Wordle- Uses in 7th Grade Science

I tried out Wordle today for my graduate class and I was impressed by how easy it was to use and how many different visual products I could create very quickly. I have been thinking about how I could use Wordle in my 7th grade science classroom. This is week in grad class we talked about how students need to create and re-create what they have learned, in order to retain their knowledge. Wordle seems like a simple web tool that could be used for creating. However, Wordle does not seem to require a lot of creating on the part of the user. For example, I entered a vocabulary word list for the chapter on forces that we are working on, then I hit create and I had all sorts of options for what my product would look like. However, I did not need to think through the content in order to create my product.

Wordle allows the user to enter any text and then takes the most used words and enters them into a graphic (like my forces example above). The more the word is used, the larger the word appears. So, maybe students could use this to pick out the most used, read the most important, parts of a text. Students could also use Wordle to create a visual product from a written sample that they create. I think maybe entering a lab report into Wordle would help students pick out the themes in the lab report they have written. I think Wordle can be good for a visual reminder of ideas and themes in science, but not necessarily an assessment of learning.

I am excited to use some Wordles in my classroom for visual reminders of vocabulary and main ideas. I have a colleague who changes the background on her computer each chapter to a Wordle with the vocabulary words. When her interactive whiteboard displays her desktop, students see the Wordle. 

The only drawback I saw to Wordle was it was possible to have a URL link to a specific Wordle. There was a code to embed the Wordle, but no URL. The Wordles I created were added to a public gallery, however the public gallery was not searchable by title or topic. I think if Wordle will be used by students, they will need to print their product right away in order to have easy access to it.

Here is a Wordle using the text from this Wordle blog post: