Word Clouds in Education: Turn a toy into a tool A glance at a cloud is an easy way to preview a passage, or to analyze text. Most word cloud programs work in the same, straight-forward way the more a word is used in the text, the bigger it is shown in the cloud. Ask students what a word cloud is, and why it is useful.Tell students these are keywords to a text and ask them to find the topic. Show students the word cloud you have created on the projector screen.Please note you will need to sign up in order to save your word cloud. Note: for this activity, we are using WordArt as it works well on the Chrome web browser, it is quite intuitive, and it offers a ‘shape’ option. Additionally, most word cloud generators work the same (they are very easy to get a grip on), but some offer more options than others.
![word cloud generator letter shape word cloud generator letter shape](https://www.tripwiremagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/tagul-word-cloud.jpg)
– please check 108 ways to use Word Clouds in the classroom or other websites stated below or online for more ideas).ĭon’t hesitate to try a couple of different word cloud generators, as some might be easier to use depending on the browser you use (please check the Additional Content section for suggestions). One Internet-enabled teacher computer & data projector student computers or mobile devices (one per student pair)Ĭreate a word cloud from a short text in the target language about a topic that you want to introduce in class (a city/region in the studied country, the biography of a famous person from the studied country, a picture, an important historical event in the studied country, a book, a concept, a vocabulary word, a short cover letter answering a job offer, important words to study etc.reflect on the use of a word cloud and its limits.
![word cloud generator letter shape word cloud generator letter shape](https://skillscouter.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/monkeylearn.com_.jpg)
On completion of this activity, students will be able to This activity is an adaptation of Activity 23: Travel clouds in Dudeney, Hockly & Pegrum (2013: 176-180). This activity aims to raise students’ awareness of the concept of word clouds, and to investigate how keywords in a text can be visually represented in a word cloud (see Tagging literacy, what is it?).