'#solo10 Word Cloud' photo (c) 2010, Simon Cockell - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

“Word Clouds” are collections of words from a document or documents that show the frequency of word use by their size, and are often designed in a unique manner. They’re great tools for reflection and other  uses (for example, I’ve created ones for my books).

Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning About “Word Clouds”:

Check out Shelly Terrell’s 12 Word Cloud Resources, Tips, & Tools.

Marisa Constantinides has another great post with word cloud examples.

Phil Bradley also has a nice post comparing word cloud apps.

“Learning With Computers,” the excellent online global community of ESL/EFL teachers exploring how to effectively use technology with students, has this month’s activity focused on using word clouds with students. Check-out the wiki filled with examples, and contribute your own.

Tagxedo is a new and neat word cloud generator. The creator of Wordle calls it not so much an “alternative” to Wordle as much as “Wordle – the next generation”.

Russell Stannard from Teacher Training Videos has just made a “how to” video on creating and using different Word Cloud generators. He also has written a good post titled “What Is A Word Cloud?”

The Answer Garden is an intriguing combination of a survey tool and a word cloud generator. Without requiring any registration, it lets you pose a question to which people can write their own short answers. The answers appear as a word cloud below the question, with the words changing in size based on how often they are used in responses. Responders have the option of writing in their own answer or clicking on one of the words already in the word cloud. The entire “garden” can be embedded in a blog or website, and you can also link to it. The fact that anybody can answer anything to the question without identifying themselves makes it problematic — to say the least — in many school settings. But in certain mature situations, it could be very useful.

Type in a user name into Tweet Topic Explorer and you’ll get a multi-colored word cloud in “bubbles.”

Using Wordles To Teach Foreign Language Writing is a useful study.

Word clouds considered harmful is an interesting post from the Nieman Journalism Lab.

HTML5 Word Cloud: Text Analyzer is from Devalyne Britt via Laura Gibbs.

Jason Davies has developed a new interactive world cloud generator that lets you use Twitter, Wikipedia or a url address.

Richard Byrne has just published two good posts reviewing several word cloud generators.

35 Ways of Using Word Clouds in Language Learning is from Teacher Greg’s Education Home.

9 Word Cloud Generators That Aren’t Wordle is from Edudemic.

Make A Word Cloud is an easy word cloud generator.

Analyze My Writing

10 Cool Ways to Teach with Word Clouds is from Middleweb.

Word Clouds Revisited! 35+ Activities, Web Tools & Apps is from Shelly S. Terrell.

WordClouds.com is another tool to use.

Word Wanderer is an intriguing tool that reminds me of a word cloud creator.

Word It Out is yet another tool to easily create word clouds from text.

Here’s a blog post by Catlin Tucker about how she uses Mentimeter for creating Word Clouds with her students.

Say Without Worry is a new site for creating Word Clouds.

Monkey Learn is a new word cloud generator.

Free Word Cloud Generator does what it’s name suggests.

ProfileCloudBot will create a Word Cloud of your Tweets.

5 Ways to Use Word Clouds in the Classroom is from Edutopia.

Five Tools for Making Word Clouds is from Richard Byrne.

Feedback is always welcome.

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You might also want to explore the 400 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.