From the desk of Cathy Harvey, Administrative Assistant to Shepherds College
My boss
rocked my world today—my lil' ole world of schedules, emails, computer trials,
glue sticks, pens, and scissors. He
introduced me to Wordle, a world of “Word Clouds” made beautiful by the power
of technology and endless possibilities.
What in the
world is “Wordle” you ask?
It is the brain child of IBM’s Jonathan Feinberg, a
software engineer of Collaborative User Experience (CEU) Research Group in the
Boston area. Feinberg created this fantastic
idea of making colorful word collages out of any number of words you enter and
giving emphasis to the most used words in your collection. In the “olden days” we did something similar
by cutting out words from magazines of all shapes and sizes and creating a
collage of meaningful words about ourselves or about our life, family, friends,
or goals. “Wordle” is the electronic
version of that old-fashioned cut and paste craft. 
Below is an
example of the real assignment Mr. Terrill gave me today that had my creative
juices spinning until I was dizzy! Type
“Wordle” in a search engine such as “Google” you will see something like this:
Search results
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that
you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more
frequently in the source ...
Mr. Terrill
gave me a block of words he gleaned from an assignment he recently gave our
students -
respect respect respect respect respect respect
respect respect respect respect respect respect respect respect respect
students students students students students staff staff staff staff staff
right right right chores chores chores others others others others authority
authority clean clean clean helpful helpful helpful helpful helpful helpful
helpful listen listen listen listen listen volunteer volunteer kind kind kind
kind kind kind kind kind leader leader leader leader encourage encourage
community community community community responsibility responsibility
responsibility responsibility responsibility responsibility initiative
initiative initiative integrity integrity integrity integrity truth truth
diligence diligence diligence discernment discernment discernment positive
positive prayer prayer prayer prayer prayer others others others others others
others others homework homework homework serve serve serve choices choices,
role-model, role-model, role-model, leader
The assignment was for each
student to write out three things they were personally going to do to improve
the Shepherds College community. His
assignment came on the heels of a difficult month of behaviors. Yes, we have those kinds of days too! It was the Shepherds College way of creating
a concrete way for students to apply the character of kindness toward their
classmates. It was hands-on life skills
in getting along and being part of a larger community. It was applying the six character traits we
strive to teach throughout our program: diligence, discernment, initiative,
integrity, respect, and responsibility.
This was just one of many ways we try to inspire our students to rise to
a higher calling, of caring for others in all they do, here, at home, in
church, or at a job.
Students
were to bring their lists to Mr. Terrill.
He made copies of all their goals and compiled the word list
based on how many times specific words showed up in their goals. Based on all that, he asked me to copy and
paste the words into “Wordle,” and it produces hundreds of possible designs
that can be used for endless ideas: bulletin boards, T-shirts, posters, party
themes, note cards, banners, stickers, and any number of advertising products.
For a
basement artist like me, this sent me straight to the hog heaven of
design! Mr. Terrill asked me to print
out some samples for him, so I included just a few of the twelve I printed out in this blog. I am not sure how he is going to use them,
but it will, no doubt, be a delight and surprise to see where these show up in
our future.
Mr. Terrill,
you rocked my world today with “Wordle”! Now someone, please, help me find my
way out of this crazy and colorful word maze!
Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.
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