Wordle. The word cloud generator that I love to hate. Okay, I don't hate Wordle in any way. It is easy to use in all respects. I just can't get the program to work at school on the Macs running Chrome or Safari.
I had my lesson all ready for 3rd graders. We we sitting on the carpet looking at the screen, waiting for Wordle to show up. It didn't. I switched from Chrome to Safari. No dice. Sadness and 3rd graders, who already struggle with attention, are starting to wander from me.
If you have had every lesson you've ever taught go perfectly, congrats, you have no idea how this feels. To the 99.9% of us that have had this feeling, you get it.
I completely switched to Tagxedo in the middle of the lesson. Tagxedo simply worked. After 3 minutes of quick instruction, the 3rd graders were off and running.
They made word clouds with their names and things that describe them. Over the past two days, every students in every class has created a custom word cloud with words about themselves. Well, okay, not the kid who was sleeping. He didn't get anything done. Did I let him sleep? Yep. We are just back from winter break and I have no idea how much sleep he got over the two weeks. That's what he needed.
Everyone else thought of words to describe themselves, practiced their typing skills, used design skills (layout, font, colors), and publishing skills to create and save their Tagxedo. Now, if I can just get them access to the color printer...
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