I tried using Wurdle early in the semester and while I was able to create the wurdle with ease, I wasn't able to publish it. I took screen shots of the two wurdles I created and will share one of them here.
As you can see, I wasn't able to figure out how to rotate the image (I did rotate it on my website). I was frustrated that I couldn't figure out how to publish it or create a link for it.
Since I like the idea of word clouds, I decided to try Tagul and I had a much better experience with navigating the site and I love the animated word cloud. I was able to create the word cloud quickly and I prefer it to Wurdle product. It was a breeze to find the code to embed it on my website.
As you can see, I wasn't able to figure out how to rotate the image (I did rotate it on my website). I was frustrated that I couldn't figure out how to publish it or create a link for it.
I can see creating word clouds with my students as they would love it. Many of my special education students struggle with various aspects of writing so it can be a painful part of the day for my students and me. They could dictate words or pick words from their stories/sentences and tagul would generate animated word clouds to help their words come alive. I'm going to try it with my students!
I looked up how to embed widgets in this blog and spent a long time trying to figure it out but no luck. Luckily, my classmates Barb and Ann Maria saved the day and showed me how to embed it.
The colored sections are SO cool! I already loved Tagul, but now I need to check it out to try and purposely color areas. Very cool!
ReplyDeleteI like that you tried a few different tools and then found one that will fit your needs. Wordle is limiting in terms of only being able to save it as an image- it wasn't designed with educators in mind. Thanks for posting both samples!
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