I have created a few web applications that address some of the common teaching and learning themes prevalent at Neuqua Valley. NVHSclouds is one that came from some discussions with fellow teachers, I built it in a night and we used it shortly thereafter for some staff development as well as in classrooms within Neuqua.
NVHSclouds is simple. Word clouds became really popular last year, so I created a way for teachers to leverage the power and “coolness” factor to a collaborative learning activity. NVHSclouds allows a class to enter words or a statement on a topic or discussion question, the application counts common words to see where the class sentiment lies, and what words are used more than others. It has served as an informal, formative assessment tool and has shaped the path for discussions in quite a few classes. In addition it uses the open interface of WORDLE to create more visually appealing word clouds.
