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What is Tagxedo ? Tagxedo is an online program that can turn any type of text into word clouds that emphasize certain words based off of the frequency of use within the text submitted. The word clouds can be arranged in a variety of shapes sizes; the style can also be individualized using various fonts and colors.

What are the benefits of Tagxedo?
 * Tagxedo is fun activity for students to use that quickly transforms any body of text into a original, visually appealing, and customizable piece of art.
 * Tagxedo can turn ANY text into something interesting; one of the examples on the website is a word cloud created from source code.
 * You can use a search term, URL, Twitter ID, RSS Feed, or News Article rather than an entire body of text.
 * Tagxedo is extremely beneficial when it comes to highlighting the main ideas and words present in a piece of work.
 * The cloud can also be shaped in a variety of ways to further add to the meaning behind the text. You can even change the shape to be any shape or picture you upload.
 * It is an activity that can be used across the curriculum and in any subject matter.

101 Ways to Use Tagxedo Ways to Use Tagxedo in the Classroom YouTube Tutorial of Tagxedo

Here is an Example of a Tagxedo we created.

Hero's journey tagxedo This is the tagxedo Adrienne created as a model for her students. She copied the text from Joseph Campbell's Hero Journey, which all the students were familiar with. This was a great way to link to the students' previous learning, but also showed them an example to truly demonstrate how words become bigger or smaller based off their frequency in the text. She also used this model to review major ideas such as Adventure, hero, and journey with them.

Globalization Tagxedo Example This is the Tagxedo Abbey created based off of a class response about Globalization and its impact on students.

Tagxedo Activity Adrienne used Tagxedo as a prereading strategy and to introduce her Sophomores to //Gilgamesh.//

1) Introduction: Introduced the concept of Tagxedo as being a "seer" in Ancient Greece, clearly a concept the students are familiar with in the classroom. Saying "we will look at the clouds and 'see' what is to come in the text." 2) Model: Showed them the model of Joseph Campbell's Hero Journey Tagxedo ( in the example above) 3) Directions: In groups of 2, take the text of your assigned tablet (1-11) and copy it into Tagxedo to create a portentous word cloud. She walked through the directions and steps of this activity on the projector, as well as posted the directions on her Weebly. If students finished early, they were directed to walk around the class and help other groups complete their word clouds. 4) Review: After all groups had successfully pasted their individual word clouds onto one communal space, the class reconvened to use the clouds to predict, or "see" what the story of //Gilgamesh// may be about.

How can I use Tagxedo in my classroom?

Students could do an "About Me" activity and pick words that describe them.

It could be used to point out the main themes and ideas in a novel, short story, poem, speech, etc.

Great for summarizing //anything!//

Students could use this to emphasize the week’s vocabulary

Can be used to teach tone and mood in a piece of writing

Work on word choice: Help students start formulating synonyms and antonyms

**Student Examples**  The following are examples were created by Adrienne's students for the //Gilgamesh// prereading activity.  Gilgamesh Tablet III Example Gilgamesh Tablet X Example

 **Teacher Examples**

Tagxedo Word Clouds & Common Core Aligned Lesson Ideas

Fearless Technology for Teachers

Tagxedo in the Science Classroom

Printable Instructions on How to Use Tagxedo

Teach Like a Techie