Yesterday I read an article about the website Wordle.net. This website creates a “word cloud” out of select writings. A person may write an original piece, cut and paste some text, or link it to a blog for analysis. Using the submitted words, the website then creates an image. The most frequently used words appear in the largest font and the least used words are much smaller. The author may then change colors and fonts for greater effect.

I decided to try this for my blog to get a visual representation of what I emphasize when writing. The resulting image appears on my blog, and you can see that by far my top-used word is “students”. The next three are “school, learning, teachers,” followed by “excited, skills, 21st Century, world, different.”

As a school leader, I focus my energies on students and creating an educational environment that challenges them to learn and grow. It was nice to “see” that my professional writing does indeed communicate this focus.

But Wordle has many more possibilities.

I’m challenging my teachers to use this website in their classrooms. Ideas include poetry study, spelling lists, writing that includes a specified word list, and artwork. Wordle will enable them to effortlessly differentiate lesson plans and engage students using multiple intelligences. All this ties back into my goal of creating an innovative educational environment. As teachers and students become comfortable with this new tool, I’ll be curious to “see” how their Wordle creations reflect personal word choice.