Hey Gang!
I mentioned "word clouds" to you guys about two weeks ago, but I did not get the post up on this blog for you to look at. Here is a brief definition of word clouds.
Word Cloud, noun: (From Wikipedia), a visual depiction of user-generated tags, or simply the word content of a site, typically used to describe the content of web sites. Tags are usually single words and are normally listed alphabetically, and the importance of a tag is shown with font size or color. Thus, it is possible to find a tag alphabetically and by popularity. The tags are usually hyperlinks that lead to a collection of items that are associated with a tag.
Here it mentions something about tags from a website, but word clouds are not just limited to websites. For example, I mentioned to some of you guys about the use of word clouds to represent the President's State of the Union address this past January. Here is that cloud created by Jeff Clark at Neoformix.com. Take at look at the cloud and see if you can imagine what it is the president might be saying.
Now here are some word clouds that I created at www.wordle.net of your answers to the Harry Potter GIS quiz. The three questions that were asked on the quiz were. Look at the word clouds, and see if you can match which cloud might go with which question.
1) Please explain in your own words what it was about the Marauders Map in Harry Potter that makes it so different from paper maps that we use today. What is magical about this map?
2) In your own words, please give at least two reasons why maps are valuable.
3) What was your favorite thing that we did today and why?
(a)
(b)
(c)
If you are interested in word clouds, it is very easy to create them. You can make them from your favorite book, from a website, from the lyrics in a song you like, from an email you wrote--almost anything with text in it. See what you can come up with at www.wordle.net. This is a form of communication technology.
