A wordcloud named Wordsift

Have you ever heard of word cloud? I believe many of us have seen one but not sure that it is a word cloud. So, what is a word cloud? It is an attractive arrangement of randomly positioned words, where the most frequent-used words are bigger than the others. Many websites provide free service for this word arrangement but on this entry, I will emphasis on Wordsift. This website allows people to insert a text, maximum of 65K words (which can cover a long essay!) and convert it into word cloud form. The words could also be explored through pictures, thesaurus and their uses in sentences. Isn't it interesting?  

Website URL: http://www.wordsift.com/

How it operates?

• Wordsift needs no registration and you can easily insert your text in the blank box provided in the website. Then, click 'Sift' button to start visualizing the word cloud.

• The word cloud that will be presented excludes words like article (a, the, etc), pronoun (she, he, etc), connectors (and, but, etc) and prepositions (in, on, at, etc). The most frequent words that are being used will appear bigger than the others.

• Words can be sorted according to common to rare, rare to common, A to Z and Z to A. It gives more flexibility on how we want to manage those words. The cloud could also be made to disappear or reappear by clicking 'Squish Cloud' and 'Unsquish' button respectively. Moreover, a workspace could also be created below the cloud by pressing 'Create Workspace' button. 

• As being mentioned before, words in the cloud can be more explored through several other mediums:

     

          1) First of all, we can have thoughts about a word by looking at the      

              images related with it. Through the use of Google Image Search, 

              images that will be displayed are to the utmost relevance with 
              the words.    

          2) Next, a word web thesaurus is also provided to explain more 
              about words. Synonyms and antonyms will be displayed and this 
              would help people to understand the meaning of words by 
              associating them with other words. 

          3) Sample sentences from the text input are also being given in order 

              to aid understanding of the use of words in sentence level. The  
              key word is marked with green. From this feature, people can 
              easily spot and analyse different meanings of same word and how 
              it is being used. 

How can teacher use it?

Pre-reading activity

This website could be used as a tool for pre-reading activity. It is important to expose students with the theme or context of the reading text so that they might have some expectation on what will they encounter later. Therefore, by using Wordsift, students can see which words are frequently used and they can imagine what the text is about. This consequently helps to create students' interest in reading activity. 

Guessing A Story

        Another activity that you can do is guessing-a-story activity. Gives students several familiar topics, asks them to choose one and write an essay out of it. When they had completed their essays, bring them to computer lab with internet access and ask them to insert their essays into Wordsift. With a partner, students need to predict others' stories and try to make their own story based on the word cloud. After they had done, ask students to compare and contrast their stories with the original one. Here, students are likely to communicate with each other, hence, might improve their speaking ability.

        Since having a lot of computers with internet access is difficult for some teachers, another option should be made. You could proceed with guessing-a-story activity but this time only you write the story. This activity, therefore, is a whole class activity where students only refer to teacher's Wordsift in order to make story of their own. You can vary the activity by asking students to work in groups and share their stories with other members.  

What do I say about this website?

Thumbs up points :)

1) Students can improve their vocabulary by exploring pictures of words, its thesaurus and how it is constructed in sentences.

2) One of the tools for pre-reading activity.

Thumbs down points :(

1) The design is too simple and limited.

2) Some pictures displayed are not related with the word clicked.

I hope you use it and ENJOY!