Tagxedo--an innovative way to get students excited

I was first introduced to Tagxedo while I was browsing the posts from my Google plus group.I was quite excited about all the possibilities to use Tagxedo. Here in fact, I found a link on 101 Ways to Use Tagxedo. So I thought I'd check out "Tagxedo" to see whether I could design anything fun, interactive for them to start reviewing with. As it turned out, yes! Students loved it! One warning for all Mac users, you will need to download current "silver lights" first before you go on, otherwise, it would take a while to figure out everything. Procedure is very simple: 1. Go to Tagxego.com, click on "Create". You don't need to sign up or anything. It's free! 2. Click "load", and then you can copy/paste any text you want in the text box or link a file! 3. Click "submit" and then close the text window. 4. Click on "theme" to change color or style. 5. If you want, you can change the "fond", "layout", or even "orientation". 6. Click on "shape" to get a creative design. Pros: 1. If you use it on their website, it can be interactive. It depends on the frequency of each phrase, the fond size and color will be different. It's great for concept or key words reviewing. Today in class, I divided students up, randomly click on a phrase, asked them to recognize it as #1, and then recall it from the story we did in class. Meaning: they need to use it in a sentence. They really got into looking at a phrase and retelling the story from that point on! 2. It's in random order, it provides hints for students to elaborate on. 3. It's visually stimulating! 4. You can save as a picture or share with others on Facebook and Twitter. 5. Very easy to learn and you can even order your design on a cup or t-shirt. Cons: 1. Saved pictures are not interactive, you can't click on them anymore as they were on the website. 2. The draw back of the no need of signing up for an account is that you can't save your work either. Therefore, if you need to review something few times through out a week or semester, you will need to recreate it each time.