Curricular Area(s): Language Arts and Arts Education (Visual Arts)
Core Competencies: Creative Thinking and Communication
Grade(s): Pre-K to 12
Tool Access: Tagxedo.com
Resource Description
Tagxedo is a website that allows for the creation of word clouds from any text. It’s a program that creates visual word clouds with ease in a stylish form. Words or text blocks can be inputted into it’s program, and after choosing the shape and font, a visual interpretation cloud is formed. The size of words depends on how frequently they appear in the text.
As teachers, we can use Tagxedo as a fun activity for our students to follow up a lesson or reinforce an idea. For example, get students to take some text out of their favourite book or book study online, plug the text into Tagxedo using a creative shape, and print out the resulting word cloud. Tagxedo can also be used as a self-esteem-building tool by having students create clouds using positive words.
This tool allows for transformative learning as it allows students to see words in a new light. The word clouds created by Tagxedo enable you to see each words as part of a whole or vice versa. Students are able to experiment with different shapes, fonts, and sizes to express their ideas and thoughts while being empowered through their creation of digital content. With its simple format, Tagxedo allows for the creation of virtual flashcards, text analysis, and overall word play. This tool is easy to manipulate so even primary students can experiment with it. Tagxedo is an awesome tool for young students to use to build vocabulary and to develop their skills in analyzing web pages, online books or kids’ blogs on any subject that interests them. Not only is Tagxedo great for learning English, it can work as an additional language-learning tool as well. Students can learn to evaluate text and word usage in engaging and meaningful ways while using this program for word/book studies.
Although Tagxedo is free, there are limitations. It requires the installation of Silverlight and only works on desktop and laptop computers. The plug-in doesn’t work with Google Chrome and you may experience issues with other browsers.
