Wordle - creating word clouds

Hello, everyone!

The other remaining task we are supposed to do is to write a post about a web 2.0 tool our friends presented in the classroom. We are free to choose the one we are interested in. I personally chose to introduce a website named Wordle. I am going to write why/how it is used and suggest some ideas for its use in language teaching in my post.

What is Wordle?

Wordle is a web-based tool that allows you to quickly create beautiful word clouds from the text you provide. It is free to use and there is no sign up or registration required. It is really fun and easy to use. You can easily customize your word cloud by changing the font, colors and layout to your preference. After you have created your word cloud, you can take a screenshot of it, save it as a png file or print it out.

How to use Wordle

1. Go to Wordle and click on “Create” to get started. 

2. Type your text directly or copy and paste it into the empty box. (You can also enter the URL of any blog, blog feed or website with RSS feed to create a word cloud from the text on that blog or website.) For the words you don’t want separated, simply put a tilde (~) between them just like in my sample image below. If you want to emphasize some words, type them multiple times to make them appear bigger. After you have finished, click on “Go”.

3. Your randomly created word cloud will appear in the box.

4. You can change the appearance of your word cloud by using the “Font”, “Layout”, and “Color” tabs on the top. Those tabs will enable you to change the color and style of your words and layout like horizontal or vertical design. Under the “Language” tab, you can make all words upper or lower case, remove numbers if there is any and remove common words of many languages. You can also click on the “Randomize” button at the bottom to make Wordle randomly select a design for you. Here is my self-customized word cloud of the book 1984:

5. After you have finished, you can take a screenshot of your word cloud, save it as a png file or print it out.

ADVANTAGES
Free to use
No registration required
Simple interface
Appealing visuals
Able to customize the design

DISADVANTAGES
Not able to change the design into a specific shape
Not able to share the design via social media

Overall, Wordle is so simple and easy to use. It is really making something boring much more appealing and fun. It is ideal for students to get creative like creating posters while practicing their vocabulary knowledge. They can easily learn or practice vocabulary through word clouds. They can create word clouds to describe people or write poems. Teachers can also use Wordle to revise vocabulary of a topic that students have studied before. They can create a word cloud by putting some keywords of a specific topic before starting a lesson and then ask students to guess the topic they are going to study.

I would highly recommend Wordle to the teachers who are bored of traditional methods of teaching and are looking for an engaging and a fun one way to include in their lessons.