I'm enrolled in a class to earn a new credential: a Preliminary Administrative Services Credential (PASC).
Among other things, a school administrator should be a leader in using technology, so this PASC class includes some how-to sessions on using technology, one being TAGUL.
Tagul allows you to take a body of text and have it analyzed for most often used words. After some edit options, the result is a poster-esque rendition of key words.
The Tuscon tragedy is in the news and on the opinion pages. I thought it would be interesting to try Tagul's analysis on a recent Op-Ed piece by Franck Rich that appeared in the New York Times on January 15th. (After creating the cloud in Tagul... opps... I deleted it.)
Then I did more work; this time on a poem by Robert Frost. I suppressed words like the, and, etc., and added a link so that if you click on a word... it goes to an online dictionary. (Think of the possibilities for teaching a reading lesson to young students who lack all the vocabulary: an easy, visual, exciting way to access the text.) Cool.
Here are the results:
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Tagul looks like wordle.net which I have used. It is also a thing you sometimes have to play with to coach the "right" results. Don, when is the last time you "went to school". I took a preaching course a few years ago, and that is my most recent experience. I did another stint a few years before that. I study all the time, but do it within the discipline of my work and under under the discipline of academia.
ReplyDeleteI meant "not under the discipline of academia". It's different. Although I somewhat have a reputation for being a "scholar" (my head is full of stuff that other people don't bother to know), I am academically completely undisciplined. When I was in seminary I was tempted to attempt a Ph.D. but couldn't make up my mind where to concentrate or focus.
ReplyDelete@Dennis: Tagul is like Wordle, but with hyper-links. Each cloud's word is click-able to either a Google search (the default) or whatever website you specify for the cloud. I hooked the Frost poem to an online, elementary dictionary. I agree, sometimes you have to coach the results by black-listing certain words. More info here: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/03/tagul-like-wordle-with-hyperlinks.html
ReplyDelete@Dennis: The last formal program I went through was for my credential and masters which I completed in 2000. This is the first program that is not affiliated with a college; it's through the Orange County Department of Education. But it is accredited... and under the discipline of academia. After my masters, I longed for the undisciplined nature of personal inquiry. A self-prescribed course of study may be more interesting, but generally travels at a much slower pace. (Academia is a bit of a forced march.) ;-) (But you get somewhere.) PhD is more than twice as grueling as a Masters. No thanks, but I applaud anyone who has navigated the process.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with everything!
ReplyDeleteWhat a cool way to look at text in a new way. I need to show this to my boys who profess to "hate" literature. Maybe I'll awaken some interest in them. I hope!
Great, Don. I love this Tagul of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. It's beautiful to one who loves words as I do, but also visually appealing, like a painting or photograph.
ReplyDeleteThis. Is. AWESOME.
ReplyDelete