Cool Tool #4: ABCya! Word Clouds

     For this week's Cool Tool, I chose a Word Cloud Tool.  I messed around with one other tool before choosing ABCya! I have heard of this website for educational games and activities, so I knew it would be reputable.  It was a piece of cake to get things started.  It prompted me on what to do for each step and it took about two steps to complete the total project.  All I had to do was type in the words, hit go, and then I was able to customize.  I chose the color scheme, font, and the design of the words.  The positives for the ABCya! Word Cloud are the simplicity, ease, and basic customization.  Also, this is the first tool that I used that did not require me to make an account and log in! It was as simple and creating the word cloud and saving it.  I could not find any negatives but if I had to choose one, I might suggest adding some more customizing options, such as more color schemes and shapes. 
    For my word cloud, I chose to use the sixth grade vocabulary words for the week.  I could see the teacher using this to present words or even having students make one themselves as a way to practice and add some more exposure to them.  Another use could be for a prior knowledge activity to use key words for a topic or book before exposing the students to it.  You could then make a new one full of new ideas after the lesson.  It is great for clumping words together that are similar.  For example, after a word sort, students can then group the words into different word clouds based on what group they placed the words into.  
    I would like to explore this more as part of a more interactive activity for students to do on their own with teacher guidance.  For my sample, I did not use a great deal of words, so I would like to experiment with different amounts of words as well.  
    All in all, it was a nice and easy tool with many classroom applications.  If you would like to try it out, check out the website here.