Word Clouds are a great way to visualize student responses for any type of question. Creating word clouds during your lessons can help drive home your key ideas in a fast, engaging way.
With ClassPoint, students can submit their own responses, creating an interactive Word Cloud right in your PowerPoint presentations. This engaging activity can be done in a variety of different ways to suit any lesson plan!
How to Create an Interactive Word Cloud in PowerPoint
Creating a word cloud activity in PowerPoint can easily be done in only three steps! When you are using ClassPoint, you can make these activities interactive so that you and your students can interact in real-time.
Step 1: Creating your Word Cloud Question
These Word Clouds can be added to any slide on your presentation. To make it clear, add your word cloud button to a slide that states your question.
For example, begin your presentation with an Ice Breaker question. This will get students warmed up for the lesson and actively engaged while they are responding.
When your slide is complete, go to the Inknoe ClassPoint tab in the top ribbon. This free interactive teaching PowerPoint add-in has many different features for you to use in your lessons. For this example, we need to use the Word Cloud button.
Move and resize the button once it appears on your slide. On the side question panel, limit the number of submissions students can have.
& that completes the setup for your question! Your slide is now interactive.
Step 2: Running your Word Cloud Question
To receive live student responses for your Word Cloud, head into presentation mode. From here, students can join your class using the Class Code in the top right corner.
To join, they can go to classpoint.app or scan the QR code that appears when you click on the Class Code.
When you are ready to begin your question, just click the button. The question is now open and ready for submissions.
Students just type and submit their answers. The word cloud will begin to form in real-time and update as the submissions come in.
For more information on Live status, minimizing the results window, and hiding the results, watch the video embedded above!
When all the responses are in, Close the Submissions, and view your final Word Cloud.
Step 3: Reviewing your Word Cloud Results
The word cloud looks great with all your student submissions! However, you can dive deeper into the results to see which students have submitted which answer.
By clicking on any word in the word cloud, you can view which students have submitted that specific word.
In addition, highlight the top answer to see which word was submitted the most.
To save this word cloud in your presentation, insert it as a slide. Otherwise, just save the results for review later. These results can be viewed by clicking on the green question button, or back in PowerPoint edit mode.
In PowerPoint edit mode, view the results from the side question panel. When all the review and analysis is complete, these results can be cleared.
If you need additional help in setting up your Word Cloud, watch this visual tutorial.
Bonus! Three Other Ways to Use Word Clouds in your Lessons
Brainstorming Activity
Students can respond multiple times with their different ideas and seeing all the responses will help begin your discussion.
Check-in with your Students
See how they are doing in general or for a specific event that is coming up in your classroom. This is a great way to gauge how the class is feeling.
Exit Ticket Questions
Everyone learns differently and captures different moments from the lesson. Seeing all the responses together can help students pick up on different aspects of the class!
What are some other use cases that you guys like to use? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear your ideas!
For more ways to add engagement into your lessons, try out ClassPoint’s other questions types, like Multiple Choice, Short Answer, or a Quiz Competition.
