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"Word clouds can help students analyze documents written by others as well as documents of their own creation. By copying the text of a document into a word cloud generator your students can quickly see the words that appear most frequently in that document. Word clouds can also be used to help students see which words that they have frequently used in their own works. Have your students create word clouds of their work during the revision process of writing a story or essay. The word cloud will quickly show students which words they have used the most. Then ask them to think about synonyms for the words that they have used most often in their writings. " T/H R.Byrne

"I first wrote about word clouds in 2010, but six years later I'm updating the topic with updated apps, tools, and ideas. Below discover activities and web tools and apps to create word clouds. Get your students to create their own word clouds to express themselves. " This blog entry offers 35+ activities to do with word clouds, including vocabulary buiding and poetry.

"Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. " Really simple, easy to use. Create from a URL or type/paste in text. Can be a useful way for students to think about important new vocabulary they are learning, the meaning of a book or essay they have read, etc.

These each render a different type of word cloud. Students can use them for project logos, or you can drop in text and see what the word frequency is. Tagul is one of the most interesting, as you can use a library of templates of different shapes.

Let's you create word clouds with specific shapes. Still fairly limited, but more shapes will probably be coming soon. See the Gallery. Compare to Wordle, which has a great deal of font and color variety. Word clouds might be used as a response to reading or a collection of vocabulary about a subject, or to create a logo for a project, etc.

Paste in a text, and WordSift will create a word cloud and an accompanying visual diagram of words used in the passage, as well as visual images that illustrate the meaning of the word. Students can then click to explore all the possibilities. A great tool for visual learners!

Another fun way to create tag clouds in pretty colors and shapes. Good for exploring predominance of particular words in a text.

"Have students create a Pinterest board with 10 pins that summarizes them. Ask students to create a 30 second podcast that introduces themselves. Then allow students to present them or play them on separate devices as an audio gallery. Create a classroom blog and ask each student to write a blog post introducing themselves to the rest of the classroom. Have students create a quick comic strip to describe themselves or to recreate a recent funny moment in their lives. Use PollEverywhere to ask students interesting questions and get to know them as a class, like their favorite subjects, bands or TV shows. Use GoogleForms or SurveyMonkey to survey students about their interests, academic inclinations, and background info - a 21st century alternative to the "Getting to Know You" info sheet! Have students create word clouds to describe themselves and share with the rest of the class. Have students go on a QR code scavenger hunt in teams to get to know each other and learn about your classroom rules in a fun, engaging way. Ask students to create their own Voki avatars that introduce themselves to the class. Encourage them to be creative with the backgrounds, characters and details of the avatar to reflect their own personalities and preferences. Have students create graffiti online that speaks to their interests and personalities and share with the class." A nice set of ready-made lessons using readily available apps on the computer.

"This wiki is a collaborative learning space. If you want to contribute to this e-portfolio or digital portfolio page, please join the wiki and then add your thoughts, your notes or describe how you created digital portfolios for your students." This wiki has everything about wikis and much more: using blogs, words clouds, comics, Vacebook HTML, online collaboration, etc., etc. Join and contribute