What is a tag cloud?
Tag clouds is a very new innovation. Wikipedia defines a tag cloud as a visual depiction of user-generated tags, or simiply the word content of a site, used typically to describe the content of web sites. A tag cloud is a set of related tags with corresponding weights. Typical tag clouds have between 30 and 150 tags.

Where did tag clouds originate?
Steward Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr and Jim Flanagan worked together with the formation of tag clouds and the implementation. The first ever tag cloud was used in 1995 in Douglas Couplands' Microserfs. Tag clouds have also been popularized by Del.icio.us and Technorati, among others.

Key Features
*Educational tool
*Eye-catching
*Emphasizes main ideas
*Creative
*Easy and quick
*Can be easily adapted to numerous professional fields

Educational Value- How can I use this in my classroom?
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/181941/Tag_Cloud_for_Educ_275
Humanities:
http://www.columbia.edu/~mxcl/clouds/kbran.html
English:
http://www.studyplace.org/wiki/index.php?title=Tag_Cloud_Generator
Business:
http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/page/tag_cloud.html
How teachers are using Tag Clouds now:
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/dyck/dyck030.shtml
History:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334/post/20028402.html




The following is a list of resources to create your own tag cloud :
http://wordle.net/

Tag Clouds Gallery: Examples And Good Practices

www.TagCrowd.com

http://www.tagcloud-generator.com/


Classroom Activity
Go to http://wordle.net/
click create
type in words to describe your major, interests, or a technique you would teach your students. (Example: verbs)
use font and color to create something unique
Use layout to change direction of your words
From this you can print, or save your creation for future reference

REFERENCES

Dyck, Brenda. "Brenda's Blog." Education World Technology Channel. 08 Aug 2008. Education World. 11Sep 2008 http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/columnists/dyck/dyck030.shtml

Tag cloud. Wikipedia. 28 August 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_cloud

"Tag Cloud Generator." Studyplace. 27 Jun 2007. 11 Sep 2008 http://www.studyplace.org/wiki/index.php?title=Tag_cloud_generator.com.

"The Koran." Columbia. 12 Sep 2008 http://www.columbia.edu/~mxc1/clouds/koran.html.

"Tag Cloud Guide." Many eyes: Tag Cloud. Alphaworks. 11 Sep 2008 http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/page/Tag_Cloud.html.

"The Koran." Columbia. 12 Sep 2008 http://www.columbia.edu/~mxc1/clouds/koran.html.

Valenza, Joyce. Makeover your tag clouds (Wordle). 17 June 2008.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/13400003334/post/20028402.html