WordSift

WordSift is another kind of  free word cloud.

Though it is not attractive compared to Wordle, it is more academic and provide more interesting opportunities to engage with vocabulary.

One of the advantages of this tool is that the the data can be sorted by A to Z or Z to A, for example.

Another advantage is that, if you click a word, it can create a mindmap related to the word on the "Visual Thesaurus" with images on the left hand.

Here is an example. I clicked on the word "love".

If you place the cursor on the thesaurus, its definition(s) will appear. If you click on a word in the thesaurus, it will show a new thesaurus display beginning with the word you have selected. The users can go further and learn about the words more.

As this is less entertaining and attractive, WordSift would suit learners who want to learn about the words more deeply. I would enhance learners' autonomy, only when they are motivated to some extent. For, as all information is provided in English, some learners might be demotivated or less interested because of the lack of basic English knowledge.


Here is the link to WordSift.

http://www.wordsift.com/

The text I chose is from the official website of the musical - Les Miserables.

http://www.lesmis.com/uk/

Wordle

Wordle is an online tool for generating "word clouds" from texts that you like. A "word cloud" or "tag cloud" is a visual representation for text data.

You just choose text you would like to show and Wordle will give a word cloud.

Here is an example.

You can have your learners guess what the text is about or identify the topic. The most frequent words are showed in bigger size.

Font, layout and colour are easy to change. It is easy to make the text attractive. Wordle provides learners with a good opportunity to engage with vocabulary.

If you put one sentence,

it can be an exercise of putting words in the right order.

If the classroom is equipped with enough computers connected to the Internet, learners can choose their favourite text and create a word cloud. They can have their classmates guess the topic or make some grammar questions for their classmates to answer.


It is attractive and could provide a good exercise, however, some learners might find the text distracting or the text can make some people feel sick because of its layout or colour. It would be difficult to get attention for a long time.


Here is the link to Wordle. Give it a go by clicking "create". You should install and activate Java.

http://www.wordle.net/

The text I chose is from the official site of the musical - Les Miserables.

http://www.lesmis.com/uk/