Data Visualization Lab

Data Visualization Lab

• What tools did you try?

The three tools I tried were Tagxedo, glogster, and popplet.  I wanted to share Popplet so I added that to the wiki were where people are adding new items.  This app is sooo easy to use and I wanted to make sure I shared that with others. 

• What are you representing in the visualization you created?

With the Tagxedo site, which is similar to wordle, puts the most amount of words into larger fonts.  The difference with Tagxedo is that you can add a shape that represents your words.  For my Tagxedo visual I added Hamlet's "To be or not to Be" soliloquy and I added the heart because He does talk about love and its dangers...

• What questions or "ah-ha" moments arise when thinking about representation?

One of the questions I had about Tagxedo was why haven't I found this earlier and how can I use this tool in my classroom.  This tool takes text and then an image and puts them together.  I think this would be a great way take famous speeches or poems and put a visual with them.  This would be great for students to think about the main image when thinking about a poem or a speech.  The only problem is that the images are very limited!  You would have to be extremely creative if you were to use this for ANY speech or poem.

Tagxedo.com

Popplet

I know the image is really blurry, but this is a great mindmaping tool.  What I like about Popplet is that you can add images to the mindmap.  This is especially easy if you have an iPhone or an iPad as you can take the images imediatly and then use them in the mind map.