Wordle as a Classroom Activity

Two days ago, I had students brainstorm all the things that they are good at and all the strengths that they have on a piece of paper.

Yesterday, I had students pull out that sheet of paper and open up Wordle. I wasn't really sure how it was going to work to have the whole class working on this. I thought I had it figured out but I wasn't sure.

So each student typed in everything into Wordle, spent some time figuring out colors, fonts, and layouts. There were some create results and I have some very creative students.

Here's a link to what my students did and how I did it:

Student Wordles

What we did:

• Have students create their Wordle. I had them type their name 5 times to make it bigger in the Wordle.
  
• Have students click "Save to Public Gallery."
• You'll get a pop-up box.
• The title isn't important but they can fill it in.
• The user name is important. Make it something unique to your class. They must spell it correctly.
  
• The description isn't important either.
• Click "OK."

So how do you find your class' Wordles?

This is where I was unsure and thought it might be a horrible wreck. There are two ways. First, you could create a new Wordle when you are ready to check the work and use the same username. Once you save it, it will be on the first page of the gallery. Click on your username and you'll see everything created by that username.

The second way is to click on gallery. Then, click "older." Now, the address bar looks like this:

http://www.wordle.net/gallery?start=793641

Note the times that the Wordles were created. Then, change the number at the end of the Wordles address. Make it lower and keep doing it to until you close to the time you had the students create their Wordle. For instance, change 793641 to 793500.

The second way is a bit more tedious but it does do the job.

Enjoy your Wordling!