Wordle: word cloud creator

What is Wordle?

Wordle is a very easy to use word cloud creator. It makes your text look funny and exciting. You can create word clouds with any type of text you might choose. The main feature of this tool is that the more frequent words in a text increase in size and the most common words are left out by default but it also gives you the chance to include them if you want to. You can also customise the colour, font, and lay out. Besides, it allows you to randomize with the same text and get new clouds with just one click. The word cloud you create, you can either print it out, save it as public gallery into a webpage or copy the code and paste into your blog, so you can have access to it afterwards 

You can find Wordle in the following link:

wordle.com

 How to use Wordle?

You can watch this video to learn how to use Wordle:

Why is Wordle relevant to language learning?

• It is an attractive tool to present new vocabulary to students, therefore it encourages motivation and engagement.

• Wordles can be used as warm ups, and activate previous knowledge.

• It favors the practice and development of the reading language skill.

• It can support not only linguistic skills but also the development of cognitive ones. For instance, students can identify some words, select and classify them, analyse or infere the meaning of them as well.

• Teachers can also ask their students to reflect on the content of the wordle and discuss with other peers about it. Therefore, it favors interaction among them.

• Wordle can also be used to teach grammar. 

How might you use Wordle in class/outside the class?

1.   Within the classroom

• Teachers can present a list of verbs or vocabulary in a more interesting way.

• They can also use a wordle as a hook for the class and enhance inference from students. For instance, teachers might start the class showing a wordle made it intentionally by adding the main words of the topic he/she is going to talk about during that class.

• Students can use it to find the biggest words in a text given either by the teacher or found by themselves. Then, the teacher can ask them to make a list of them and look up the meaning of the different words in a dictionary, and write some sentences using these words.

2.  Outside the classroom

• Teachers can ask their students to choose part of a description of a place, such as country, monument, or famous landscape, put the text in wordle, find the adjectives, nouns and their meaning that describe it, print it out and bring it to class. In class, students can be grouped and asked to describe the place they chose by using the most prominent adjectives and nouns found.

• Students can also include a wordle to start a presentation, and then lead the audience to some specific topic, such as the biography of a favorite singer.

• Teachers can ask some students to create a cloud with different doubts in form of questions for a future test, and they can discuss and clarify them in class. The discussion through this tool can be more meaningful and rewarding for the students. 

What limitations can you see with the use of Wordle? 

• When you save your wordle in the public gallery, it is difficult to find it again because there is not a search engine. You might have to look it up by yourself in different pages immediately or you may lose your wordle forever.

• It is hard to control the lay out, because it changes when you edit it.

• It is just a visual aid. It mainly favors this type of learning style.

• It does not provide the meaning of words.

• Words are not seen in context.

Dvolver: The greatest moviemaker

What is Dvolver?

Dvolver is a great tool to make free movies online. You can create your own movie by choosing the background and sky images, selecting the plot, character(s), adding speech bubbles to create your own dialogues for every character in every scene, and selecting the background music. It is an easy online tool  to use for language learning and teaching. 

You can find Dvolver in the following link:

dvolver.com

How to use Dvolver?

You can watch this video to learn how to use Dvolver:

Why is Dvolver relevant to language learning?

• It is a motivating and interesting website for students because they can create their own animated movies and feel more engage with the lesson.

• It gives teachers a new way to present contents. Therefore, students would also feel more motivated.

• Teachers can create suitable dialogues according to students' proficiency in the language, the content they are learning, grammar and vocabulary aspects as well.

• Students are free to create any scene using the different elements available for them. In this way they are developing their creativity.

• It is suitable for all ages because it has a range of different characters.

• It encourages both individual and collaborative work.

• This tool also enhances the development of critical thinking through evaluating information, reasoning, thinking and assessing information in a more comprehensible way. For instance, when students have to create dialogues they have to decide the content, vocabulary, grammar, etc. in order to link the conversation, and connect the series of scenes together in a well organised way, in other words, follow the flow of it. 

  

How might you use Dvolver in class/outside the class?

1. Within the classroom

Teachers can present any new teaching point more interestingly to the students by using Dvolver. For example, teachers would like to present through the communicative approach the function of 'introducing themselves', therefore, teachers can create a  dialogue including the specific function, vocabulary and grammar required to present it. This example would be embedded as a real dialogue to show you how you can use it and the content that you can add in the animated movie. Then, teachers can ask them to work in pairs and create a dialogue in which they would introduce themselves.

     2.  Outside the classroom

• By following the example from above, teachers can ask the students to send the movie they made during the class and they can assess them formatively to check the progress of their work and also to give them some feedback in the next class.

What limitations can you see with the use of Dvolver? 

• There are limited number of words for the sentences you intend to incorporate, limited scenes, characters which are pre-determined and limited in number, too. 

• Students and teachers are not able to listen to the conversation. Therefore, they can only read it. However, if a student is proficiently better in the listening and not in the reading skill, they would face some difficulties because the tool would favor one skill over the other.

The next movie would show you a simple example on how you can use Dvolver in the classroom: