Today’s assigned readings somehow draw a great attention to the idea of visualizing the text using digital tools in an attempt to mentally introduce us with the theoretical idea of visualization and thus get us prepared and ready to enter a more practical mode to work with Voyant visualizing a task.

I found great pleasure in seeing how Kelly, for example, has taken Ngram tool and implemented it in an attempt to visualize millions of words, as he puts it. Statistics if used, understood, and analyzed properly are great indicators. Students can learn a lot by seeing how common a word is and how less common another structure is.

In just few days I have realized how wide are our choices are as scholars now and future teachers later on. The task thus has become familiarizing ourselves with whatever is there and appropriate it in a way that serves the subject or the medium we are trying to communicate and get across to our students.

Taking Kelly’s example and further extending it, I would say that I have reason to believe that this tool would absolutely work best with teaching grammar for instance. With [phrasal verbs] for instance, students would know which combinations are common and which combinations are impossible and regarded as error.

Digital tools, like everything else in life, is a two-sided weapon. Just like the case with excessively using sensory materials in an educational experience, allowing a total reliance on such digital tools can be dangerous. Though it is extremely helpful if used appropriately, and can be severely distracting and disorienting if used in a wrong way.