Word Clouds
AnswerGarden
During discussions about the ratification of the constitution Mrs. Reynold's students viewed an image of Alexander Hamilton atop his eponymous ship during a parade in front of the Bowling Green, click here for image. In each class, students then used a tool called AnswerGarden to input descriptive words about the image, its feeling, and how it related to the ratification of the US Constitution. What a great conversation starter!
AnswerGarden is not your average word cloud generator. It has the same functionality as the greater the frequency of a given word or "exact" phrase, the larger it appears in the cloud. However, AnswerGarden is little different. It's interactiveness lets you build a word cloud on the fly. Using a prompt and an idea, AnswerGarden builds a quick overview of the audiences thoughts on any topic.
Because of this live publishing feature, the creator of an AnswerGarden has options for control over the content that it generates. As you can imagine, it may be appropriate to moderate some contributions before sharing them publicly with your audience. Below are a couple, not all, of the available options.
- Using the classroom mode, words are allowed to automatically appear on the screen. You will need to refresh periodically, or you can use the "Expand" button at the bottom of the screen for the automatic 7 second refresh.
- If you want to err on the side of caution, you can chose the moderator mode instead. This lets the creator release only the appropriate responses.
You don't lose all control with the classroom mode. The creator can always delete unwanted responses before sharing the live feed. You see, students can only see their responses on the screen.
This is a nice feature should you need to quickly scan the screens help students that may be off task or confused. Make sure to create a password so that you can make changes if you need to. AnswerGarden will send you an email with the link so that you can return to your project(s) at any time.
This tool is device agnostic meaning it works well with a variety of devices like a Chromebook, a mobile app, laptop or desktop. Click here to get all the FAQs about this awesome tool! Ready to go, jump in and click here to make one of your own.
More Word Cloud Examples
Have fun with word clouds whether you are reviewing your own writing to see what words you use most, creating a fun graphic to share data in a presentation, or trying to find the key ideas in a historical document. Check out these examples to find a tool of your own choosing.
Word clouds are built in a variety of ways, like old fashioned copy and paste, linking directly to a web URL, or entering a word or phrase into a word cloud generator.
Have another idea, please share it. Email Audra to share any ideas or examples.
This is an example of a moderated AnswerGarden. The size of the font is based on the frequency of the word or phrase as a response. After responses are approved they populate below the question or prompt. You may need to refresh your page.