Thursday, January 22, 2009

Wordle and the Presidents

What is a Wordle? My elementary technology students are learning to create and format lots of them. For our purposes, a Wordle is a word cloud that shows main ideas and details of your selected text. We chose inauguration speeches for a hallway display titled Guess the President.



It is becoming a big hit - especially after Mrs. L Smith, a 4th grade teacher, who correctly guessed one of Lilli's (her student) Wordle as Abraham Lincoln's speech. She explained the clues that she used to make her great guess! Her students were delighted that she joined in the fun in their technology class and came up with more ways to use Wordle to improve their writing. Other teachers are also brainstorming ways to use Wordle in their classes.

Today - unexpected music to my ears from a new student who asked, "Can I do this at home too?"

The Wordle above is not from Abraham Lincoln's speech. Can you make a good guess? What are some more ways to use Wordle in your classroom?