Oh my Wordle!

Wordle is really pretty cool. I had never seen or played with it before, but I have seen "word clouds" on things before.

I was having trouble writing something about where I am now, so I went in and actually wrote up things in my current job description. When I put it all into world, I loved the first result. The biggest word was training. That is what my department does, not totally what I do. I am primarily the support to the trainers. But the image was still what I wanted. It was very linear and straight forward.

When I started thinking about where I wanted to go, or what I wanted to be, I began deleting words and re-writing things. I played around and think I came up with something I liked. I can't say it is completely based on Web 2.0 or that type of position, but hopefully being able to incorporate Web 2.0 tools into what I currently do. I entered the words and clicked create. At first there were a few words i realized weren't quite right, so i did some editing. Then I really played with colors and layout. I found I really felt the words shouldn't be in a set pattern. I wanted them to be more free form and expressive.

I guess that is how I see the Internet and its capabilities. As something not linear, but sometime jumbled up yet still sort of cohesive.

I think I was also saying something about myself. Overall I am someone who is rather structured and follows the instructions. I like guidance and information. In this class I am learning to let loose a little, to explore on my own to see what it is I want to learn. It is still a challenge for me and I know I will never quite move into the free form extrovert, but I am trying to tell my introverted tendencies to calm down and see where this all leads.

This type of word cloud could be used in so many ways. Just from what I have said, I could see this in training purposes, personal explorations, and brainstorming. I actually think it would be fun to take a research paper or someones thesis and see what it pulled out. I think I might have to try that.

Thanks for the experience DI.