Wordle and the Technology Continuum

The week before students arrive is always a busy time.   However, the week before students arrive is also the week when teachers arrive on campus enmasse.  They are full of energy, they are busy getting there rooms ready, lesson plans are being crafted for the open day of school, and summer task lists are being whittled away.   But the week before students arrive is also an opportunity to set the tone for the school year. 

One of the headmaster's presentations dealt with how our school will adapt to an ever changing world while maintaining the core values that makes St. Christopher's a special place for so many families.  On a side note, we were asked to read Daniel Pink's book A Whole New Mind-do I sense a theme? Moreover, it was no surprise that he made a connection between the curriculum and technology and he encouraged the faculty to make greater efforts to include technology within the curriculum.

So in an attempt to illustrate where we started as school and where we are heading with respects to academic technology, our tech team generated a series of slides using Wordle that represent the technology continuum at St. Christopher's.  Although we could have added much more to the individual Wordles, we opted for simplicity because the desired outcome was to foster a sense of confidence and desire to explore new methods.

What is Wordle?  

Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. ---Taken from the website. 

I can feel my right brain churning!

The Tech Continuum

10+ years ago

Circa 1998

Circa 2006

Where we are today!