I think we’ve already established that I have very little imagination. I admire creativity, but I am much better at borrowing other people’s ideas than I am at generating my own.
When I first learned about Word Clouds, for example, I thought they were fun but really couldn’t think of too many applications for their use. Fortunately, I network with many other people who can think outside the cloud.
For example, someone tweeted the other day about using Word Clouds with Thinglink. I wish I remember who. Great idea! If you are using iOS, you can use the ABCya Word Cloud app along with the Thinglink app. On the web, there are plenty of word cloud generators such as Tagxedo and Wordle, and Thinglink has a web application as well.
In April, Tricia Fugelstad blogged about using word clouds with self-portraits. Since we were using iPads in my class, my students had a bit different workflow than Tricia’s students. Again, we used the ABCya app. We also used Green Screen by DoInk. (Unfortunately, the latter one isn’t free – but well worth every penny!)
Last week, Susan Prabulos blogged about using word clouds to reminisce about the year. I realized her idea would work perfectly with the Pic Collage and/or Canva project I planned for my students. Since we were using iPads, we couldn’t use Tagxedo to create a special shape (great idea, Susan!) but the students enjoyed it anyway.
My 2nd graders were short on time (and somewhat keyboard challenged) so we brainstormed a word cloud to represent our year in GT together. Then they added it to Pic Collages they created using self-selected pictures from our blog.
Some inserted the word cloud into the layout,
while others chose to use the word cloud as their background image.
Of course, you could take this activity even farther by creating a Thinglink from the collage and having students reflect on how the photos relate to the words in the cloud.
For more word cloud ideas, check out this post from awhile back.
