Wordle and TagCrowd

I was able to access TagCrowd and Wordle. However, Wordle would not work for me. It was some issue with the way Java was working on my computer. I worked through all of the suggestions on how to fix it but it still is not working. I will attempt to look at Wordle when I return to school on my school computer.

On TagCrowd, I wasn't overly impressed with the "word bubble" it created. It was pretty standard and didn't really show much I felt. I did like the small versions that I looked at on Wordle. There was much more diversity and creativity in the formats of the "word bubbles" that were created here.

I did take a look at the 10X10 website that was suggested in the Curriculum Connections section. Of all the things in the Social Networking/Tagging section of this class, I found it the most interesting. The collection of pictures, tags, and articles is quite comprehensive. I like the ability to "go back in time" with the history feature and look at grids from previous dates. This tool could be very interesting for a social studies class to look at as they conduct research on current issues.

The only hesitation I have with this, is that when you click on a picture, there are numerous articles that have nothing to do with the picture shown. For example, for today I clicked on Charlie Sheen's picture which was under the tag "violence." No articles appeared about Sheen's troubles in Aspen. Instead there were articles on the Detroit bombing suspect, Pakistan, Iraq, and Iran. As visual as students are, I can see this causing some confusion. But when moderated correctly, this 10X10 resource could be valuable.