Wordle and Tagxedo

I enjoyed learning about Wordle and Tagxedo in class last week. Again, these are two tools that I had never heard of and had no idea that they existed. At first, I was hesitant with the tools and did not really see the purpose. As I experimented with them more, I grew to like them. I now see how extremely useful they could both be in the classroom. Not only could Wordle and Tagxedo be used to spice up the classroom when used throughout the room for various postings such as classroom rules, but they could also be used for a number of instructional purposes relating to a specific person, subject, or term. I also like the idea of having students make clouds that describe themselves for a beginning of the year activity. Although the two tools are very similar, they do have differences. I like the aspects of Tagxedo that allows the user to create shapes and search terms in the news.