Wordle
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Wordle Defined
Wordle (http://wordle.net) is a Web 2.0 application used to create a tag cloud or word cloud. These constructs are visual designs intended to represent the frequency and importance of words in a narrative or on a Website, Blog or for other posted material. The resulting image provides a visualization of the text. The importance of various words are represented in terms of font size or color.
The Wordle application allows users to alter the appearance in various ways or will randomly select a design for the generated word cloud.
Image Created by Wordle
The following image was created to represent an early version of the narrative on this page. Images can be easily created by pasting in a section of text or by providing the URL of a site where text is located. The program is free and provides access to the created image.
Wordle Uses in Education
Wordle can be used to create graphics for lectures and powerpoint presentations or to illustrate articles, course material, Wikis, Blogs, or Websites. Wordle images are excellent for conversation starters and can also be used in research projects to compare language collected during interviews or from written sources.
Another innovative educational use for the images would be to figuratively compare two students essay question answers and promote classroom discussions. For instance, the two images below provide views developed by students related to their personal definitions of quality. These images can be displayed and used as the basis for discussion. It stimulates class debate and helps identify missing parts of definition and 'brings an essay question to life'.
Wordle's History
Wordle was created Jonathan Feinberg of IBM Research. The core algorithms for laying out and displaying words in Wordle were developed at IBM.