Thursday, April 24, 2008

Both Sides Now

"I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow,
It's cloud illusions I recall,
I really don't know clouds, at all."
-Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

Cathy Nelson started it. Clay Burell took it a step further by creating a meme. So Cathy went back a second time to fine-tune her creation.

All of this action centered on TweetClouds, a site which makes a word cloud from your public Twitter stream.

Since Twitter is a social networking tool, it doesn't surprise me that @ updates to friends occur most frequently. These are my friends, colleagues, support system, co-learners.

When we speak, I use words like "new," "time," "school," "know," "love." In the alphabetical arrangement of results, bits of unexpected insight appear:
"blogging-book"
"come-comment-congratulations-cool"
"different-district-doesn't"
"home-hope-hubby"
"teach-teacher-teachers-tech"
"time-today-tomorrow"
"wonderful-work-world"

There is sadness: "left-library-life" and humor: "old-ones-online."

But most of all, there is "friends-fun."


"You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds." -Henry David Thoreau


dmcordell

7 comments:

Cathy Jo Nelson said...

one word: beautiful

Anonymous said...

three words: analysis made poetic :-) I love how you turned this into such a wonderful, poetic way of sharing how you interact. I've said it again and again, but thanks for infusing my days with poetry.

CB said...

Two characters: A+

So interesting seeing others' clouds. Nice "analysis" - kind of like that magnet poetry, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

This is so beautiful, Diane! I looked at my Twitter cloud and all I though was, 'I must start a lot of my tweets with "just"!' I'll need to go back for another look as you've shown me how insightful that tool can be.
Thank you.
Amy
xx

diane said...

Cathy, Kate, Clay and Amy,

You all appear in my Cloud and in my life. Thank goodness.

diane

Anonymous said...

Tweetclouds are as beautiful as those who create them. Yours is filled with names, thoughts, hopes.
It would be a shame to see other's tweetclouds filled with :data, outcomes, analysis, synthesis, reform, accountability, rules, standards, rigor.
Those on twitter that tweet only that do not experience the beauty you know first hand.

Blogger In Middle-earth said...

"I have abandoned my search for truth, and am now looking for a good fantasy."
Ashleigh Brilliant

Ka kite
Ken Allan
Middle-earth