Reflection 3: Fun with Text

After using Wordle and Tagxedo I had to think for a little while about how this could  be used in a relevant manner in my classroom and I was able to come up with a few ideas and also decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to steal one of the ideas from our assignment.  One way to effectively use Wordle would be to use it as an avenue to get to know my students better by having them describe themselves via words just as we did in our assignment. That can show me each students interests and also give me a little insight into their personalities because of the different options for displaying their picture of words. Each student will be different and I think it could be a fun way to get to know them better.  Another idea I came up with for using Wordle would be to have my students add all the key words or key ideas to whatever judging competition they might be preparing for. There are usually certain things to look for when preparing for one of those competitions and the students could use this program to highlight those and have a fun way to review them.  This may have been mentioned in class, but, I as the teacher could also use such a program to highlight the keywords that I am going to have on an exam or even use it for myself to make sure I discuss those key words in my lesson. It is a different way to make sure my students know what important things they need to be picking up on in my classroom. I think the basic principle to be taken from using text software such as Wordle is that it is a way to spice up the information you are using and to try and keep things fresh in the classroom.  It might be the difference between keeping your students engaged and losing them to boredom.  Overall I think it will be a great tool to be able to have and use in the classroom.