{"id":12092,"date":"2016-04-04T02:21:25","date_gmt":"2016-04-04T06:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/?p=12092"},"modified":"2024-10-25T17:39:56","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T21:39:56","slug":"wordcloudtoolsapps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wordcloudtoolsapps\/","title":{"rendered":"18 Word Cloud Web Tools and Resources for Student Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- VideographyWP Plugin Message: Automatic video embedding prevented by plugin options. --><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ever see random words placed in a cloud? These are word clouds and they provide tons of opportunities for language learners to engage with any topic. Word clouds can be created by teachers and students to highlight vocabulary related to any topic, person, or event. Many free web tools allow teachers and learners to create word cloud tools and choose from various colors, shapes, and backgrounds. Below, we have listed activity ideas and our favorite web tools and apps for creating word clouds. For ideas on how to effectively use these tools for learning, check out the webinar recording on <a href=\"http:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/american-tesol-webinar-teaching-with-word-clouds\/\">Teaching with Word Clouds<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Word Cloud Activities<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Word cloud tools are full of learning potential! Students can do the following with a word cloud:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Make inferences about a topic, before reading or exploring the unit or chapter<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/ShellTerrell\/language-to-go-learning-language-with-mobile-devices\/26-Hemingwayappcom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guess the news story or current even from a word cloud of the article<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guess the lyrics- <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sporcle.com\/games\/strags11\/icecreamcastlesintheair\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sporcle<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has an online quiz where students guess a popular song from a word cloud of lyrics <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Create About Me word clouds with character traits, likes, and favorites<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Describe their hobbies<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Research an animal and add facts they\u2019ve discovered<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Create word clouds describing a famous person to preface a presentation or paper<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Analyze word clouds of <a href=\"http:\/\/larryferlazzo.edublogs.org\/2016\/03\/11\/ny-times-publishes-presidential-debate-word-cloud-thats-perfect-for-ells-others\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">presidential debates<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/gallery\/2009\/jan\/21\/obama-inauguration-word-clouds-gallery\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">speeches<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Create poetry in word clouds<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Share goals &amp; resolutions<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For more more ideas on how to teach with word cloud tools check out the following:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marisa Constantinides has shared this word cloud <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/marisaconstantinides.edublogs.org\/2010\/02\/10\/using-word-clouds-in-class-a-lesson-plan\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">lesson plan<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and a comparison chart of many <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/marisaconstantinides.edublogs.org\/2010\/02\/11\/tech-tools-pedagogy-ii-word-clouds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">word cloud creators<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Create Word Clouds<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tagxedo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tagxedo<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8211; Create word clouds in different shapes. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tagul.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tagul<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8211; The words in this word cloud are linked to a website.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.neoformix.com\/Projects\/WordHearts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Heart shaped word cloud tool<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> works similar to Word Mosaic where students can add any symbol or word to the heart <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abcya.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ABCya<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8211; Word cloud creator for children <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/worditout.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">WorditOut<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8211; Another simple tool for creating colorful word clouds online<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visualthesaurus.com\/vocabgrabber\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vocab Grabber<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8211; \u00a0Paste in text from any article and a word cloud vocabulary list is generated. Click on the word to see the visual thesaurus of similar words.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever see random words placed in a cloud? These are word clouds and they provide tons of opportunities for language learners to engage with any topic. Word clouds can be&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12109,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1943],"tags":[1967,813,1966,1965,812],"class_list":["post-12092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-teach-english-with-technology","tag-poetry","tag-reading","tag-vocabulary","tag-word-clouds","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12092"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19013,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12092\/revisions\/19013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americantesol.com\/blogger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}