The Educational Value of Wordle

What is Wordle?

Wordle is an internet based tool that creates “word clouds” from text pasted into the tool.  The directions say to paste a passage into the box.  The more frequently a word is used, the larger it appears on the Wordle.  It could be used as a guessing game where students create a list of key words, put them into a Wordle and then post their Wordle somewhere where classmates could try to guess the topic. Wordle can also be used for brainstorming while  collaborating on an idea for a project  – add words as many times as they are suggested by individuals to see which ideas are more popular.  Wordle also gives students a chance to be creative, by selecting the colors and layout schemes. Another use could be to help identify appropriate websites for research projects.  Cut and paste the text from a website into the tool and see how often the topic they are looking for shows up.  In her blog, It’s a Mad, Mad Wordle, Carolyn Foote (2009) suggests using it to analyze students’ writing, by pasting their papers into Wordle to see how often different words were used, indicating a possible need to use a thesaurus.  Foote also suggests putting comments from interviews or polls into Wordle to “see what ideas float to the top as significant” (Foote, 2009).

References:  

It’s a Mad, Mad Wordle. School Library Journal, 07/01/2009. Retrieved from:            http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6666671.html)