Scott Flynn's List: Web 2.0

"Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers have become a valuable tool for helping students learn to analyze and process information. The visual format makes organizing, interpreting and understanding new material quicker and more successful than simple memorization alone. The graphic organizers on our site were selected for their value and broad appeal to many different educational situations. "

"Wordle – (http://www.wordle.net) The king of word cloud generators generating awesome results with full editing capabilities. Check out the advanced tools for even more capabilities. Want to put words together so they stay together in the cloud, then just put a (~) in between – Example (Fort~Wayne). To have students avoid forums and galleries that may not be appropriate be sure to link them using the address (http://www.wordle.net/create). No log-in or email are required. Program allows printing, in order to save right click on Wordle picture and save as a jpeg andor make a screen print.

ABC Ya - (http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm) This application may be the most Wordle like and, in fact, operates much like Wordle. It creates final results that allow for font change, color change, and a randomized layout. It does not seem to provide the function on word frequency, important to older users. Save options are in jpeg format and there are print options. If you are used to Wordle this application may be an good alternative. It does not require email or log in.

Tagul - (http://tagul.com/) – Tagul has some features that Wordle doesn’t, like custom shapes selection and multiple fonts usage in one cloud. It also allows for the use of tagged words that can act as pointers to URL’s if embedded in a web page. It abounds in options but registration may limit classroom use. Requires a log in with email.

Word It Out (http://worditout.com/) – Much like Wordle, it creates word clouds out of any text that you paste into the text box. This application allows the word cloud to be customized by size, font, and color scheme. Word It Out also allows the user to ignore certain words and thus keeps them out of the word cloud. Can be used without a login, although the saving option requires an email. Can work around this option by right clicking to save as jpeg and/or screen print.

Tag Crowd (http://tagcrowd.com/) – While it does not give the color,unique style, or layout variation of of Wordle, it does allow one to se

"I'm glad to introduce to you a brand-new application, Tagxedo, now in beta!

Tagxedo turns words -- famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters -- into a visually stunning tag cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text.

The following are screenshots of Tagxedo, in standard and history views.

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Tagxedo screenshot, standard view
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Tagxedo screenshot, history view"

"Top 10 Sites for Creating Timelines by David Kapuler
Permanent link

Wikipedia defines a timeline as a kind of graphic design showing a long bar labeled with dates alongside itself and (usually) events labeled on points where they would have happened. Here are some tools educators can use to create timelines:

1. Capzles- Quite simply one of the nicest timeline creation sites around, with a beautiful user interface as well as the ability to embed into a site.
2. Time Rime - An excellent site with educational instance (great for teachers) that allows users to create multimedia timelines.
3. xTimeline - Share wonderful looking timelines with audio, video, and pictures. Very user friendly too.
4. TimeGlider - Great site that not only lets users create multimedia timelines butlegends as well. There is a "plus upgrade" in the works specificallyfor education.
5. Dipity - Create beautiful timelines with the ability to add video/pictures.
6. Time Toast - A bullet point centered timeline w/ text and pictures.
7. Preceden - A fun easy site to use to create interactive timelines.
8. Timelinr - A very simple to use timeline generator that only displays text.
9. Our Timelines - Create timelines by using preexisting forms (text only).
10. Read Write Think - Very similar to Our Timelines for creating text only timelines.

David Kapuler is the Media & Technology Specialist at Greendale School District in Greendale, WI. Read his blog at http://cyber-kap.blogspot.com."