Weekly3-2-10


 * Week of 3/2/10 - Word Cloud Generators & Transliteracy **


 * 1. Activity #1 - Word Cloud Generators**

Word cloud generators take text or web addresses and turn them into artistically-rendered "clouds" that have many valuable educational applications. In a common word cloud scheme, words that are repeated most frequently in a text appear in a larger font, highlighting their prominence. For this activity, do the following:

a. Select a current event article from an online newspaper or the NewsBank database. Copy the text of the article to your clipboard. b. Go to Word It Out and select the Create tab at the top of the page. Paste the text in the large box. c. Click on the text, word list, and word cloud tabs to edit the word cloud in a way that is pleasing to you. Hit the apply button to see the edited cloud. d. Save your word cloud by naming it and providing an email address. Verify your email address to get the link to the word cloud. (You need only verify once per email address. When you make word clouds with students, if you do not feel comfortable having student give their own email addresses, create an email address especially for this purpose and have students enter it when they make their own clouds.) e. Use the emailed link to see your word cloud. Click "full screen". Using your keyboard, take a screen shot. If you are unsure how to do that, see @http://take-a-screenshot.org/ f. Paste the screenshot into Paint or a blank PowerPoint slide. Crop it to remove the extraneous parts of the screenshot, leaving only the word cloud as visible. Save/export it as a jpeg. g. Email your word cloud to Lisa Perez h. Add an entry to the word cloud ning discussion to share ways that you can use word clouds with your students. i. Indicate at your Google spreadsheet that you completed this activity.

See @http://marisaconstantinides.edublogs.org/2010/02/10/tech-tools-pedagogy-ii-word-clouds for information about other word cloud generators. __Note__: Wordle, the most popular word cloud generator, was deactivated recently.

A Top Ten List of ways to use word clouds with students: @http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/58905.aspx A Top 20 List of ways to use word clouds with students: @http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2008/10/top-20-uses-for-wordle.html

__Standards__: AASL: 1.2.3, 2.1.2, 2.1.4, 2.1.6, 2.2.4, 3.1.4, 4.1.8 ISTE NETS-S: 1a, 1b, 2a, 3b, 4c

a. Go to Buffy Hamilton's blog and read this page: @http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/coming-out-party-the-debut-of-the-libraries-and-transliteracy-blog (Consider adding The Unquiet Librarian to your Google Reader, if you don't follow her already.) b. Click on her link and go to the new "Libraries and Transliteracy" blog at http://librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com (Subscribe to this blog via RSS feed on your Google Reader or via email alerts.) c. Look at this page and view the short You Tube video: [] d. Spend some time at the blog and think about the role of the school librarian in teaching transliteracy skills. In your journal, post a reflection about transliteracy. Talk about your thoughts about teaching these broad information literacy skills, the importance of transliteracy skills for your students to be able to function in society, the current presence of transliteracy skills in our curriculum, and any other relevant thoughts. e. Indicate at your Google spreadsheet that you completed this activity.
 * 2. Activity #2 - Professional Reading: Transliteracy**

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Ellen Damlich