App of the Week: Wordsalad

Need an app to build word clouds? Look no further...Wordsalad is here and FREE! Wordsalad makes beautiful word clouds, customized with different fonts, colors and word layouts. With Wordsalad offers the ability to save the word cloud to the camera roll, create PDF or share directly to Twitter. Also, within Wordsald there's a nice "magical wand" that will apply filters automatically for your choosing.

Features of Wordsalad:

• Import any text from iOS clipboard with a single tap
• Customize your salads with 8 great fonts
• Color your salads with 8 great palettes
• Feeling creative? WordSalad gives you 5 layouts to position your words
• Save your salads to camera roll for later reuse and export them to pdf (with vector graphics!)
• Share you salads to social networks

NOTE: Wordsalad has a watermark behind the word cloud with the free version. Once you download the free version, a paid version ($.99) can be purchased to remove the watermark.

Examples of word clouds created with Wordsalad:

App of the Week: WordFoto

App of the Week: WordFoto - $1.99
WordFoto is a great app for creating customized word clouds on top of a photo. WordFoto is available on an iPhone, iPod, or the iPad.

Here's a quick list of the features of WordFoto:

• Upload your image or take a picture from within the app
• Upload your words
• Change the font from the custom style column
• Eight color presets to choose from
• Crop the photo
• Save to your photo library, share on Facebook or email image

Click here to download WordFoto.

Word Clouds in Poll Everywhere

Word Clouds in Poll Everywhere now integrate with Wordle, Tagxedo, and Tagul. Create a open ended question and the responses can now become word clouds. What a great way to see the most and least common responses in your classroom!

After testing this feature, I wanted to share a few things that caught my attention:

• You are only allowed 40 responses per open ended question created. Click here for more plans.
• Responses must be submitted first before you can choose the word cloud feature.
• Don't forget to click in the box and copy the responses once you choose the word cloud feature of your choice. Then click the box to paste those items.
• If your students don't have mobile devices, you can also you use a computer.

Click here to learn more about this feature (step-by-step instructions included) and to read this article by Richard Byrne.

Uses of Wordle in K-6 Classroom

Word Clouds are a great tool for the classroom. Check out this slideshow by Jen Wagner on ways to use Wordle in the K-6 classroom. It has many great ideas.

Wordle Ideas

View more presentations from Jenuinetech.com.

Other Possible Uses of Wordle:

• All About Me - students create describing themselves and then classmates match each Wordle to student
• All About Me - Type the student name 2-3 times so that it stands out on the page, then type describing words beside their name.
• Grammar Usage - nouns vs. verbs (right click on words to delete all the nouns or vice versa)
• Year in Review - students create a Wordle containing concepts taught throughout the year. 

Other Possible Uses of Wordle for Grades 5-6:

• Writing Tool - copy and paste rough drafts into Wordle to see overused words
• Author's Diction - help establish mood by pasting selections from assigned reading (novels, short stories, poetry, etc.)
• Character Analysis - type traits for one character in order of importance, create Wordle for each character, and match Wordles to characters in novel.

Click here to read how Peter Pappas recommends using Wordle to Build Literacy Skills through defining, summarizing, and comparing. 

Ways to Use Word Clouds in the Classroom

Here are just a few ideas of how to use word clouds as part of your teaching. Hopefully, this list will give you ideas of ways you can personalize your own curriculum.

Don't forget...let me know if you would like any help implementing this idea!