Wordsift

===**[|Wordsift]** is a great tool for teachers to use to determine the reading complexity of web-based material. Wordsift allows the user to copy and past any text into the web tool. Wordsift will then produce a visual Tag Cloud of the most commonly used words in the text.===

Links: [|Wordsift Demo]

Strengths:
 * Free
 * Copy and paste any text
 * Visual Thesaurus provides synonyms for words
 * Google provides images for chosen words
 * Provides examples of how chosen words were used in the text
 * Mark words based on content area
 * Sort Words
 * Create custom word lists
 * Create workspaces with words and images to transfer into Word or Powerpoint

Weaknesses:
 * non-important words added to Tag Cloud
 * can be overwhelming for students to sort through words

Opportunities:
 * Use text and images to create worksheets of important vocabulary words
 * Students can sort words by subject area to create vocabulary cards with synonyms

Threats:
 * not a guaranteed clean image search

Ideas for the Classroom:
 * Teachers can use Wordsift to determine vocabulary words to teach before reading
 * Teachers can use Wordsift to sort text by curriculum area
 * Students can use Wordsift to find important vocabulary words from text
 * Students or teachers can create workspaces of vocabulary words and images to paste into Powerpoint or Word documents to share
 * Students can use Wordsift to locate synonyms for words used in the text
 * Can be used to improve academic vocabulary