Wordle Meme - Documenting your Zeitgeist

I can always count on my friend, Silvia Tolisano, to push me to try something new. (We all need friends like this.) This learning comes in the form of a meme.

Wordle Meme:
1. Create a Wordle from our blog's RSS feed.
2. Blog it and describe your reaction. Any surprises?
3. Tag others to do the same.
4. Be sure to link back here and to where you were first tagged.
5. Create different Wordle clouds of your blog's RSS over a period of time. Do it once a month for the next year.

Save your Wordle screenshots in a special folder on your computer or even better create a set on Flickr to store your archived clouds. See what story your Wordle clouds tell as you compare them to each other. Start documenting your “Zeitgeist” (Spirit of the Times) as mentioned by Chris Betcher in his K-12 Online Conference presentation I like Delicious Things. An Intoduction to Tagging and Folksonomies

6. Share other uses (at least one) you have found for Wordle (for your students or personally) to your blog post

Here is the Wordle cloud for the RSS feed from Once Upon a Teacher on December 1, 2008.

My reactions? Well, honestly, I'm a little embarrassed that the word shopping is so big. But...on my behalf, I did just get back from New York. And, the word "know" looks like the biggest word! Well, that has to be because of things I want to know, not because I know it all!

I think Wordle would be an awesome tool for writing teachers to use with their students for them to evaluate their word choice in their writing. I can also see it being used as a tool for teachers to evaluate current events/news stories to look at key words being used in the media and if students thought those words should be the focus words.

I know I will use it from now on to avoid the word shopping...

I am tagging the follwing people to join in by contributing Wordle uses in the classroom and getting into the habit of “wordling” to document their “Zeitgeist”:

1. Cheryl Chascin
2. Jenny Nash
3. dayle timmons
4. Suzanne Shall
5. Susan Phillips
6. Lauren Skipper
7. Jen Zawis