BP4_Wordle

BP4_Wordle

Wordle.net is a toy. It’s a fun toy that takes any lengthy text and turns it into a word cloud or semi-artistic representation of the text. It was mentioned during one of our classes and being the dorky history teacher I am, thought I would try it out! Here’s how it works:

The user simply goes to the web address, wordle.net and clicks on “create”. This brings up a box where text can either be typed in or pasted from an outside source. Once the text is in the dialogue box, the user simply has to click “Go” and wordle will make the cloud! It’s fun to play with. The program works under the basic premise that words written several times will appear larger in the word cloud. In this first example, one can easily see that the word “nation” appears more frequently than any other significant word (five times).  The second example shows that the words “United States” and “people” or “persons” occurred several times.

Like any good history teacher experimenting with new technology, I used something old! The first example is a word cloud constructed from the Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The second is the Emancipation Proclamation. It wasn’t until I considered the word clouds more carefully that I realized the potential, not only for wordle.net, but also for my students.

Students struggle with the analysis of primary source documents. Especially written sources, as our vernacular has changed, pose significant challenges to students. In putting the two word clouds side by side, it would be easy for any casual observer to deduce that Lincoln was in favor of the United States as a nation and seemed to be concerned for its people. Nice! I could provide wordles or show students the value of wordle.net to aid in their primary source analysis.

Of course, not all the details of a historical source are revealed by such a program, but it could certainly help different types of learners. Additionally, wordle.net provided a trick that should have been obvious. For students who struggle finding the meaning in primary sources, they could simply count the occurrences of words and deduce the meaning of the document.

This is a nice, user friendly, fun web 2.0 tool that could find its way into a classroom. Whether its true classroom value is for document analysis or simply interesting posters, it is worth a look. Oh, and by the way, there's a print button at the bottom after you've created the word cloud. Of course its easy to use!

Regards

Here's the wordle of this post! As if you didn't get the idea already! Haha!