always learning

I’m not so good at memes. The procrastinator in me just likes to keep putting them off until too many weeks go by for me to legitimately pick them back up again. But, seeing as I’ve had a few nice Thai holidays thrown into my schedule lately, I really have no excuse.

So, here’s my effort at the Wordle Meme, started by GeekyMomma, and brought to my attention by Silvia Tolisano.

Here are the instructions:

1. Create a Wordle from your blog’s RSS feed.
2. Blog it and describe your reaction. Any surprises?
3. Tag others to do the same.
4. Be sure to link back here and to where you were first tagged.

Silvia, of course, had some additional creative ideas to add to the depth of this meme, suggesting the following:

5. Create different Wordle clouds of your blog’s RSS over a period of time. Do it once a month for the next year.
6. Share other uses (at least one)  you have found for Wordle (for your students or personally) to your blog post.

I like the idea of documenting your Zeitgeist (spirit of the times) by capturing a Wordle regularly. And, since I have already been procrastinating (just a bit) on this meme, I actually have two months to share here today:

From November 29th:

From December 10th:

They’re not quite a whole month apart, but I happened to be super productive last weekend in a rare spurt of blogging which resulted in a total of 8 posts in 48 hours, usually a month’s worth for me anyway.

Reaction:

I’m actually surprised by how much Wordle must pull from the most recent post in your RSS feed. I can really tell which posts I had just written when I created these two images, and I’m not so sure that those would be entirely accurate reflections of the most frequent topics on this blog.

However, if we look at the Wordles the way Silvia describes, understanding that they will change over time, and can only realistically be a reflection of the moment, I can see how that would be powerful. For example, my most recent post focuses on connecting teachers, and boy, I must have mentioned that word a lot, because just a week and a half before I can barely even find the word “teachers.”

Even with the differences, I definitely am pleased to see that “learning” is at the center, a little surprised to see just how big “technology” is in both screen shots (though obviously that’s a major focus of my job, and therefore this blog), and I like that I can see “literacy” and “team” front and center.

I actually wish I could go back in time and take some screen shots of Wordles from previous years. I think I’ve been thinking about things a little differently of late, and it would sure be interesting to see how this year’s posts compare with last year’s or the year before…

And, just like Silvia, I created a Wordle from my Delicious account:

This one is definitely less surprising as I have a pretty good idea of the tags I use when I bookmark. It is a little surprising to me that I really don’t tag much for personal use, this Wordle seems almost entirely education-related. Maybe I need to spread the bookmarking love.

Using Wordle in the Classroom:

I like the idea of using a Wordle to capture the focus of student writing, to help them see visually what they are really writing about. It’s not easy to tell amidst a pile of words on a page which ones are the most prevelant, but this makes it hard to miss. I wonder if this would be a good tool for English Language Learners, because it could help build their vocabulary by emphasizing the words they use most often and then encourage them to learn new vocab to enhance and improve not only the variety of language but the specificity of meaning. I haven’t used it yet with teachers, but just taking a moment to think about it might be all the prompting I need!

Because I empathize with the procrastinators out there, I’m not going to tag anyone, but should you wish to complete this meme and don’t happen to find yourself tagged at the moment, please consider this your opportunity (not that you need my permission anyway). Wordle Away!