It’s pretty simple really…
When I find websites that interest me, I add them to my delicious bookmarks. But not only do I add them, I also tag them with keywords that give them some sort of meaning. This means that that when I need to find them I have some reference points. Over time, these tags build into enormous library that give a pretty insightful snapshop into the sorts of things that I’m finding interesting. Beyond that, it even gives a pretty insightful snapshot into my personality, my interests, my passions. These patterns in the tags can be arranged into “tag clouds” that give a really good visual impression of what are usually much more complex collections of ideas and concepts.
So I thought Wordle was an interesting little online app. Written in Java, Wordle take any text or any del.icio.us feed and turns it into a tag cloud. A very beautiful, very artistic tag cloud. Not only does it very quickly analyse the text you feed it, but them gives you lots of options for typography, colour and layout. It’s not the first tool for generating tag clouds, but it sure is the prettiest!
Peeking into my World by Chris Betcher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for posting this. The app is a fun one for making “here’s me” graphics with the variety of options. I see some future potential for texts – Mew York Times – Shakespeare – Bible. Maybe they’ll develop those channels in the future.
Dennis
It would be interesting to take a document, oh say a planning statement about what a school values, and turn it into a tag cloud. It would be even more interesting to take a working document like, oh I don’t know, say a teaching program, and make a tag cloud of that. Then we could look at the zeitgeist of both documents to see how much the practical reality aligns with the intended purpose. I’m just sayin’ is all…
At the moment, I’m not using it for anything quite so subversive… just my desktop wallpaper. Looks very cool.
watch it … that kind of crazy talk could get you in a whole lotta trouble – oh yeah, I forgot, you kind of dig that, right?
What I’d like to do is put all the school reports comments through this app teacher by teacher and see what key words emerge. Key words that emerge school wide would then tell if things like school vision statements are actually making their way into the everyday written language of the school. I still might put some of my kids reflective work through it and have them discuss what it all means. I do like it – a lot and its aesthetic beauty is certainly appealing.
Thanks for reminding me about this lovely little application. But what I particularly like are the comments that have been made by you and Graeme. Sometimes it’s the ‘backchat’ that is more interesting 🙂