What are Wordle and Poll Everywhere?

Wordle is a website that can generate world or tag clouds. Usually used with single words that describe something or can be used with results of things. For example, in this class we used wordle to describe the kind of teacher that we wanted to be and to show the results of the polls that we made from Poll Everywhere. Poll Everywhere is a site that allows you to create a poll based on any question that you want and you can post it for others to see. Others can then respond from the computer or they can respond by a text message or text response. In this class we had to come up with a poll to help us get to know our classmates, I personally asked in my poll what year in college everyone was so that I could get an idea of what the majority of the students were.
If I taught a lesson using these two websites I would use them at the beginning of the year, just as we did. I think that they are great tools to use in the classrooms and help get the children involved. It lets them feel like they can have fun while still learning about things. It can also help some students who may not know anything about computers. I think that the best things to use these for are to help students get to know others in the class though. Not individually, but more so as a whole because it is an anonymous posting and kids are more likely to say what they what if nobody knows that it was really them who said it. It is a fairly easy assignment and they would enjoy it, especially because it is very hands on and most students now days need to be involved that way. I think that by using these tools or websites that it would have to go along with some of the ISTE standards like introducing the students. It is also getting them involved and engaging them in learning about the internet and computers.