BP12_2009123_Tool#4(Wordle)

I looked through a lot of web 2.0 tools this week and I found a lot of really cool ones. Unfortunately, it seemed as if as soon as I got really into it and was exploring the site, I would find content created by other users that was totally inappropriate. For example, I thought I had something great when I found Overstream, which is a site where you can add subtitles to videos you find online. I thought this would be great for a foreign language class or in my bilingual class, having students work to create subtitles for short videos in English or Spanish. I started browsing and found a video that I thought would be cute, the thumbnail had a picture of Kermit the Frog. Well, let's just say that I'm sure Miss Piggy would be outraged at the things Kermie was doing. Well, at least my Spanish speaking students would be able to follow along as someone had thoughtfully added subtitles to it, not that it needed much translation. I could probably use it to add subtitles, but the true educational value would be for students to do it. GoAnimate and XtraNormal would have similar issues. The application itself is fantastic, but the content created by some people ruins it for everyone. Maybe in a high school or college you could work around it, but not at the elementary or middle school level. I'm not sure what to do about that.

Anyway, the site I am choosing to promote is Wordle. Wordle has some issues that I mentioned in the above paragraph, there are some very inappropriate Wordles out there, but I think it is a little easier to avoid them. In Wordle, users can create "word clouds" by pasting in text. The more often a word appears in the text, the bigger it is in the Wordle. You can put in your own words and make them bigger by repeating them, or you can copy and paste text from somewhere and create a Wordle that way, it is a great way to show how authors use words and repetition, and to create visual representations of speeches, poems, or songs. The picture here is of the inaugural address of a famous president. Can you guess who it is?