Week 4 - Visuwords

Visuwords is an online graphical dictionary and thesaurus. It's an easy way of generating definitions of words in a visual way which shows relations of words, if they are the same or the opposite, related words, whether a word or phrase is a noun or verb, etc.


For one of my assignments I plan to use 'Identity' as a keyword for a unit of work around a particular book. It generates terms such as 'gender identity' and 'personal identity,' but also suggests similar words like 'identical' and phrases that come from that. Scrolling the mouse over words generates a definition of the words presented. It's a fun way of generating ideas with students, or ways of exploring concepts, terms or words. It could be used after a brainstorming session to compare answers.

I think this tool could be used to extend beyond the words presented in Visuwords. A graphic could be generated, and then groups of students could be given one of the terms and use that word to extend the 'tree' beyond the boundaries of this site. Or students could generate their own trees from a word which they can compare afterwards with the Visuwords-generated phrase tree.

It does seem to have limited applications, but it is more fun and engaging than just getting students to search for a term in a dictionary. It could be used to build the field when starting a new unit, or lesson. It can get students to activate their schema in relation to the new topic being taught.