Tech Tac Toe: Tagxedo

Tagxedo is a free online word cloud generator similar to Wordle with the added benefit of being able to create shapes out of the word clouds from a template menu of shapes. Check it out if you'd like to try out creating some cool shapes out of words. 

One idea to use Tagxedo with students is to create a landscape out of shapes that are created out of words that describe each of the shapes. For example words describing clouds, trees, buildings, rocks,  the sun, etc. could be brainstormed and then formed into shapes with Tagxedo.

Here is an example created together with students in an after school program of students 3rd through 6th grade where I work. Since the center where I work does not have a computer with internet use for the students' use they brainstormed the words and I created the Tagxedos at home on my computer and brought them in. The students cut them out and taped them on a blue sheet to create the landscapes out of them.

If there are shapes that you want to create in Tagxedo that are not on its shape menu you can add your own shapes found on the internet or you create them in a drawing program. I created the shapes of the rocks, hills, and buildings in Photoshop. I found an illustration of the sun in the internet and altered it in Photoshop because I found that Tagxedo prefers that the shapes are simple and work better with little to no interior detail (a solid color for a shape works best). Students using computers could create compositions out of the different shapes on the Tagxedo shape menu and they could also do as I did, find additional shapes on the internet, alter them in Photoshop if needed, or create their own shapes in Photoshop. This would require knowledge of how to use some of the Photoshop tools or else knowledge of any other drawing program used. The project could consist of group or individual work, planning of what kind of composition to make (if they were using multiple Tagxedo images), brainstorming words that describe each shape, and then creating the shapes in Tagxedo and finding/creating additional shapes not included in Tagxedo if needed.

Another option could be to combine Tagxedo created images with hand-drawn images. For example: since Tagxedo doesn't come with a shape of a building students could draw a building outline and then fill it with words descriptors as one of the objects in the picture. A composition could be created out of both Tagzedo-created images and hand-drawn images. Students could even use pictures cut out of magazines for a mixed-media project. 

What students would learn and experience: that just as things have a variety of ways of being created in a visual form they have a variety of ways of being described verbally. Textures that help to create the form of objects can be made in many ways - including by using words and text. An interesting thing to do would be to compare a Tagxedo created landscape with a traditionally created landscape in painting or drawing form or even a photograph and discuss if a landscape created out of words seems to have a different meaning and feeling than a traditionally created landscape.

Honestly, I found it tedious to make all the parts of the above image by myself which is why I think it would be a good group project among, let's say, middle schoolers. For elementary students I think they would enjoy creating a single image in a graphic design project, with the end product being something they could use such as a greeting card, poster image, or tshirt design. Creating images out of text is not new in the graphic design world and it would be good to show students working examples of pictures made of words that have been created by professionals and well as other students. i.e.: here is a Google search of "graphic design words as images." Many of the examples look as though they were created in Tagxedo or Wordle so I think it would be a good motivator to show students a search like this before doing the project.