A word cloud is a visual representation of the frequencies of words in a text. Teachers can use word clouds for a variety of instructional purposes from creating class groups using students’ names to reflecting on lesson plans, this article from 21st Century Educational Technology and Learning Blog outlines over 100 creative ways you can use word clouds with students in class.
Web Tools
1- TagCrowd
This is another web tool to use to create word clouds. It offers you three ways to generate word clouds: 1- Paste in the URL of a web page to visualize its text, 2) Upload a plain text file to visualize, and 3) type in text in the tool’s text box to generate a word cloud. Tag Cloud also provides you with a number of ways to customize your word clouds and make them visually appealing.
2- EdWordle
‘EdWordle (formerly Tagul) is an online word cloud generator that enables you to create amazing and unique word cloud art with ease. Professional quality results can be achieved in no time at all, even for users with no prior knowledge of graphic design. Best of all the service is completely free for personal use!’
3- WordItOut
WordItOut is a free word cloud generator that does not require a sign up. You can use it to create word clouds from sentences, entire documents or tables. You can also tweak the look of your word clouds by selecting a layout, applying different colours, adding fonts and sizes. When you are done, you can share your finished product with others through an embed code or download and make a copy of it as an image file.
4- Tagxedo
‘Tagxedo turns words — famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters — into a visually stunning word cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text.’
5- Word Cloud Generator
This is a Google Docs add-on to use on your docs to ‘quickly assess what your emerging theme is, how to best categorize your document, or if it is someone’s else’s document – find out the theme of the document without reading it… Loads of new features including control over number of words, prettifying the cloud, dropping words and including a word count table in the document.’
iPad Apps
1- Wordsalad
Make great wordsalads out of documents that matter (or not) to you! With WordSalad you can make beautiful word clouds, super customized with different fonts, colors and words layouts.
2- CloudArt
Unleash your creativity by making beautiful word clouds on your iPad. Simply give Cloudart some text from a web page or paste some into the app and it will automatically create a gorgeous word cloud for you in seconds. Next, get busy with the intuitive sliders to customise your cloud to your heart’s content. When you’re happy with your masterpiece, share it with friends!
5- Word Collage
“Create stunning word collages on your iPhone and iPad! Set up a collage with your text(or website URL), different layouts, fonts, and color themes.Simply start by clicking on the “Text” button. Add some text or input a website url. Select color theme and font in Settings. Select Landscape or Portrait orientation. Word Collage even lets you pan and zoom the picture.”
