BP4_Wordle & Tagxedo

Today I am discussing another pair of Web 2.0 tools: Tagxedo and Wordle.  I have been aware of Wordle for a few months now, and was just recently made aware of Tagxedo.  Both of these sites serve the same basic principle; they create word or text clouds.  A word cloud is a useful and attractive way to see information at a glance.
 

I recently tried out both sites by putting in my literature review from my month one class.  It was interesting to see what were the most common words within my paper.  There were the obvious ones, like ‘professional’ and ‘development’ (the topic of the lit review) but then it was interesting to see what came next and how they did a fairly good job of summarizing the piece: ‘faculty’ ‘employees’ ‘need’ ‘learning’.

I was thinking I could continue this practice as I write my final literature to help make sure it is staying on topic, and to also make sure that there aren’t words getting needlessly repeated.  I really feel this could be an attractive and inviting way to introduce one’s paper (of any kind) to potential readers, especially if there aren’t too many words in the word cloud.  It can do a good job giving off the topic and feel of the paper, helping the reader get a feel of what they are about, or even if they want to read it. 
In my class, our students have to create a design studio for themselves, and have to write a business description and mission statement for it.  I think using these tools could help them more visually see (these are design students after all) their paragraphs, making it easier for them to edit.  Also, the resulting design might give them some ideas on how to visually present the paragraphs, as the second step of the project is to design the text into a spread. 

As far as evaluating the two tools, Tagxedo has the one obvious advantage over Wordle, in that it can create its word clouds into complex shapes, representing anything from a tree to a bird to even a person’s face.  However, I prefer Wordle’s interface a little better, feeling it a little more streamlined, making it a little easier and faster to use.  Tagxedo at first seems to have more options as they appear in single box labeled Word Options, but the more I work Wordle, the more I find I am able to do pretty much the same things.













So I like both services, but feel myself gravitating towards Wordle, unless of course I want the shape options of Tagxedo.  Oh, and here is this blog post in both services: