Web 2.0 Wows Oct. 26, 2009

This week's Wows!

This week's wows are all word related. Vocabulary is such an important part of what we do. Here are a few sights for high lighting vocabulary in different ways.

WordSift.Comhttp://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.12/theme/ice/palette.gif); background-color: transparent; visibility: visible; width: 14px; height: 12px; background-position: -943px 0pt; background-repeat: no-repeat; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; display: inline;" src="http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.12/t.gif" alt="" />: WordSift is a visualization tool for text. With word sift, you can type in one word, or paste a whole paragraph of text. If I type in "ocean" I will get pictures of oceans and a word map from Visual Thesaurus with words related to ocean. If I paste in the text of the "I Have a Dream Speech" I will get a word cloud, similar to a Wordle. I can click on any word in the cloud and get photos and a Visual Thesaurus. This can be a powerful vocabulary tool. It is good to play first and figure out what text gets the most accurate responses.

ImageChef Word Mosaicshttp://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.12/theme/ice/palette.gif); background-color: transparent; visibility: visible; width: 14px; height: 12px; background-position: -943px 0pt; background-repeat: no-repeat; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; display: inline;" src="http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.12/t.gif" alt="" />: ImageChef has some interesting things to do with Text and Photos. Some more appropriate than others. The Word Mosaic Tool works much like Wordle except you can also choose to have your word created with different shapes.

Spell With Flickr:http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.12/theme/ice/palette.gif); background-color: transparent; visibility: visible; width: 14px; height: 12px; background-position: -943px 0pt; background-repeat: no-repeat; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; display: inline;" src="http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.12/t.gif" alt="" /> This site lets you type in a word and then it generates an image of the word created with photos found on Flickr. GeoGreeting.comhttp://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.12/theme/ice/palette.gif); background-color: transparent; visibility: visible; width: 14px; height: 12px; background-position: -943px 0pt; background-repeat: no-repeat; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; display: inline;" src="http://i.ixnp.com/images/v6.12/t.gif" alt="" /> does something similar with images from Google Earth that look like letters. Give it a try, it is fun.