Directions
TIPS
1. Go to http://wordle.net/

Word size is determined by the number of times the word is used, such
as : Red, Red, Red. But wordle will use an advanced feature under the
‘Advanced’ tab. To use this Select the ‘Advanced’ tab from the home
menu. The you can type your words followed by a colon and a number
to indicate the larger view representation you want of a given word.
Example: dog: 5, cat: 3, horse:

To connect words within phrases, use the following format:
In~His~Name.

It’s a good idea to save your words and phrases to a Word document,
in case you need to start over.

When the format is the way you want it, use “Re-layout with current
settings” or “Recolor” to make small changes.

If you want to remove a term once its created. You can right click on
the term and choose ‘remove term’ and Wordle will recalculate it.

On the Create Wordle page, note that you can insert the URL from
your blog or website rather than typing in words, and watch to see
what appears!
2. Select “Create.”
3. Type words or phrases into
the box [See tips below].
4. Click “Go.”
5. Select Font, Layout and Color
to customize your wordels
look.
6. When you’re happy with your
“Wordle,” click “Save to
Gallery”, if you want it to be
public.
7. At this time you can not
directly save it as an image to
your computer. To do that
you will need to take screen
shot of your desktop. [see
tips below]

On a PC laptop you can do a screen shot by holding down the
function key and pressing the Print screen key at the top of the key
board. Then open your paint program and paste the image into your
paint program. You can then save your image as a jpeg. –OR- You
can open a word document and paste the image into the document.
Examples of Wordles in Education
Example for Social Studies in Secondary
Word Cloud Analysis of Obama's Inaugural Speech Compared to Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Lincoln's
Written by Marshall Kirkpatrick / January 20, 2009 9:58 AM
Taken from: http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2008/10/top-20-uses-for-wordle.html
Barack Obama was just sworn in as President of the US and though he stumbled in repeating his oath,
the speech that followed was delivered flawlessly and was widely praised around the web. There were
quite a few concepts discussed that we suspect haven't been a part of past inaugural speeches. What
words were used most often? We ran the full text of the speech through tag cloud generator Wordle.net
for one view of the event, and just for the sake of historical context we ran George W. Bush's second
inaugural speech through as well. Update: After one reader suggested it, we've also added word clouds
from Bill Clinton's second inaugural speech and Reagan's first below. Second update: By reader request,
we've added Lincoln's first and second inaugural speeches as well.
The most common words in the Obama and Bush speeches were dramatically different.
Obama’s Speech
Bush’s – 2005
Bill Clinton’s 2nd Inauguration Speech
Ronald Reagan’s 1st Inaugural Speech
Lincoln’s First
Ways to use Wordle: on-line article
Top 10 Ways to Use Wordle's Word Clouds for Classroom Lessons
Article: http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/58905.aspx#ixzz0lHRNCsNu
Article by Jonathan Wylie (4,717 pts )
Edited & published by ElizabethWistrom (7,272 pts ) on Mar 8, 2010
Wordle.net is becoming one of the most used new technology tools for teachers. It is free, and versatile
enough to be used in any area of the curriculum. This article contains ten of the best ideas for Wordle
lessons in the classroom.
Believe it or not, incorporating Wordle lessons into your classroom routines is quick and easy! Below, you
will find a list of ideas you can use in your classroom - today!
Lesson Ideas
1. Personal Narratives: Write, or copy and paste, a personal narrative into Wordle. Students will be able
to see what is important to their peers from the words that are produced from the Wordle word clouds.
Compare the words that are used most often by boys, or girls, by age group, or by class/grade level.
These Wordle lessons make great displays outside a classroom.
2. Famous Speeches: Enter the text of a famous historical speech into Wordle. Analyze the results by
looking at the most commonly used words, or even the words that are not used. What does this tell us
about the orator and their intentions? Go to http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/previous.htm or
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html for a list of historical speeches you may want to
get started with.
3. Create a Wordle Gift: Mother's Day, Father's Day, Grandparent's Day, or even Teacher Appreciation
Day, can all be celebrated with Wordle. Input your favorite adjectives for your chosen person, generate
the word cloud, and add it to a greeting card, poster, calendar, or whatever else you choose. Remember,
Wordle clouds can be downloaded as JPEGS or PNGS if you take a screenshot of your word cloud and
save it to your computer, (command+shift+4 on a Mac will give you the option of saving a selcted portion
of your screen).
4. Classroom Polls: Instead of your traditional bar graph or pictograph, try using Wordle to organize your
data. What is the favorite color in your class? Have all students take turns at entering their favorite color
in to Wordle and generate the resulting cloud. Bigger words = more popular colors. Repeat with ice cream
flavors, pets, family members, etc.
5. Compare and Contrast: Use Wordle as a compare and contrast tool. Compare and contrast the word
clouds of two or more students' writing, famous speeches, song lyrics, news reports, book reviews or
whatever else you may need to compare in your classroom studies.
6. Student Profiles: I have done this with PowerPoint before, but recently saw someone do the same
with Wordle lessons. Have all students in your class write a few positive adjectives about each of their
classmates anonymously. Compile all the papers, input the adjectives for each student into Wordle, and
generate a student profile word cloud to give back to the student. Children always enjoy this positive
feedback exercise, and it can be a great end of year activity to take home from the last day of school.
7. Current Affairs Analysis: Copy and paste a news story into Wordle. What could the story have been
about? Can you guess what the headline would have been? Where could have it taken place? These
questions and more make this a worthy discussion exercise.
8. Wordle Word Walls: Brighten up your word walls with Wordle lessons. Students can brainstorm
synonyms, antonyms, or definitions for their list of vocabulary words. Add your word clouds to your
existing word wall work to help stimulate those higher thinking skills in your students. Keep a tally of the
targeted vocabulary words that the children use in speech on a daily basis, and them to a Wordle cloud to
show which are used most often.
9. Unit Review/Preview Posters: Students can create KWL charts on what they would like to learn and
find out about a given topic. Alternatively, create word clouds at the end of a unit to summarize the key
learning points or vocabulary from a given topic.
10. Historical Document Analysis: Have you ever wondered what the Magna Carta or Declaration of
Independence would look like when pasted into Wordle? Try it and see. There will be lots of talking points
from the resulting word cloud. What do you predict you will see? What themes can you identify? How
does the word cloud fit in with the historical context of the document?
There are a lot of fun and interesting things you can do with Wordle lessons in the classroom. Challenge
your students to come up with some uses of their own!
Thanks to http://jenuinetech.com, http://peterpappas.blogs.com, and http://ictlearning.net for their
innovations with Wordle in education.
Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/58905.aspx#ixzz0lHRNCsNu