weekly11-1-10


 * Weekly Activities - Nov 1-2-10**

1. __Activity #1__: Tagxedo (Word Clouds) 2. __Activity #2__: Continue to improve your library wiki by polishing the pages you began in last week's training. In upcoming weeks, we will add more to the wiki. 3. __Activity #3__: Spend a brief amount of time checking out your Google Reader. 4. __Activity #4__: Write a brief entry in your Wordpress blog to reflect on this week's activities. 5. __Activity #5__: Attend our online discussion on Tuesday, Nov 2 at 7:30 pm in Safari Live. Click here to enter the web conference.
 * Word clouds are a great way to create a visualization of written text. Read this list of ideas for using word clouds with students. Read this blogpost about other resources related to word clouds. Look at this to see even more ways to use word clouds.
 * Tagxedo is one popular word cloud generator. Go to http://www.tagxedo.com. Familiarize yourself with the interface.
 * Select a body of text that you would like to use to create a word cloud. Some ideas for text might be in a famous speech, a newspaper article, a topical website, or a database article.
 * Begin to generate a word cloud. Note that you can start with a URL, a Twitter ID, Delicious, News, a search, or an RSS feed. You can also select different shapes, fonts, orientation, and themes.
 * Once the cloud is generated, note that you can continue to edit it.
 * Save your final word cloud as a .jpeg by selecting "Save" in the left editing pane. Then, upload it to your new library wiki. (Note: You can always resize the word cloud when you upload it in your wiki.