those words and then add additional ones to create a new product (just not completely from scratch). This will be extremely helpful when students begin using this tool, because it allows them to alter and enhance their word cloud as they learn new knowledge/terminology. It was also helpful for me because it wasn't until after I created my first version of my gluten-free Wordle that I learned how to put more emphasis on some words over others (i.e., make the words different sizes, based on importance). I discovered that the more times a word is entered, the large its size will be. Thus, I was able to re-create this product by copying and pasting the initial list, and repeating words that I found most important.

When exploring this application, I also discovered how to alter the font, layout, and colours of the word cloud. Students would be able to utilize this feature in order to personalize their work, which I believe is a great benefit! It will allow students to make more connections to the material and give them more choice in how they present their ideas. That is why I have attached a few designs I made for my gluten-free Wordle throughout this post, to show the different styles that are available. I hope you enjoy!