Wordle is a tool for displaying words as a graphic image that has implications for science education. The size of the words is a relative indicator of their frequency of use. At the Wordle website I entered the URL for this blog, and received a JAVA-produced image. This image is presented above.

Wordle was developed by Jonathan Feinberg who has produced other science education tools including physics applets and the Secret Lives of Numbers.

Software applications seem to be a creative playground for Feinberg in that he produces what he is interested in and let’s others play with them depending upon their interest. I think Wordle is the most promising classroom tool he has created. But of course, he leaves it to us science educators to explore how to use the tool.

I have just completed 11 days of electricity explorations with a middle school class. I put the text for all my lesson plans into Wordle’s create page and it produced an interesting word art graphic. Teachers will have to take a screen shot of the image to share it with students. (Macintosh: command-shift-4 produces cross-hairs to capture the image, which then appears on your desktop.)

It was interesting to see words such as day, one, and two appear prominently. In checking the word count (see image to left), I realized how often I used the term “one” (apparently it is found in terms such as “someone” as well as pure uses) as I had it over 40 times. These words are not related to electricity, so in MS Word, I deleted (through find and replace) these terms and redid the Wordle image. It is presented below. I will share the image with my students for their review and reaction. It does present an interesting way to view key vocabulary in science. 

I am excited by the potential of Wordle as I stand along the shore. Teachers can make their own “Word Art” or borrow creations of others. There is an ocean of potential waiting to be explored by creative science educators. 

Useful Resources for Electricity and Electricity Science Activities 

• Adaptive Curriculum’s Voltage, Current, and Resistance: Ohm’s Law
• Adaptive Curriculum’s Building Circuits: Light Bulbs in Series
• Circuit Construction Kit

Ever since, and probably before, Robert Yager’s (1983) study that suggested the amount of new vocabulary in science textbooks exceeded the number of vocabulary words for learning a foreign language, many educators have been concerned with the number of terms introduced in science classes and methods to help students learn vocabulary.

Recent reforms of state standards, starting with Project 2061, have hopefully reduced the amount of superficial knowledge we ask students to learn. Nevertheless, the new vocabulary can be daunting. The NCLB focus on math and English, with the consequential neglect of science in the elementary grades has resulted in many students entering the middle grades with deficits in their science vocabulary (Cunningham & Allington, 2007).

The teaching of vocabulary is the job of all teachers (Blachowicz & Fisher, 2002). The understanding of content vocabulary is, after all, an excellent predictor of success in the subject area (Wilcox 2006). While inquiry skills, concept development, and understanding are more important goals, students knowing and using key vocabulary are important outcomes of science education.

I recently discovered a tool to assist in vocabulary acquisition. Andrew Sutherland created Quizlet in 2005 when he was a 15 year-old student studying French vocabulary. From what I can tell, it has become a phenomenal success, with over 200,000 registered users. More than flashcards, Quizlet has activities in the following sections: (a) Familiarize, (b) Learn, (c) Test, (d) Play Scatter, and (e) Play Space Race. The great thing about Quizlet is it is all internet based, so there is no need to download and install software, which can be annoying in some situations and impossible in many schools.

Students can type in their own words and definitions and then learn them through a variety of activities. I also like, however, having access to the great repository of already prepared quizlets. For instance, I just taught a unit on magnetism in my son’s middle school classroom. If I would have discovered Quizlet sooner I might have assigned the quizlet on magnets to review for the test. As a parent, my other son (in third grade) had some vocabulary words to learn from his language arts book in the section “Pepita Talks Twice.” A few different quizlets for these words were already established. My son and I reviewed a few words on my iPhone on the way back from soccer practice.  

While we need to be mindful of reducing the “tyranny of terminology” that sometimes describes science courses, we must also help our students learn the key words. Quizlet is a free tool that can help students learn and use scientific vocabulary.

Resources

Adaptive Curriculum, Magnetic Field of  Magnet.  http://www.adaptivecurriculum.com/us/details/USSXP080401

Cunningham, P. M. & Allington, R. L.  (2007). Classrooms that work: They can all read and write. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Wilcox, J. (2006). Chicago teachers learn to build academic vocabulary. ASCD Education Update 48 (6): 1–2.

Blachowicz, C., and P. Fisher. 2002. Teaching vocabulary in all classrooms. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice- Hall.

Quizlet. http://quizlet.com/

Thelen, J. N. (1984). Improving reading in science.2nd ed. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Yager, R. E. (1983). The Importance of Terminology in Teaching K-12 Science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 20(6), 577-88.