There are great resources for art educators to build collective technological intelligence and incorporate it into their classrooms. Website such as Wordle and Tag Crowd can serve as excellent research sources for this. In the classroom, they can be used from generating discussions to creating cross-curricular lessons.
Wordle.net is a website that will take a text or passage and create a word cloud from that text. Once the cloud is formed, the fun begins. You can edit the cloud by changing the layout, the font, and even the colors. Words that are used more frequently will appear larger in the cloud. If there are words that you wish to omit, you can simply right-click on them and they will be removed.
Word clouds can be used in many ways. I have introduced them to the staff at my school and several teachers have utilized this resource, incorporating Wordles into their lessons. I will describe to you different ways in which I have found Wordles to be used. I will first give some examples of how word clouds can be used for interdisciplinary lessons and then show how they can be used in the art classroom. Perhaps these ideas will be useful to you and you will be able to use these for your own lessons or build upon the basic ideas.
One teacher at my school used Wordle in a poetry lesson. He first asked his students to use their names as the basis of the poem. From there, the students were asked to find words that would describe their personality, who they are, or express an emotion or feeling they have. Dictionaries, thesauruses, and the internet were used to find definitions of words. Once the students had written their poems, their teacher showed them how to take the poem and copy and paste it into Wordle. He explained to them that the words they wanted to show the most emotion on or wanted people to really notice first, to type them more times. They would appear larger. This lesson really went over big with the class because it not only build up the students' self esteem, but it increased their vocabulary. After the lesson, students gave their classmates very positive criticism and it evoked a discussion on the artistic value of the word clouds. Many of the students found that they used various fonts to help set the feeling of the words in the word clouds.
This lesson was taken a step further in Media class. The Media teacher took the wordles and had students pick out books that they were interested in reading. Their choice in books were based on their interests. Whether it was sports, nature, science, or another subject, it had to be chosen on the interest or hobbie of the student. Each child was asked to take the book home and bring it back the next week with a list of words that described the book. The students were asked to then take the list and create a wordle from the list. Again, they were asked to take what they learned from the previous wordle and incorporate that into the new one. Changing the layout, the colors, and the fonts helped to set the tone of the book in the word cloud. This served as a great way to show the connection of language arts and media in our school. Plus, this reinforced their vocabulary and reading skills.
Our science teacher and history teachers plan to use word cloud in similar ways. This will help to familiarize students with terms and historical events. The wordles can be used as study maps and a fun way for brainstorming when beginning projects.
Wordles can also be used in the art classroom in a similar way that the media teacher used the books. The art teacher could have the students do research on an artist and create a wordle using terms that help describe the artist, their style of work, or the titles or work they have created. This will help the student to familiarize themselves with the artist and their techniques. It will also help to lead into a discussion on aesthetics and art criticism.
In my own classroom, I used this very idea. I did a lesson on the elements and principles of design. I had half of one of my classes look up the terms of the elements of design. The other half was asked to look up the principles of design. Each half was then asked to create a wordle the elements of design and the other from on the principles of design. I had a couple of students from the elements group present their wordle to the class and go through each term in the wordle. The rest of that group created visual images that described the terms. The principle group then presented their wordle to the class and did the same thing. The end result was very successful. The students became familiar with the terms. They also were challenged to speak in front of the class and utilize what they learned, speaking in an intelligent and informed manner. This was also a basic introduction to teaching the students art criticism. This lesson was broken down into two 40 minute class periods. My principal sat in on one of the classes and thought it was terrific.
There are many other ways Wordle and Tag Crowd can be used in the art classroom. They can be used as a opening for a discussion for further research. Wordles can be used in a higher level design course as an image itself. The class can discuss parts of the image that works or doesn't work and why. This too could then lead into further discussion of aesthetics. After a discussion on creating the wordle as an image itself, the computer teacher at my school showed me a way to create the wordle and save it as a pdf file (the option is at the bottom left on the wordle screen after you create the wordle). He then came up with the idea to copy and paste the wordle into Adobe Illustrator. Once the image was on Illustrator, we were then able to change the total look of the image and play around with the size of the words and actually move words around on the image. This was not an option on the wordle website. In Illustrator, the artist is able to have much more control over the wordle as an image itself.
I had an idea that hopefully I will find a way to work out one day. I thought it would be really clever to create a wordle and use each word within that wordle as a hyperlink that would connect the viewer to either an image or another website about the word. This would be very helpful in several areas of business, class discussions, and in presenting research projects. My hope is to one day be able to present an artist to my class and create a wordle with various words and titles of works by that artist. I would then like to have the words or titles as hyperlinks so that when I click on the word, it will take me right to the image of that particular work by the artist. I am still working on trying to figure out a way to do this.
As you can see, the options are endless as to how you can use this type of collective intelligence in the educational setting. I have found some websites that are very useful in suggesting lessons for the use of wordles in the classroom:
This website is a quick tutorial on how to create a wordle.
http://www.technogogy.org.uk/wordle/wordle.htm
This website shows how a class used wordles to describe their experience on a visit to an art museum.
http://huntedweb.googlepages.com/home22
This website suggests some ways wordles can be used in the classroom.
http://www.boxoftricks.net/?p=103
Here is a wordle that I created from my blog page. I simply put in the url of my blog page and the wordle was created for me. (Notice that the words that occurred more frequently on my page are the largest in size.)
http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/678796/My_Blogspot
Wordle.net is a website that will take a text or passage and create a word cloud from that text. Once the cloud is formed, the fun begins. You can edit the cloud by changing the layout, the font, and even the colors. Words that are used more frequently will appear larger in the cloud. If there are words that you wish to omit, you can simply right-click on them and they will be removed.
Word clouds can be used in many ways. I have introduced them to the staff at my school and several teachers have utilized this resource, incorporating Wordles into their lessons. I will describe to you different ways in which I have found Wordles to be used. I will first give some examples of how word clouds can be used for interdisciplinary lessons and then show how they can be used in the art classroom. Perhaps these ideas will be useful to you and you will be able to use these for your own lessons or build upon the basic ideas.
One teacher at my school used Wordle in a poetry lesson. He first asked his students to use their names as the basis of the poem. From there, the students were asked to find words that would describe their personality, who they are, or express an emotion or feeling they have. Dictionaries, thesauruses, and the internet were used to find definitions of words. Once the students had written their poems, their teacher showed them how to take the poem and copy and paste it into Wordle. He explained to them that the words they wanted to show the most emotion on or wanted people to really notice first, to type them more times. They would appear larger. This lesson really went over big with the class because it not only build up the students' self esteem, but it increased their vocabulary. After the lesson, students gave their classmates very positive criticism and it evoked a discussion on the artistic value of the word clouds. Many of the students found that they used various fonts to help set the feeling of the words in the word clouds.
This lesson was taken a step further in Media class. The Media teacher took the wordles and had students pick out books that they were interested in reading. Their choice in books were based on their interests. Whether it was sports, nature, science, or another subject, it had to be chosen on the interest or hobbie of the student. Each child was asked to take the book home and bring it back the next week with a list of words that described the book. The students were asked to then take the list and create a wordle from the list. Again, they were asked to take what they learned from the previous wordle and incorporate that into the new one. Changing the layout, the colors, and the fonts helped to set the tone of the book in the word cloud. This served as a great way to show the connection of language arts and media in our school. Plus, this reinforced their vocabulary and reading skills.
Our science teacher and history teachers plan to use word cloud in similar ways. This will help to familiarize students with terms and historical events. The wordles can be used as study maps and a fun way for brainstorming when beginning projects.
Wordles can also be used in the art classroom in a similar way that the media teacher used the books. The art teacher could have the students do research on an artist and create a wordle using terms that help describe the artist, their style of work, or the titles or work they have created. This will help the student to familiarize themselves with the artist and their techniques. It will also help to lead into a discussion on aesthetics and art criticism.
In my own classroom, I used this very idea. I did a lesson on the elements and principles of design. I had half of one of my classes look up the terms of the elements of design. The other half was asked to look up the principles of design. Each half was then asked to create a wordle the elements of design and the other from on the principles of design. I had a couple of students from the elements group present their wordle to the class and go through each term in the wordle. The rest of that group created visual images that described the terms. The principle group then presented their wordle to the class and did the same thing. The end result was very successful. The students became familiar with the terms. They also were challenged to speak in front of the class and utilize what they learned, speaking in an intelligent and informed manner. This was also a basic introduction to teaching the students art criticism. This lesson was broken down into two 40 minute class periods. My principal sat in on one of the classes and thought it was terrific.
There are many other ways Wordle and Tag Crowd can be used in the art classroom. They can be used as a opening for a discussion for further research. Wordles can be used in a higher level design course as an image itself. The class can discuss parts of the image that works or doesn't work and why. This too could then lead into further discussion of aesthetics. After a discussion on creating the wordle as an image itself, the computer teacher at my school showed me a way to create the wordle and save it as a pdf file (the option is at the bottom left on the wordle screen after you create the wordle). He then came up with the idea to copy and paste the wordle into Adobe Illustrator. Once the image was on Illustrator, we were then able to change the total look of the image and play around with the size of the words and actually move words around on the image. This was not an option on the wordle website. In Illustrator, the artist is able to have much more control over the wordle as an image itself.
I had an idea that hopefully I will find a way to work out one day. I thought it would be really clever to create a wordle and use each word within that wordle as a hyperlink that would connect the viewer to either an image or another website about the word. This would be very helpful in several areas of business, class discussions, and in presenting research projects. My hope is to one day be able to present an artist to my class and create a wordle with various words and titles of works by that artist. I would then like to have the words or titles as hyperlinks so that when I click on the word, it will take me right to the image of that particular work by the artist. I am still working on trying to figure out a way to do this.
As you can see, the options are endless as to how you can use this type of collective intelligence in the educational setting. I have found some websites that are very useful in suggesting lessons for the use of wordles in the classroom:
This website is a quick tutorial on how to create a wordle.
http://www.technogogy.org.uk/wordle/wordle.htm
This website shows how a class used wordles to describe their experience on a visit to an art museum.
http://huntedweb.googlepages.com/home22
This website suggests some ways wordles can be used in the classroom.
http://www.boxoftricks.net/?p=103
Here is a wordle that I created from my blog page. I simply put in the url of my blog page and the wordle was created for me. (Notice that the words that occurred more frequently on my page are the largest in size.)
http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/678796/My_Blogspot
