What's a Wordle? and Poll-who?

Wordle and Poll Everywhere can be really useful tools in a classroom. These tools are ways of collecting information as well as displaying it in a way that is visually pleasing. Poll Everywhere is a web-based tool that allows real-time responses from participants, through either texts or web pages designated to a certain person's poll.  Wordle is an online resource that allows text to be entered, and an image is created with the words--displaying the words by the number of times repeated in the text: greatest number of repetitions creating the larger words in the image.
One way Wordle can be used in a classroom is to enter a famous speech, such as "The Gettysburg Address" or Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and the words that are repeated over and over in the speech will be represented as the focal points of a Wordle image.


One of the standards of the ISTE, is: "Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments."  These web tools apply directly to this standard in that they allow both teachers and students to express their creativity and subject knowledge using technology.

A way that these tools could be used in my future classroom is by entering vocabulary words (ex. Parts of a Cell) into the Wordle text box, and creating a visually stimulating route for students to recognize information for later recollection.
Example:

References:
Jen, Wagner. "Wordle Ideas."Upload & Share PowerPoint presentations and documents. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <http://www.slideshare.net/JenniferW/wordle-ideas>.


ISTE. " ISTE | NETS for Teachers 2008 ." ISTE | Membership, NETS Standards, Books, Journals and Professional Development for Teachers . N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx>.