Wordle, Polldaddy, Bubbl - oh my! (Thing 12)

Probably the most obviously useful of the web2.0
tool choices to explore for Thing 12 (to me)
was bookr. I could use this to make books about
content (as above), to create personalized social
stories for my kids, to have them create books
about their experiences - the ideas are seemingly
endless.  A very simple, instant-gratification
way to publish simple books online - I love it!


I put the URL of my 23 things blog into wordle
and created the above image -pretty cool!
Nothing immediately comes to mind about how to
use in in myclassroom (because my students cannot
read), but I can think of several applications
to a general education class.  The first thing
that I thought of was to introduce a new topic -
create a wordle with different words relating
to that topic and see if the students can guess
what the topic is.  Similarly,use it to practice
finding the "main idea" or other inferencing
activities. Sort of the reverse of that, you
could assign a topic and have students create
a wordle of words related to the topic, as well.


I have, on several occassions, "meant to"
check out bubbl.us but it's one of those
things I never got around to (like so many
things lol).  I am always drawing mind maps
about something (ever since my ADD coach
recommended it andI realized what a
sanity saving technique it can be!) and,
I think Bubbl.us will now get lots of use
because it is SOeasy! I assumed I would
need a long stretch of time to sit down
and figure itout, but I was able to create
an account, log in and then create
the mind-map above (on ways I can use a
classroom wiki) in less than 15 minutes.
I think it would be a great tool to allow
students to brainstorm (similar to inspiration)
for a paper or project.  Plus,you can
share access with your "friends" so that
others can have input.  For example, if
anyone reading this has ideas for how I
could use my wiki, please add them to my map!