Tagxedo creates word clouds out of text that you either copy in or take from a website by adding in the URL. It groups together words and, based on the number of times it is used, makes certain words larger. A good tool for students to analyze text from a novel, a news story, a speech, etc.
You can customize your clouds with different shapes and colors. Allows you to save your cloud as a JPG file.
Here is an example one that I made using the feedback from the IP faculty conversation. You can see the words that came up repeatedly are larger.
BOOK TIP: Books about WORDS
Since the Tech Tip had to do with words, here are three books on words.
The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon. In this dystopian novel, the death of print has come. We are all reliant on our tech devices to share our thoughts and words. The editor of the final edition of the print dictionary goes missing, and so begins the suspenseful chase to find out what happened to him. A thrilling, cautionary tale of the reliance on technology.
There's a Word For It by Sol Steinmetz. Organized by decade, this book looks at the explosion of language in new words since 1900. Those of my age, think "boom box" and "break dancing". Fun to peruse.
Word Savvy by Nancy Ragno. A grammar lovers book. This book helps you to select the perfect word every time and how to avoid common word mistakes, like confusing word pairs (capital or capitol?) and common mis-speaks ("escape goat" "by the power invested in me"). Little quizzes included too!
