Word Clouds

Today I learned a new way to use word clouds and their many different applications.  I have only used Wordle in my classes and was having trouble with it because, as Dr. Pierce said, it doesn't play well with Chrome. I like having my students use word clouds at the beginning of the semester in order for me to get to know them and for them to get to know each other.  I hang the word clouds on our classroom walls.  Here is an example of one of my students word clouds.

I decided, for my project, to create a word cloud for the Microsoft Office competencies my students need to master to be professionally certified in Word. 

The Word clouds make it very easy to see that we will be doing a lot of inserting, creating, formatting and modifying of text.  I will be teaching a unit on ethics next semester in my Business Law class.  I plan to have my students copy and paste text into a word cloud program in order to see which words appear most.  I also will be still be doing our "Get to Know You" word cloud.

I would like to know how other teachers use word clouds in their classroom.


I guess I am a history teacher in a business teacher's suit.  Here is the Gettysburg Address.  I just couldn't resist