Emerging Technology Post #3- Applying Web 2.0 Technology to Teaching English with Wordle.net

For my third blog post on emerging technologies, I chose to highlight a great website called Wordle. As a future high school English teacher, I can definitely see myself using this application with my students. http://wordle.net/ is a creative website application that allows you to create “word” pictures out of text. It is simple and easy to use. All you have to do is click on create, paste in your text, and click submit. Wordle will take all of the major words out of the text and arrange them in a form. The thing that I find to be really interesting is that the program determines the size of the words based of the frequency of their use in the text. So, the more a word appears, the larger it appears. I think this tool would drive home the idea of author repetition extremely well. For example, I put Hamlet’s famous “To Be or Not to Be” speech from Shakespeare’s play into the program, and the largest word turned out to be sleep. I find this interesting because Shakespeare is known for repeating words for a very specific reason in his plays, and this word in particular ties into the play’s main theme of time. Hamlet has a lot of trouble with taking action in the play. As a teacher, my students could do something similar with a famous text and then give me an analysis about why they felt the “largest” words were repeated so much. You can view my word picture here:

http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/916081/Hamlet%27s_Famous_Speech_%22To_Be_or_Not_to_Be%22.

While Wordle is great for analyzing famous texts and passages, it is also interesting to just make up your own. For my second word picture, I used text from one of my personal poems called “Land of the Midnight Sun.” I not only wanted to see what word appeared the largest so that I could determine what was dominating my thoughts when I wrote the poem, but I also wanted to play around with the color scheme and form to match what I personally felt my poem was all about. This would be another great exercise to do with my students because it would teach them something about themselves that they may not have realized, and it would give them a chance to express their personal creativity. Plus, Wordle is just plain fun! Here is the link to my second Wordle picture:

http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/916102/%22Land_of_the_Midnight_Sun%22.

In short, I would describe my experience with Wordle as AMAZING! The program is extremely user-friendly, and I was definitely able to make a Wordle without any trouble. As the website so eloquently states, “You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.” All I had to do was click on Create, paste in my texts, and then modify my text using the task bar located above the newly created Wordle! Other people can post their Wordles, and you can view them directly from the site. My only suggestion to first time Wordle users is that you spend some time experimenting with different layouts, fonts, and color schemes. It’s surprising what you can create. The randomize button is a wonderful tool as well, so be sure to use it!!! Also, don’t be afraid to tell the program to include minor words as well! It’s fun to see how frequently words like “the,” “a,” and “an” appear in a text!