This is a word cloud made from inserting this blog’s URL into Wordle. Though I didn’t make it to his VRT11 session myself, I do make it to his blog regularly and that’s where Dave Dodgson has asked us to reflect on the content and writing of our recent blog posts through this method. Worlde enlarges words that appear most frequently in the text.
So, what does this tell me? A few things, that’s for sure.
- I use a lot of different words. Beyond that, does it suggest that the content I’ve written about varies largely from one post to the next or that I have a strong written vocabulary? Judging by the (lack of) complexity of the words in the cloud, I’m put my money on the former.
- “Great” appears as one of the most frequently used word. I do believe I’m a fairly positive thinker, but surely I could be more descriptive. I do often tell students to avoid using vague descriptors like this.
- Post topics are pretty much reflective of what’s most important: students, ELT, time, classroom, Canadian, online…..free. There are a couple anomalous ones, like poll and CBC, but those come directly and only from recent posts. This leads me to wonder how Wordle selects which posts to use. I’m suspecting it’s only the last few.
[…] admire and am lucky to have in my PLN, joining the challenge: Vladmira Michalkova, Sandy Millin and Tyson Seburn. I really enjoyed noticing how each one drew different conclusions from their word […]
Hi Tyson,
I’m pretty sure it only selects the posts on your homepage, rather than all of them. I wonder what our choice of colours and fonts says about us too 😉
Sandy
Hi Sandy,
That’s what I think too. Regarding colour choice, that’s a very good question. I did purposely choose this font and colour scheme, so it likely does suggest something about me: simple? clear? yet a little abnormal? =)
Like Dave, I tend to go for clearer fonts as I find them easier to read. And I picked the blue-based scheme because I like it. And I tend to avoid red-green schemes as one of my students is colour-blind 🙂
That’s a very valid reason. I’d avoid red/green because it would be too Xmas-y.
Interesting comments about colour scheme, orientation and font choice.
When I make word clouds for my classes, I usually go for clear print fonts and a variety of (easily readable) colours – always good to be as clear as possible with kids. I think that has now affected all the word clouds I make as I automatically go for those options!
I’m not sure how interesting my comments were, but I appreciate your humouring them. 😉 I think I’m largely influenced by the decorating style at home, being predominantly white with darker colours–very simple. You’re right though; I may also be influenced by what will photocopy well. Haha.
Hey ‘great’ wordle ;-p
I enjoyed reading your reflections. I also wondered about how it selects the content… would be useful to get a full wordle at some point if I can ever be bothered to copy and paste it in!
Whether it’s a wide range of topics or language this certainly makes for an interesting and varied insight into your blog, thank you 🙂
Thanks for coming by, Anna. =) I don’t think I’ll get around to copying and pasting my entire blog. Haha.
It’s good to hear you sounding so positive ~ one of my students last lesson asked me why I was always so optimism… gave me great opportunity for a bit of vocabulary and grammar while at the same time answering her question… ‘It’s better to be optimistic than be a pessimist,’ do you agree?
Thanks for the drop-by, Tim. I hadn’t thought much about my optimism in comparison to pessimism. I’m confident there’s a certain balance between them, actually.
[…] March, I ran my blog through Wordle as an activity suggested by Dave Dodgson. What resulted was a surprisingly reflective exercise […]