Here’s the latest installment in my series on The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly. As you may remember, in order to make it on this list, the web tool has to:

* be easily accessible to English Language Learners and/or non-tech savvy computer users.

* allow people to create engaging content within minutes.

* host the user’s creation on the site itself indefinitely, and allow a direct link to be able to be posted on a student or teacher’s website/blog to it (or let it be embedded).

* provide some language-learning opportunity (for example, students can write about their creations).

* not require any registration.

You can find previous installments of this series with the rest of my “The Best…” lists here. Several hundred sites have been highlighted in these past lists. You might also want to take a look at the first list I posted in this series — The Best Ways For Students (And Anyone Else!) To Create Online Content Easily, Quickly, and Painlessly.

You might also want to look at The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2010 and The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly In 2011 and The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly In 2012 — Part Two.

I’ll also be publishing an “all-time best” list sometime this year.

Here are the newest additions:

ClassTools has created a site to create a “fake” text messages conversation that can be embedded.

Brainy Box also comes from ClassTools, and lets you easily create a 3-D animated cube with any content you want to include in it.

Pinwords allows you to create attractive illustrated quotes and lets you grab images off the web to use. Quozio is a similar site. And you can find others at my recent post, The Best Tools For Creating Visually Attractive Quotations For Online Sharing.

Phrase.it lets you easily add speech bubbles with your text to photos. You can upload your own, or choose a random image from the site. You’re then given a link to your creation.

Quizpoo lets you create, without requiring registration, “this or that” quizzes.  I had never actually heard of that “genre” of tests before, but you can see plenty of examples on their site. I could see students having a lot of fun making these kinds of tests. For example, as we study Latin America in my ELL Geography class, they could make one on “Mexico or Brazil” with the first “question” being “Brasilia” and the answer choices being “Mexico” or “Brazil.” The following “questions” could include “Pele” and “Baja California.”

The New York Times has come up with a very creative interactive for the 2013 State of the Union address — you get to “cut-and-paste” your own one minute video highlight reel at My State of the Union Address in 60 Seconds. It lets you do the same with the Republican response.

There apparently is a popular Cartoon Network show about gumball creatures, and now you can create your own! Without needing to register, you can choose its image and shape, select various other body and facial features, and you are given a url address to post and share to your final creation.

Create the Rainbow lets you create your own Skittles commercial, and it has more learning possibilities than one might think… You choose your characters and location, and then can “drag & drop” various quotations to create a dialogue. Add some music and, voila, you’ve got yourself a “commercial” that you can share with others. I especially like the ability for users to create a dialogue with already prepared comments. It can definitely be a fun and easy activity for English Language Learners if you’ve got a few minutes left to kill in the computer lab.

Many people have seen some of the hundreds, if not thousands, of satirical versions of the “Downfall” movie scene where Hitler rants in German and people come up with their own English subtitles.

Now, there’s a site that will create the video for you — it shows you the scenes, you come up with the subtitles, and, viola, you’ve got your own version.

It could be used for engaging language practice, as I’ve done with Bombay TV  and Artistifier.  However, I also know that at least some people find using Hitler in this way offensive because they think it makes light of his crimes.  I don’t necessarily share that view, but I would still probably not use it in a K-12 setting.  I could see a college or adult ESL class, though, really enjoying its use.

Google’s Peanut Gallery  lets you create subtitles for a variety of old silent movies. The special twist, though, is that you create the subtitles by speaking into a computer microphone and they will then magically appear. You have to speak very clearly though, so it may, or may not, work well for English Language Learners.  One negative, however, is that it only works in the Chrome Browser.

I Wish You To lets you easily draw and create your own Ecards, which you can post, embed, and/or send to someone — and no registration is required.

This list brings together what I think are this year’s best ways to create online content easily and quickly. These web tools are excellent ways for English Language Learners, and others who might not be very tech-savvy, to have a good experience working with technology.

In order to make it on this list, web tools must be:

* accessible to English Language Learners.

* available at no-cost.

* able to be used to easily create engaging online content within minutes.

* willing to host user-created work indefinitely on the website itself.

* appropriate for classroom use.

* accessible without requiring registration.

You might also be interested in:

The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly In 2012 — Part One

The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly In 2011

The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2010

The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2009

The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2008

A very small number of the applications that have made it on this list are viral marketing tools. You can read this article about how I use these in the classroom.

Here are my choices for The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly In 2012 — Part Two (Not in any order of preference):

GeoSpeak is a neat site that lets you — without having to register — find any location on Google Maps and write something about it. You’re given a virtual “pin” on the map that leads directly to your comment. It would be great for students in geography classes to write for an authentic audience. My concern, however, is that GeoSpeak could get filled up pretty quick with not-very-useful comments, especially since no registration is required.

Google announced a new tool called “Story Builder.” Without having to register, you can create a “dialogue” of sorts, add music, and end up with a link to a video-like presentation that you can share.

Silk lets you create pretty magical-looking (and sounding) artwork online without registering. You can then share a link to your creation.

The Guardian has created Spin It! Create your own lines from the presidential debates. It shows most of the debate’s transcript, and you can drag and drop words into a box to create your own “soundbite.” Then, you’re given a unique url address to your creation which you can share.

Blockee lets you choose any address in the world and then captures a Google “Street View” of it. Next, you can add any number of “civic bling” items (playset, bench, garbage can, etc.) and get the unique url address for your creation. It could be a fun little activity for English Language Learners, who could describe in writing and verbally the added items.

Using a Chrome Browser, you can send a holiday message from any Google Maps Street View Location.

Kl1P lets you create a webpage without any registration required. You can paste text or images into it, and is a great way to publish student work — you get a custom url address for your page and can paste that on a student/teacher blog.

Quicklinkr lets you very easily collect websites, images, videos, etc — without requiring registration. They are shown with screenshots, and you can put them into “folders.”

Check This is the latest in a long line of tools that let you create webpages quickly, without registering, and that let you also paste images into them.

Loose Leaves lets you write or paste images and automatically creates a webpage. You’re given two url addresses — one where you can edit it again and a second where others can view it. No registration is necessary.

Feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at the 1000 other “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.

It’s that time of year again when I start posting year-end “The Best….” lists. There are over one thousand lists now.  You can see them all here.

As usual, in order to make this list, a site had to be:

* accessible to English Language Learners and non-tech savvy users.

* free-of-charge.

* appropriate for classroom use.

* completely browser-based with no download required.

It’s possible that a few of these sites began in 2011, but, if so, I’m including them in this list because they were “new to me” in 2012.

You might want to visit previous editions:

The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2011

The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2010

The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2009

The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2008

The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2007

(You might also find The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly In 2012 — So Far useful)

Here are my ranked choices for The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2012:

Number Twenty-Nine

Infinite.ly is a pretty darn easy way to create a free website. Be sure to click “Get a Free Account now …” on their homepage.

Number Twenty-Eight

Striking.ly is a very easy tool for creating a website. I particularly like the fact that you can grab images off the Web to insert in them.

Number Twenty-Seven

Kwiqpoll lets you easily create a poll — and no registration is required. You’re give the poll’s url address, but it’s not embeddable. It has no frills, but it’s easy as pie.

Number Twenty-Six

In Focus lets you, without any registration required, literally “highlight” a section of any webpage and provides a unique url address linking to it.

Number Twenty-Five

The free web tool Inklewriter is, without a doubt, the easiest way to write a choose your own adventure story. You can read more about it at Gamasutra, New, free tools allow any novice to make an accessible text adventure.

Number Twenty-Four

Pandamian is a super-simple — and free — tool to create an ebook. Sign-up takes a few seconds, and you’re given your own url address for all your future books. Click on “create a new book” and you’re off! You can easily copy and paste images, and readers can leave moderated comments. They can also subscribe to an RSS feed if they want to be updated on newer chapters and it can be embedded.

Number Twenty-Three

Quicklinkr lets you very easily collect websites, images, videos, etc — without requiring registration. They are shown with screenshots, and you can put them into “folders.” It appears you have to register if you want to come back to edit it, or to leave a comment about one of the saved links (registration is quick and easy). Unfortunately, that comment feature appears the only way you can add a text description to any link you save. There might be another way, but I didn’t see it.

Number Twenty-Two

Edcanvas is a nifty tool that lets you very easily add videos, images, website snapshots and files to create a grid canvass for students to access (teachers can also create virtual classes so that students could create their own). You can also type text on top of what you drag into the grid boxes — for example, instructions. A particularly nifty feature is that it provides a search box so you can search for videos, images and websites right from within the application. It has multiple uses, but I think it’s especially good for creating Internet Scavenger Hunts and Web Quests.

Number Twenty-One

Kl1P lets you create a webpage without any registration required. You can paste text or images into it, and is a great way to publish student work — you get a custom url address for your page and can paste that on a student/teacher blog.

Number Twenty

Check This is the latest in a long line of tools that let you create webpages quickly, without registering, and that let you also paste images into them.

Number Nineteen

Loose Leaves lets you write or paste images and automatically creates a webpage. You’re given two url addresses — one where you can edit it again and a second where others can view it. No registration is necessary.

Number Eighteen

QikPad is a nice online collaborative writing tool that has an embedding feature.

Number Seventeen

BeeClip.Edu lets you set-up a virtual classroom where students can create a “scrapbook” or other products using a very simple “drag-and-drop” interface. Text can also be added. One teacher with up to thirty students is free, but you have to pay if you want to add more.

Number Sixteen

ikiMap lets you easily create maps and, what I particularly like, is you can insert images off the web just by using their url addresses.

Number Fifteen

Slide.ly looks good and is very similar to Animoto. You can search for photos online or use your own, and easily combine them with music to create musical video-like slideshows.

Number Fourteen

Google announced a new tool called “Story Builder.”  Without having to register, you can create a “dialogue” of sorts, add music, and end up with a link to a video-like presentation that you can share.  We were studying natural disasters in our ninth-grade English class, and students had a blast creating dialogues between people experiencing a disaster of their choice.

Number Thirteen

MentorMob lets you very easily create a slideshow. Webpages, videos and photos can be grabbed from the web and added, along with notes. It’s easy to use, very intuitively designed so just about anyone can figure it out, and attractive.

Number Twelve

Hello Slide lets you upload a PDF of your PowerPoint. You can then type in the narration and it will use a text-to-speech feature to provide audio to your slideshow.

Number Eleven

Themeefy lets you grab pretty much anything you want off the Web, and add your own materials, to create a personalized magazine that can be shared/embedded wherever you want. It looks pretty neat and simple.

Number Ten

Skqueak is a new free iPhone app I like a lot that lets you easily provide audio for photos. There are several other apps on various other “The Best…” lists,   However, I suspect that Skqueak is going to give them a run for their money. It’s very simple to use, it appears to have a very extended recording time (though I’m not sure what the time limit is exactly) and, most importantly, it makes it extremely easy to create sort of a seamless audio slideshow. None of the other similar apps have such an ability, or at least one that is as easy to use.

Number Nine

Though I’ve used clozes (fill-in-the-blank/gap-fill) for several years, this is the first time a free and easy-to-use site like LearnClick has been available (there have been other cloze-creation sites, but none that I thought were student-friendly). LearnClick makes it super-simple and free to create and post interactive clozes online so students from different classes — in fact, students anywhere — can try completing them. And they’re much more enjoyable to create, too!

Number Eight

Urlist is now my favorite tool for creating Internet Scavenger Hunts. You register, copy and paste the sites you want, easily leave comments/instructions/questions for each site (which students can see by clicking “expand,” share the link, and you’ve got your hunt. You can also “play” the sites like a slideshow, but that’s not necessary for scavenger hunt purposes.

Number Seven

Mural.ly lets you drag and drop images and links (and the links appear as thumbnail images on the screen);it lets you write on it or add speech bubbles — it’s basically a super-duper-duper Wallwisher.

Number Six

Infogr.am looks like a pretty easy tool for creating infographics that can be linked to or embedded. The selection of templates is pretty limited, but the site is still in beta. The main problem with the site is that you can only log-in using a social media site like Facebook or Twitter. That makes it usable for teachers, but, since those sites are blocked in most schools for students, they would not be able to create their own. (UPDATE: It appears that you can now register just using an email address)

Number Five

Easel.ly  is hands-down the easiest tool I’ve seen on the Web to create infographics. You just “drag-and-drop” a variety of themes, type in your data, and you’ve got a great infographic.

Number Four

I’m a big proponent of the Picture Word Inductive Model as a strategy for English Language Learners to develop reading and writing skills (I describe it in detail  in my article in ASCD Educational Leadership, Get Organized Around Assets). It begins with the teacher labeling items in thematic photos with the help of students. The webtool Thinglink could be a great deal to help ELL’s maximize the advantages of this instructional strategy. Thinglink lets you upload or grab an image or video off the web and annotate items with the image or video super-easily. It basically looks like a photo in the Picture Word Inductive Model, just online. Thinglink’s recently announced for educators and students that you can now annotate fifty images free, and the cost for far more is next-to-nothing.

Number Three

Szoter doesn’t require registration, you can upload or grab images off the web (just insert its url address), and the final product looks just like an image would look like using the Picture Word Inductive Model.

Number Two

MarQueed is like a Thinglink  on steroids and allows collaborative annotation.  You can read more about it here.

Number One

Meograph is a cool web tool that lets you create an audio-narrated digital story with an integrated map.  You can also grab images off the web, but have to remember to copy and paste the image’s url address in the YouTube field.  Just check it out!

Feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at the 1000 other “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Last year I posted The Best Ways For Advanced ELL’s & Non-ELL’s To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly (For Their Classmates & Teacher To See).

That list, and this version, is designed to share simple tools that students can use, with minimal instruction, for creating online projects related to our units when they are done early with regular classroom work. In addition, our students take a computer class and their instructor lets them do our work on Fridays, and these are tools they can use on their own. Students post their completed work on our Ninth-Grade English class blog.

One of the other reasons this list has changed is because our District’s content filter has changed, and these sites are not blocked.

I’ll be adding to this list over the next few months.

Here are my choices for The Best Ways For Advanced ELL’s & Non-ELL’s To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — REVISED:

Make a game with Purpose Games (you have to register first) .

Create a map with Zee Maps or Scribble Maps (no registration required).

Annotate a webpage with WebKlipper (no registration required).

Create a Picture Data Set with Corkboard.Me (no registration required).

Create a newspage highlighting something we’re studying with NewsJack (no registration required).

Create a “Fakebook” page for a person we’re studying (no registration required).

Create an Internet Scavenger Hunt with TxtBear or with Instablogg (No registration required). You can also use them to write a report.

Create a test for a classmate to take with Testmoz (no registration required).

Create an online interactive cloze with LearnClick (Registration is required).

Create a tutorial with Tildee about how we do each of our learning strategies (no registration required).

Send a postcard imagining you’re in one of the places in Nations Illustrated (no registration required).

UPDATE:

Even though I had concluded that Check This was the easiest tool for my students to use for creating/writing reports (they could be creative and no registration was required), we couldn’t get it through our filter.

Loose Leaves became my second choice, though it wasn’t nearly as attractive or engaging to students.

For now, though, I’ve decided on Glogster Edu. You have to pay a few bucks if you want more than ten student accounts, but I think it’s worth it. I have some concerns that it provides so many creative opportunities that students can focus more on looks than content, but, considering the limitations of our content filter, for now it’s the best choice.

As always, feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

I usually just do a year-end list on The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly and many other topics, but it gets a little crazy having to review all of my zillion posts at once. So, to make it easier for me — and perhaps, to make it a little more useful to readers — I’m going to start publishing mid-year lists, too. These won’t be ranked, unlike my year-end “The Best…” lists, and just because a site appears on a mid-year list doesn’t guarantee it will be included in an end-of-the-year one. But, at least, I won’t have to review all my year’s posts in December…

This list brings together what I think are this year’s best ways to create online content easily and quickly. These web tools are excellent ways for English Language Learners, and others who might not be very tech-savvy, to have a good experience working with technology.

In order to make it on this list, web tools must be:

* accessible to English Language Learners.

* available at no-cost.

* able to be used to easily create engaging online content within minutes.

* willing to host user-created work indefinitely on the website itself.

* appropriate for classroom use.

* accessible without requiring registration.

You might also be interested in:

The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly In 2011

The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2010

The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2009

The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2008

A very small number of the applications that have made it on this list are viral marketing tools. You can read this article about how I use these in the classroom.

Here are my choices for The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly In 2012 — So Far (Not in any order of preference):

CREATE YOUR OWN STAR: At Light Up The Sky, you can create your own virtual star with its own message in the sky, and share the link to your creation.

WRITE A HAIKU: At Haiku For Humbugs, you can write a haiku that gets sent anonymously to someone who needs “cheering-up.” Plus, your haiku can get hung in the “gallery” so anyone can view it.

WRITE A FAKE SIRI CONVERSATION: I Fake Siri lets you create a fake conversation — in text — with the new iPhone voice feature Siri. You can then link to, or embed, your creation. It’s just another fun opportunity for ELL’s to practice writing, reading, and speaking.

DEVELOP A COLLABORATIVE DOCUMENT: QikPad lets you write collaboratively with anyone you want, and you can then link to, or embed, whatever you come up with….

Make Some Music: If you’ve ever tried Incredibox, you know why I call it the easiest and most fun tool to create music on the Web. If you haven’t tried it yet, do it now! They announced major improvements recently, including letting you save your compositions. You can now give them a title and post a link on your blog or website, or share in other ways.

Send A Native-American Audio Postcard: Our Mother Tongues is a very impressive site that’s designed to support and preserve Native American languages. It’s very engaging, and includes a “language map,” videos and more. One of its very neat features is that it allows you choose a virtual audio postcard with a Native American greeting that you can send to someone. You can also write a personalized message on it. You’re given a unique url address, and it can be posted on a student/teacher website or blog.

“Artisify” A Video: Grab the url address of any YouTube video, paste it into the Artistifier, type in your name and title, and the site will “artistify” the video in the manner of the Oscar-winning silent movie “The Artist.” As the video plays — with no sound other than the music provided by The Artistifier — you can type in captions at appropriate times. Once you’re done, click save and the captions will show up during the movie in the manner of an old silent movie. For English language learners, it’s similar to Bombay TV (and its “sister channels”), which lets you choose a scene from a B movie from Bollywood and have fun creating subtitles for the clip. With the Artistifier, though, you can choose any YouTube you want.

Take A Poll: Kwiqpoll lets you easily create a poll — and no registration is required. You’re give the poll’s url address, but it’s not embeddable. It has no frills, but it’s easy as pie.

Create A Musical Playlist: Choruzz lets you — without needing to register — search for music videos and create a playlist of them. You’re then given a unique url address for your list that you can share. It’s very easy to use, and it meets my “Raffi” test — in other words, plenty of songs are accessible that you can use with English Language Learners.

Make Your Own Unique (& Fake) CNN, NY Times, Etc. Website: With News Jack, all you have to do is paste the url address of any website and you’re immediately given the tools to easily transform its homepage into looking however you want it to look. Without having to register, you can make the New York Times highlight photos and articles of your great basketball-playing ability; have CNN focus on covering what was happening in 1776, or The Huffington Post reporting on the first Thanksgiving dinner. You can easily grab images off the web or your computer to insert, as well as text. You can then click “publish” and you’re given the url address to your creation so it can be shared with the world.

Get Your Message Spelled-Out By Galaxies:  “My Galaxies” lets you spell out anything you want, using real galaxies that are shaped like characters. You can read more about it at the site and/or at this MSNBC story. The site does what I describe — you write a message and then it uses images of galaxies that look like the alphabet to spell it out. You can then send the link or post it.

Record a Thirty Second Message: Croak.it lets you easily record a thirty second message with a computer microphone. You then get a unique url address that you can share. No registration is necessary.

Make A Face: Fantastic Fun Face lets you search for an image, adds lots of crazy effects to it, and then save and share it. English Language Learners could create a face and then describe it in writing and orally as a language development activity.

Make A Website:Check This is the latest in a long line of tools that let you create webpages quickly, without registering, and that let you also paste images into them.

Collaborate With A Famous Dead Author: Try out Google Docs new demo that lets you write collaboratively with your favorite dead famous writers. Then you get to save and share your creation. As Next Web explains:

A “famous writer” will start typing and then it’s your turn. Once you’ve typed in the next line, the writer takes over

Write A Six Word “Stump Speech”: The National Constitution Center lets you compose your own six word political “stump speech” and post it.

Create A Piece Of Art: Though I’m not convinced the world needs another online drawing tool, doSketch is an easy one where you can draw and save your creation with no registration needed.

Feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at the 900 other “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.

I usually just do a year-end list on Web 2.0 Applications For Education and many other topics, but it gets a little crazy having to review all of my zillion posts at once. So, to make it easier for me — and perhaps, to make it a little more useful to readers — I’m going to be publishing mid-year lists, too. These won’t be ranked, unlike my year-end “The Best…” lists, and just because a site appears on a mid-year list doesn’t guarantee it will be included in an end-of-the-year one. But, at least, I won’t have to review all my year’s posts in December…

As usual, in order to make this list, a site had to be:

* accessible to English Language Learners and non-tech savvy users.

* free-of-charge.

* appropriate for classroom use.

* completely browser-based with no download required.

It’s possible that a few of these sites began in 2011, but, if so, I’m including them in this list because they were “new to me” in 2012.

You might want to visit previous editions:

The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2011

The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2010

The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2009

The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2008

The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2007

(You might also find The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2011 useful)

Here are my twenty-nine choices for The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2012 — So Far (NOT in order of preference):

Slide.ly looks good and is very similar to Animoto. You can search for photos online or use your own, and easily combine them with music to create musical video-like slideshows.

Croak.it lets you easily record a thirty second message with a computer microphone. You then get a unique url address that you can share. No registration is necessary.

Venngage is an easy tool for creating online infographics. Like several other sites on The Best Resources For Creating Infographics list, it has a number of templates where you just add your info, click publish, and you get an embeddable image (oops, they appear to have recently begun charging, though you can get a two week trial for free).

Zoho announced Zoho Sites, a super-easy “drag-and-drop” website builder. It doesn’t get much easier to create a nice-looking website. You can read more about it at TechCrunch.

Infogr.am looks like a pretty easy tool for creating infographics that can be linked to or embedded. The selection of templates is pretty limited, but the site is still in beta. The main problem with the site is that you can only log-in using a social media site like Facebook or Twitter. That makes it usable for teachers, but, since those sites are blocked in most schools for students, they would not be able to create their own. (UPDATE: It appears that you can now register just using an email address)

Memplai looks like a good online video editor that can incorporate photos and videos.

Easel.ly  is hands-down the easiest tool I’ve seen on the Web to create infographics. You just “drag-and-drop” a variety of themes, type in your data, and you’ve got a great infographic.

Record MP3 lets you, without having to register, create an audio recording that you can save on your computer and/or save on their site (a link is provided). It’s very simple to use, though I’m not sure what the maximum audio recording length is nor how long they keep it on their server.  My recording uploaded quickly using Internet Explorer. However, it would never upload when in Firefox.

TED unveiled a new education website , TED Ed. This new site, using the videos from that new education initiative and any other YouTube video,  lets teachers create interactive quizzes that can supposedly be tracked. Where the creation tool could really be a valuable learning asset, though, would be by having students take the videos and create the quizzes that, in turn, could be used by their classmates and other students.

Thinglink lets you upload or grab an image or video off the web and annotate items with the image or video super-easily. It basically looks like a photo in the Picture Word Inductive Model, just online.  You can read how I use it here.

ImageSpike is a new web tool that is supposed to do just about the same thing as Thinglink. You can read about the differences between the two here.

And MarQueed is like a Thinglink and ImageSpike on steroids and allows collaborative annotation.  You can read more about it here.

Though I’ve used clozes (fill-in-the-blank/gap-fill) for several years, this is the first time a free and easy-to-use site like LearnClick has been available (there have been other cloze-creation sites, but none that I thought were student-friendly). LearnClick makes it super-simple and free to create and post interactive clozes online so students from different classes — in fact, students anywhere — can try completing them. And they’re much more enjoyable to create, too!

Six3 lets you send a free video message via iPhone, PC or Mac. Registration is required, but it takes seconds. It’s very easy to use.

MentorMob lets you very easily create a slideshow. Webpages, videos and photos can be grabbed from the web and added, along with notes. It’s easy to use, very intuitively designed so just about anyone can figure it out, and attractive.

Vsnap lets you send a sixty second online video message very easily. Free registration is required.

In Focus lets you, without any registration required, literally “highlight” a section of any webpage and provides a unique url address linking to it.

Kwiqpoll lets you easily create a poll — and no registration is required. You’re give the poll’s url address, but it’s not embeddable. It has no frills, but it’s easy as pie.

Hello Slide lets you upload a PDF of your PowerPoint. You can then type in the narration and it will use a text-to-speech feature to provide audio to your slideshow.

Kl1P lets you create a webpage without any registration required. You can paste text or images into it, and is a great way to publish student work — you get a custom url address for your page and can paste that on a student/teacher blog.

QikPad is a nice online collaborative writing tool that has an embedding feature.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at the 900 other “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.

The first part of this post is my usual introduction to this series. If you’re familiar with it already, just skip down to the listing of new sites…

Here’s the latest installment in my series on The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly. As you may remember, in order to make it on this list, the web tool has to:

* be easily accessible to English Language Learners and/or non-tech savvy computer users.

* allow people to create engaging content within minutes.

* host the user’s creation on the site itself indefinitely, and allow a direct link to be able to be posted on a student or teacher’s website/blog to it (or let it be embedded). If it just provides the url address of the student creation, you can either just post the address or use Embedit.in , a free web tool that makes pretty much any url address embeddable.

* provide some language-learning opportunity (for example, students can write about their creations).

* not require any registration.

You can find previous installments of this series with the rest of my “The Best…” lists at Websites Of The Year. Several hundred sites have been highlighted in these past lists. You might also want to take a look at the first list I posted in this series — The Best Ways For Students (And Anyone Else!) To Create Online Content Easily, Quickly, and Painlessly.

You might also want to look at The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2010 and The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly In 2011.

I’ll also be publishing an “all-time best” list sometime this year.

Here are the newest additions:

Make Your Own Unique (& Fake) CNN, NY Times, Etc. Website: With News Jack, all you have to do is paste the url address of any website and you’re immediately given the tools to easily transform its homepage into looking however you want it to look. Without having to register, you can make the New York Times highlight photos and articles of your great basketball-playing ability; have CNN focus on covering what was happening in 1776, or The Huffington Post reporting on the first Thanksgiving dinner. You can easily grab images off the web or your computer to insert, as well as text. You can then click “publish” and you’re given the url address to your creation so it can be shared with the world.

Create A Comic: Put Your Rage Into a Cartoon and Exit Laughing is a New York Times article about the Web genre of “rage comics” — people using easy online tools to vent about irritating incidents they experience. The article particularly highlights a tool called Rage Maker and, in fact, give step-by-step instructions on how to use these easy site to create an online comic. And there’s no reason why it can’t be used to make comic strips about “non-rage” topics. No registration is required.

Get Your Message Spelled-Out By Galaxies:  “My Galaxies” lets you spell out anything you want, using real galaxies that are shaped like characters. You can read more about it at the site and/or at this MSNBC story. The site does what I describe — you write a message and then it uses images of galaxies that look like the alphabet to spell it out. You can then send the link or post it.

Record a Thirty Second Message: Croak.it lets you easily record a thirty second message with a computer microphone. You then get a unique url address that you can share. No registration is necessary.

Make A Face: Fantastic Fun Face lets you search for an image, adds lots of crazy effects to it, and then save and share it. English Language Learners could create a face and then describe it in writing and orally as a language development activity.

Make A Website:Check This is the latest in a long line of tools that let you create webpages quickly, without registering, and that let you also paste images into them.

Collaborate With A Famous Dead Author: Try out Google Docs new demo that lets you write collaboratively with your favorite dead famous writers. Then you get to save and share your creation. As Next Web explains:

A “famous writer” will start typing and then it’s your turn. Once you’ve typed in the next line, the writer takes over

Build A Virtual City: Google Maps has partnered with LEGO’s to let you build a virtual city using LEGO’s on a map of Australia or New Zealand. You can then share your creation with others. You have to use the Google Chrome browser. You can read more about it here.

Compose A Pop Song: The New York Times has an interactive called “Build A Pop Song.”Pick the tracks you like, and then you’re given a link to your creation

Additional suggestions are always welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.

You might also want to explore the over 900 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.

The first part of this post is my usual introduction to this series. If you’re familiar with it already, just skip down to the listing of new sites…

Here’s the latest installment in my series on The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly. As you may remember, in order to make it on this list, the web tool has to:

* be easily accessible to English Language Learners and/or non-tech savvy computer users.

* allow people to create engaging content within minutes.

* host the user’s creation on the site itself indefinitely, and allow a direct link to be able to be posted on a student or teacher’s website/blog to it (or let it be embedded). If it just provides the url address of the student creation, you can either just post the address or use Embedit.in , a free web tool that makes pretty much any url address embeddable.

* provide some language-learning opportunity (for example, students can write about their creations).

* not require any registration.

You can find previous installments of this series with the rest of my “The Best…” lists at Websites Of The Year. Several hundred sites have been highlighted in these past lists. You might also want to take a look at the first list I posted in this series — The Best Ways For Students (And Anyone Else!) To Create Online Content Easily, Quickly, and Painlessly.

You might also want to look at The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly — 2010 and The Best Ways To Create Online Content Easily & Quickly In 2011.

I’ll also be publishing an “all-time best” list sometime this year.

Here are the newest additions:

Sing A Song: Send A Song lets you sing a song — with coaching — and send your rendition to a friend or post the link.

Write A Wild-Looking Message: Gzaas lets you compose a very wild-looking message and provides a link to your creation.

Make Some Music: If you’ve ever tried Incredibox, you know why I call it the easiest and most fun tool to create music on the Web. If you haven’t tried it yet, do it now! They announced major improvements recently, including letting you save your compositions. You can now give them a title and post a link on your blog or website, or share in other ways.

Send A Native-American Audio Postcard: Our Mother Tongues is a very impressive site that’s designed to support and preserve Native American languages. It’s very engaging, and includes a “language map,” videos and more. One of its very neat features is that it allows you choose a virtual audio postcard with a Native American greeting that you can send to someone. You can also write a personalized message on it. You’re given a unique url address, and it can be posted on a student/teacher website or blog.

“Artisify” A Video: Grab the url address of any YouTube video, paste it into the Artistifier, type in your name and title, and the site will “artistify” the video in the manner of the Oscar-winning silent movie “The Artist.” As the video plays — with no sound other than the music provided by The Artistifier — you can type in captions at appropriate times. Once you’re done, click save and the captions will show up during the movie in the manner of an old silent movie. For English language learners, it’s similar to Bombay TV (and its “sister channels”), which lets you choose a scene from a B movie from Bollywood and have fun creating subtitles for the clip. With the Artistifier, though, you can choose any YouTube you want.

Take A Poll: Kwiqpoll lets you easily create a poll — and no registration is required. You’re give the poll’s url address, but it’s not embeddable. It has no frills, but it’s easy as pie.

Create A Musical Playlist: Choruzz lets you — without needing to register — search for music videos and create a playlist of them. You’re then given a unique url address for your list that you can share. It’s very easy to use, and it meets my “Raffi” test — in other words, plenty of songs are accessible that you can use with English Language Learners.

Additional suggestions are always welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free.

You might also want to explore the over 800 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.