I have to share one more piece of cool tips with everyone, still based on the work and PD sessions we do here at IHLA. I have been using Wordles (word clouds) for the past three years and I believe they are the perfect magic tool to support reading texts, with pre- and post-reading strategy uses for pretty much anything you can think of.
The idea behind worldes is simple: copy and paste a text from an online source (html or word or text document) into the "create your own " space at
http://www.wordle.net. Then see the magic of the word cloud appear before your very eyes. The tool lets you modify the cloud to suit yoru needs - it simply reads how many times the words in your text appear - the more often they are use the bigger they show in font.
I let you imagine how you can use the visual created in literally two minutes for new texts and to review content in your SL classes. I have created several pages to explain the tool, so I share these below. Hope they seem useful and can work for you. I know you will love them once you try them out. Guaranteed!
Once again, the uses are almost limitless. All the Italian songs I am working on for activities and tasks begin with the creation of a simple wordle from the lyrics and identifying key words and messages that may appear from the song. I know a few colleagues of mine who use these also everyday, at all language learning levels. Give them a try!