Tech-Tac-Toe ... Tagxedo Word Clouds

I used Tagxedo word clouds for learning vocabulary words. The topic I chose was the News2You  weekly topic, which was the 2014 World Cup that will be held in Brazil. News2You is an online newspaper for Special Education, in this case, a high school Transitional Life Skills class. 

In addition to the usual worksheets and activities that accompany vocabulary, using a word cloud gives students extra practice with their their typing, spelling, keyboarding, and computer skills. Not to mention the sense of accomplishment!

Personal Tagxedo with Vocabulary Words

Tagxedo is free and can be found at www.tagxedo.com. I found this tool much easier to use over Wordle, which I thought was the only game in town for word clouds. The other tool I looked at was Tagul, and it looked promising as well. What Tagxedo offers is a user-friendly interface and plenty of examples. Once the words are entered, click "Create", and the tool walks you right through the process. After clicking "Submit", the cloud is ready for personalization with color, font, and shape options.

I was thrilled at how easy it was to save the Tagxedo in any number of sizes and formats. Once saved, it can be printed or shared just like any other jpg.

Personal copy of Tagxedo word cloud.

Once again, I was reminded that when a learning activity is put into motion, the creative thought process for students and teachers kicks into gear. As you can imagine, the students did not need much encouragement to play around with colors, fonts, and shapes. Some of the students that I didn't think would be able to follow the instructions really surprised me. No doubt, a lot of instruction is needed for this audience, but  I see this is an opportunity to encourage student helping student.

 Take a look at a Tagxedo a student put together. Emma happens to like music and the color pink.

Personal copy of Tagxedo word cloud.

Another creative tool to be on the look-out for is "Poligonian". I found this after I visited Tagxedo's Facebook page. Poligonian is in beta, and only works with a Chrome browser. If you check it out, be sure to scroll down and look at all the images. Amazing.