Saturday, June 20, 2009

The Wonders of WORDLE



I knew I would eventually find a way of bringing the 1999 movie "The Matrix", out of the background and front of stage onto this blog sooner or later !

The above "Word Cloud" was created using the "Wordle" application at:
www.wordle.net . Wordle is a Web 2.0 tool that is 100% free to use, and does not require input of an email address, or any signing up. Basically anyone can go to the website and use Wordle immediately. Note that the web address is .net and not .com, eg. http://www.wordle.com/ is an entirely different site.

The text that was used as input to generate the above Word Cloud, came from a synopsis of "The Matrix" movie, that was obtained from "IMDB" - the Internet Movies Database. IMDB ( http://www.imdb.com/ ) is a magnificent site that has information on just about every movie ever made. Check it out sometime.

The only potential difficulties for using WORDLE might be if your computer's Firewall blocks the Wordle Java applet from running, or if your Internet Browser is not setup to allow Java to run. Both of these problems are easily solved by reading through the information at: http://www.wordle.net/faq .

The Open Office PowerPoint below gives step by step information about How to Use WORDLE. (Click on the current slide to advance forwards each time.)








If you would like to download this PowerPoint, then use the following Link:

(Note the PPT file is 7meg in size and so can take three or four minutes to open)

View the above "WORDLE" Presentation as a higher quality MS 2003 PPT


The following Slideshare presentation gives some great ideas on how Wordle can be used for various projects, (particularly in school classrooms).

Note that the smudged screen mess is from her blackboard background, and
so there is no need to clean your PC monitor, (like I did :)
There are also links to good ideas at the end of her presentation.

To view the presentation full size, just click the "Slide Screen" icon in the bottom right hand corner of the Slideshare.

( Press the Escape key to come back to this page at normal size again ) .






And here are 25 more ways to use WORDLE in Classrooms:


and finally, at : http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2008/10/top-20-uses-for-wordle.html is a list of 20 more educational ways to use WORDLE.

WORDLE is another one of those fun and useful Web 2.0 apps, that costs absolutely nothing to use, and so why not get right into it !

Enjoy,
Big Passy Wasabi

P.S. Check out the 4 minute YouTube video cartoon animation below on
"The Meatrix", which is a send up of the orginal "Matrix" movie. Nice animation example to share with students doing Adobe Flash, but with a very important message as well.








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