WHOA TAGXEDO!

This afternoon, I came home after another awesome day in my classroom and fell into my usual routine. I turned on the tube, watched Friends, caught up on blogs and Pinterest, and ate dinner around 4:30. Okay, I'm kidding.. I don't eat that early!! It's usually about 5:00 (early bird special). 

Anyway, I was stopped in my tracks by the website: Tagxedo. It's very similar to Wordle. In a nut shell, wordles are online tools to create word clouds. You plug in a text and the wordle jumbles it together in a fancy looking design. Usually, the more prominent words are larger and the lesser words are smaller. You can then change the color and shape of them. Last night, I was testing out a Wordle on my computer, but it wouldn't work on my Mac. Ugh. I surrendered. 

Then, an angel introduced me to Tagxedo. I promise I'm not getting paid for this post. It's the same idea of a Wordle: plug in your text and click create! After the computer jumbles your words, you can change the shape, font, color and whatnot. 

Naturally, I started experimenting and creating. It's safe to say that I had a good time.  

First, I started with my blog. I plugged in my URL and hit create. Then, I made it into the shape of an apple. Cute, huh?

Here are some the words that stick out to me the most (the non obvious ones): family, brain, party, glitter, and wonderful.

I couldn't stop there. I had to continue experimenting. So I made my word cloud into the shape of my favorite historical figure, who happens to be one of our former Presidents: Abraham Lincoln.

Did your jaw drop like mine? Yes, I'm in love. This Abraham Lincoln word cloud has officially rocked my world.

I couldn't stop there. I needed MORE! Next, I plugged in our school's webpage. I even made it into the shape of a school bus with our school colors. Unfortunately, the school bus still looked too much like Abe Lincoln. I stuck with the basic "cloud" for this one.

At this point, I started to reach the point of borderline obsessed. Oh well, I kept plugging in information. Next, I went with my twitter feed....

...but it wouldn't work. Darn.

I took the loss like a champion and continued on with the search, "London 2012".

I changed the colors to red, white, and blue and fashioned this search into a star. Lovely. Just lovely.

Now, it's your turn! Share with me the fun and interactive websites you use in the classroom.