Word Clouds in the Classroom

Many educators are familiar with word cloud tools such as Wordle, Tagxedo, and Tagul, which allow students to create colorful visualizations of text that can be posted online or saved as an image. Word clouds quickly analyze text to create a shape in which the words that appear most frequently appear bigger and bolder.  They’re a great way for students, especially visual learners, to distill and summarize information and quickly identify what’s important in a body of text.  Word clouds can be used in all subjects and with all grade levels to promote critical thinking, improve vocabulary, analyze texts, assess student writing, prompt student reflection, illustrate an event, classify objects or parts of speech, and more.

Edudemic provides a great list of 5 Ways to Use Word Clouds in The Classroom.  One popular activity, especially early in the school year, is for students to create a “Get to Know Me” word cloud that includes a list of words that students use to describe themselves.

Instead of printing student-created word clouds, consider importing the images to a Google Slideshow, student blog, or classroom website. If you must print, be sure to require that students use a plain white, rather than a solid color background, to save on printer ink.  My other tip is to encourage students to copy and paste their text, rather than type directly into the word cloud tool so that, in the event of an Internet glitch, their efforts are not lost.

One of the most popular word cloud websites, Wordle, was offline for a while. It’s back now, but in the interim I discovered another tool that has some great features.  WordClouds.Com is a free tool that has a lot of cool features, including the ability to choose different shapes, colors, and fonts.  On the right is a word cloud I created based on the content of this newsletter.

One challenge with some word cloud tools is their dependence on Java or Shockwave plugins, which require frequent updating. That’s one of many reasons to consider using the Word Cloud Generator Add-on for Google Docs. Once you and your students install the Word Cloud Generator, it can be easily accessed from the Add-ons menu in a Google Doc to generate a downloadable word cloud.

Google Drive Benefits

In an effort to convince some educators and administrators to switch to Google Drive for creating, sharing, and storing files, I brainstormed this list. It's amazing how Drive has already changed the way we work, teach, create, collaborate, and learn!

• Anywhere, anytime access, regardless of the type of computer or mobile device. 
• Applications are very similar to MS Office, so the learning curve is minimal.
• Drive applications are ideal for collaboration.  Multiple people can edit and comment on documents simultaneously.
• Share settings are private by default, but you can share with anyone who has the link, or with specific people, and you can determine if they can edit, comment, or view only.
• Unlimited storage for educational domains, with no limit to storing large files, such as images and videos.
• Increasingly recognized as the standard, especially in public education.  As a result, Google Apps integrate well with many other online tools.
• Easily move from and to MS Applications:  export from Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, and continue editing the file in those MS applications if you choose, or easily convert MS applications to Drive equivalents.
• With the Drive App installed on your computer, you can open all files (including MS Office files), edit, and save them, and they will automatically sync to the cloud for viewing on other devices.
• Drive files are safely stored on a high-security Google server.
• Sophisticated search tool makes it easy to locate files that you created and files that are shared with you.
• More reliable storage alternative than an external hard drive or USB flash drive, which can become corrupt and get lost or damaged, resulting in lost files.  
• Drive apps include newly-developed sophisticated tools, including Voice Typing for speech-to-text input, and Document Outline for easy navigation of long documents.
• Continually updated with improved interface and add-ons.
• Ability to share with others large files that cannot be sent via an email attachment.
• The Forms tool, with built-in reporting function, makes it easy to create surveys, quizzes, and other types of forms to collect and analyze data.
• Free!

Sophisticated Screencasting with Nimbus

There are several tools for capturing screenshots and screencast videos from your Chrome browser, but Nimbus has recently become a new favorite. This Chrome extension is easy to install and offers some extra features that similar tools don’t have. I really like that there are multiple capture options for screenshots, including the ability to “Select & Scroll,” which allows you to scroll while capturing so that you can grab pieces of the screen not immediately visible.  When using Nimbus to create a screencast (ie, a digital video recording of your desktop) you have access to several helpful tools, including the ability to resize and crop, a highlighter, speech bubble-style notes, and many font styles and sizes for adding text. Two very cool tools are the blur, which allows you to select a portion of the screen capture to blur out (ideal for ensuring student privacy in a photo) and automatic numbering of arrows that you add (ideal for showing multiple steps in a process).  Best of all, Nimbus provides a customizable countdown, so the recording doesn’t start until you are ready.  For an example, see the video below explaining new Google Slides features, which I created with NImbus.

The Nimbus extension integrates seamlessly with Google Drive, and has numerous educational applications. To name just a few: teachers can use it to demonstrate how to use an online resource, students can explain a concept to demonstrate understanding, or you can use it to record narration of a Google Slide presentation.  

Foreign Language Characters and Accents with GAFE

Google provides a variety of tools for incorporating foreign language characters and accents, which are useful for students studying world languages, and especially handy for teachers seeking to support English language learners and communicating with families that do not speak English as a first language.

Insert Special Characters

You can access a library of foreign and other special characters directly within Google Docs and Slides:

1. Click Insert
2. Click Special Characters
3. Choose Latin (for Spanish or French) from the drop down menu.  Many, many other scripts are also available.  You can also search for any symbol by keyword.
4. Click to insert a symbol directly into your document or presentation.

If you want to search for a symbol but can’t remember its name, you can draw the symbol, and if Google recognized it based on your drawing, the symbol will display.  Watch this video for a demonstration of the Draw a Symbol feature.

Add Keyboard Layouts on a Chromebook

1. Click on the Chrome menu (3 horizontal bars in the Chrome toolbar)
2. Click Settings
3. Under Device, click Keyboard Settings
4. Click Change Language and Input Settings
5. Click Add
6. Choose the language you need from the dropdown menu.

Switching Keyboards

Once you have set up the languages and keyboard layouts you prefer, you can click on the bottom-right system tray in order to switch between them. You can also move between your preferred keyboard layouts by using Alt-Shift to switch between your keyboard layouts or by using Ctrl-Space to go to your last layout.

Google Input Tools Chrome Extension

Install Google Input Tools to your Chrome browser for easy access to characters and symbols in over 70 languages. Google Input Tools allow you to insert foreign characters in Google Docs, Slides and other apps, and also anywhere on the web where you can enter input (ie, social networks, order forms, etc.)

Formative Assessment Tools

Innovate formative assessment have the power to engage students, provide valuable feedback, and support the philosophies behind growth mindset.  The integration of game-style approaches to formative assessment has rapidly increased with the availability of numerous online tools that can measure learning progress and provide teachers with valuable data. The following game-based tools are not just excellent options for formative assessment...they can be really fun.

Kahoot!  With Kahoot! it only takes a few minutes to create a fun learning game that can be played in a classroom setting. Students can use any device (computer, Chromebook, iPad, iPhone, etc.) to participate in the game-style assessment and get instant feedback.  You can also add videos, images, and diagrams.  A classroom game of Kahoot will yield instant feedback for teacher and students, but be forewarned….it could get raucous!

Socrative  Teachers can signup and use their free Socrative account to create instant questions, quizzes, games, and polls, or access a quiz created and shared by another teacher. Students login to the student version on any device, using a unique classroom code, and can play either in anonymous mode, or with a username that allows the teacher to collect instant assessment data.  There are two versions of Socrative for mobile devices: a student app, and teacher app.  Socrative apps are also available for Android devices.

Poll Everywhere

Encourage class participation and get immediate feedback to a single question with a “poll” that you can create in advance or on the fly.  Students can respond instantly from any device, including using a text code from their mobile phones. The free version allows for 25 responses, so will work in most classrooms, but you would need to upgrade to the paid version to extend that number, or to access reports and grading features. You can embed polls in PowerPoint presentations, and with the free Chrome extension, you can easily embed polls in Google Slides.

Quizalize

Quizalize is a newer student response system that looks a lot like Kahoot!, but with three main advantages: questions are shown on the student devices (rather than solely projected on a whiteboard from the teacher’s computer) so that students can progress at their own pace; the games can be played in “team” mode so that groups of students can compete against each other; and the quizzes can be played live or asynchronously, so teachers can assign them as homework.  Another very cool feature is the integration with Google Classroom. Once teachers signup with their Google accounts, Quizalize can access class rosters so that teachers can assign a quiz to the entire class, and students can log into the player with their own accounts. The free version of Quizalize includes all the basic features needed to create and complete quizzes.  Here’s a video that explains how to use Quizilize.

Multimedia Posters & Presentations with Thinglink

Also available on the web (so accessible by computer and Chromebook users too), Thinglink allows the creation of interactive images that can be used as multimedia posters and presentations. You simply upload any image, and use the Thinglink tools to tag and embed anything from the web, including videos.

In Ms. Melbourne’s class at the Gates school, grade 5 students used the free Thinglink App to demonstrate their understanding of the water cycle by tagging each step in an image of the cycle with photos that they took themselves from the school surroundings, and web-based images (because apparently they couldn’t find any icebergs in Acton). Once the Thinglinks are saved, they can be shared via a link or embedded in a website.  Ms. Mel’s students were clearly engaged by their ability to share and create an interactive poster for their science project.

Teachers can also use Thinglinks, to deliver interactive educational content to students, or to share classroom activities with families.  Click here to see a Thinglink I made for Kindergarten students to use for independent learning. By embedding it on my webpage, I basically leveraged Thinglink as a K-friendly online research tool.