Beginning of Year Technology Integration

The beginning of the school year is a time to get to know your students and establish your classroom environment. As a teacher I always liked to have the students share some information with their classmates and myself and because I’m a technology teacher I love to use technology for meaningful learning outcomes. One tool that is great for creating introductions is creating word clouds of information about the students. One such tool is Wordle, which is a great visualization of text that can create discussion and insight within the classroom. By understanding the patterns in text, students can have meaningful discussions.

How Wordle Works?

After going to the website (Wordle), you copy any text from a Word file, the web, or any other source, and then by pasting the information you can create the word cloud. This site requires no login or membership. The larger words indicate the main and important ideas. This site also allows the user to enhance and change the font, layout, and colors.

                           This is an example of a Wordle of my blog. 

For more information on Wordle, check out the Wordle groups on Diigo, which can be a valuable source of ideas on integrating Wordle into the classroom.

For some other innovative uses of meaningful ways to integrate Wordle into the classroom, check out the following sites/ blogs:

1.     Tech Savvy Educator

2.     The Ultimate Guide to Wordle

3.     The Top 10 Ways to Use Wordle in School

4.     Teaching History + Wordle

5.     Why Wordle?

Why start a Blog?

I have been debating starting a blog for a number of years. Whether it has been a fear of putting my thoughts out digitally or fear of not having a valuable enough opinion, I think it's about time to make my digital footprint. When talking to people about starting this blog, many people gave me positive feedback and the "its about time" responses but there are also others who didn't fully understand why I would want to put so much time and effort "blogging". Creating a digital footprint is as important today as creating a Personal Learning Network (PLN). The key components these two things have in common are (1) they create credibility, (2) they show an engaged, and motivated life-long learner, and (3) they create a community of interactive learners who are interested in the same topic. I think it's about time to become an active part of my own digital footprint. Up to this point I have created valuable and meaningful work for my employers but that doesn't transcend outside of the schools I've worked for to what I've created, who I am and what I believe in. As a K-12 certified educator, I want to share my knowledge as well as connect to other learners who are interested in how technology is integrated within education.

If your apprehensive about starting a blog yourself check out Why Every Teacher Should Blog from the Drape's Take Blog. If you have any blogging experiences you'd like to share, or have any questions, please comment here or email me at andrealynnvollmer@gmail.com.