Invite To Everyone in FLE.

Please help make a WORDLE.

I’d like to create a Flexible Learning Environment image/logo for the Skype podcasts. Could everyone respond in the comments with 10 words that they think describe a Flexible Learning Environment. It doesn’t matter if we repeat words – that’s what makes a Wordle interesting.

I’ll put them together in Wordle and publish them. It might be interesting to make one now and then repeat the exercise again at the end of the semester to see if we have changed our ideas.

Thanks for your help.

THE FINISHED WORDLE

I liked the way this Wordle is shaped a bit like an arrow – as though we are moving forward. Thanks everyone for your contributions, if you look carefully you should see your name.

I have already written about Wordle, the application that makes beautiful word clouds, and how it can be used in your classroom. Here are some more ideas on how to use Wordle with your students thanks to Angelia Myers and The Top 20 Uses for Wordle in the Classroom presented by Rodd Lucier. The following are my favourites for a primary classroom

1. Combine student ‘Who Are You?’ introductions, or ‘Superhero
   Traits‘ to develop a class composite;
2. Condense survey data by dumping content of questionnaire responses into the Wordle engine;
3. Combine news articles or RSS feeds on a given topic;
4. Turn an essay into a poster;

Now try and finish the poem using the words in the Wordle.

Whole Duty of Children by Robert Louis Stevenson

A child should always say ______ ____,
And _____ when he is spoken to,
And behave _______ __ ___ _____:

At _____ as far as he is able.

Just for fun – Guess the following famous Australian songs:

Wordle is…

Wordle lets you create artistic word clouds with your writing or just a bunch of words that you might choose to use  to describe something. It will give greater prominence to the more frequent words

and exclude the “stop words” (words too common to visualise). The colors and designs can be customised, its free and your Wordle is yours to do as you want with it! How good is that.

Some uses for Wordle

• If you put your student’s writing into Wordles over a period of time you could see if their vocabulary is developing and if they are using subject specific language so it is possible to use Wordle as an assessment tool.
• I’ve used it as a form of art work mixed with photos and for backgrounds on pages in the school magazine. It was a great way to highlight the key words for my subject in an interesting way that would catch the readers attention with a glance.
• Use it to summarise a piece of writing.

Suggestions from the SMARTboard lessons podcast

• It could be a springboard for predicting texts. Copy a couple of key paragraphs of a text that you are using with your students to create a Wordle and then let the students predict what the text might be about and they can become familiar with unfamiliar words before beginning their reading.
• Comparing texts a lesson for secondary schools.

If you have any suggestions please add them in the comments for others to share.

Wordle

A very clever little program. Can be used to find the main idea in a piece of writing, though I haven’t tried it yet.