My Beauty Best Teacher

Tagxedo is pretty much like Wordle...except a little cooler and a little more convenient for education. If you're a Wordle/word cloud fan, you definitely want to keep reading!

Basically, you use words to create a "word cloud" (clusters of important words). But with Tagxedo, you can specify a particular shape that you'd like those words to form...that's one of the cool parts! There's a lot more customization than there is with Wordle -- you can play around with more fonts, colors, and, of course, shapes.

One of the huge pluses is that you can save these images as files to your computer (without having to take a screen shot) so it's a lot easier to make this into an assignment without wasting the computer lab's ink! Students can save the image to the computer and then attach it to an e-mail and send it to the teacher. Just looking at the gallery page today, I've seen Abe Lincoln, the Mona Lisa, Anne Hathaway, a globe, the UT logo.... there are a ton of options, which is always nice!

I may be turning to Tagxedo instead of Wordle now, for all my word cloud creations. Refer to my blog about Wordle to get some of my ideas on how to use Tagxedo in the classroom. Since they work in the exact same way, the ideas will work for both. :)

This link will give you some more interesting ways to use Tagxedo.

Although I'm most familiar and comfortable with Wordle and Tagxedo, here's a list that contains 8 other word cloud generators...you know, in case you like to have some options. ;)  

Here's a Tagxedo I made for my English class:

Fast Company profiles Nico Ajak Bior:

"My idea is to start vegetable farming through the use of greenhouses in Juba and my hometown of Bior in Jonglei state," Bior tells Fast Company. "This was inspired by the lack of fresh vegetables in my country--currently Southern Sudan imports all the vegetables and fruit from neighbouring countries and this makes it expensive for the local population to get them. I'm determined to make vegetables available throughout most parts of Sudan in the next few years."

On what equipped him:

Last year he participated in a fellow Lost Boy's startup incubator program, New Scholars, and has since been nurturing his vision of kick-starting a local farming and vegetable industry in South Sudan, as decades of civil war destroyed what industry thrived prior to the war. And now that the referendum has finally taken place, his vision is set to become reality.

More here

In the Globe and Mail Tristan Coloma reports on the African immigrant/trader community network in China:

This place is not really China, nor is it Africa; it lies in the midst of major highways in Guangzhou, southern China (formerly known as Canton). Officially, 20,000 Africans – probably more like 100,000 – live in or pass through the 10 square kilometres of “Africa Town,” where Igbo, Wolof and Lingala mingle with Mandarin and Cantonese. Some Chinese call it “Chocolate Town.”...In this roaring city of 18 million inhabitants and tens of thousands of micro-factories, the commercial activity is very different from the oil deals and huge public-works contracts the Chinese have secured in Africa.“We’re not here for fun,” said Ibrahim Kader Traore, an entrepreneur from Ivory Coast. “We work hard and do well. In Abidjan, people still swear by France, where you might be able to save $13,000 over 25 years; in China, you can have $130,000 in just five years.”...[continue reading]

On the question of who Chinese should be dealing with:

A new transnational African business class may be emerging, which could flood sub-Saharan Africa with low-cost products from China. “China is trying to keep things at government level,” said Mr. Barry, “but the Chinese people will soon realize that it’s better for business to deal directly with ordinary Africans.” China would prefer Africans to do business with China without living here, yet 90 per cent of Guangzhou’s Africans act as intermediaries between the African continent and Chinese factories.

Image courtesy of the Globe & Mail

Ken Saro Wiwa asks:

...where, I wonder, are the younger, vibrant leaders who can harness the energy of Africa’s increasingly youthful, urban and restless societies?

continuing he adds:

“Do any of my colleagues in government have the vision and conceptual tools to channel this youthful energy to the common good? ”

More here
photo courtesy of the Globe & Mail

According to my sources (Rick Santorum on Frank Beckman show), the Senate is very close to not passing the Cap and Trade bill (or Limit and Tax bill, or global warming bill, or energy independence bill, or whatever they call it). This is a good thing- the Senate may just not take it up and instead try to go about socializing our healthcare industry instead.

Let's defeat these bills one at at time. In the battle to pass the Limit and Tax Bill, Michigan's Senators are going to play a pi vital role since they are members of the majority party in the Senate (Democrats) and they are wavering. Please contact them to let them know that you want them to vote against the Climate Change bill. Emails are good, mail letters are better, but phone calls are the best.

Click here to contact Carl Levin, click here to contact Debbie Stabenow. I think Levin's office will be receptive- he is a hard-working Senator who cares about our state and isn't corrupt. Good luck with Stabenow's office- she is a lazy Senator who is bought off by special interests in California and doesn't really care about Michigan voters.

It is important when you communicate with these Senators that you mention that you are a registered voter from Michigan. I would start out by stating your stance on the issue, and then you are free to bring up anything that bothers you about the global warming bill. These Democrats are likely Believers, so it probably isn't going to do much good to bring up the fact that man-made global warming is a myth, and they are Democrats, so it probably isn't going to do much good to talk about how this bill is just a plot to increase taxes and transfer power to the government. Don't threaten either- from personal experience, this doesn't go over well.

The best line of attack is to discuss how this bill will affect the citizens of Michigan. This bill will transfer wealth from Midwestern states like Michigan to states on the coasts by taxing coal producers and subsidizing wind and solar power. As a Michigan Senator, they should be concerned about how this bill will affect Michigan more so than protecting the globe. This bill will raise taxes on manufacturing companies that are in Michigan and transfer that wealth to government bureaucrats and regulators in Washington DC.

Obama has been talking about how this bill will create green jobs, and perhaps it might. But the cost to create those green jobs in the south and coasts will be paid for by the residents of Michigan. And according to studies in Spain, each job created by subsided renewable energy will cost the jobs of at least 2.2 jobs in other industries and will cost over $774,000 per job created. Those job losses will be in Michigan, and that money will come from Michigan. Michigan Senators should oppose this because it hurts Michigan.

Don't do nothing with this. Don't take this sitting down. Make a phone call. Be able to say "I did something" or "I at least called." We can stop this thing. Yes we can! Hope! Change! Power to the people!