Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

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 — 2009.

Here are the newest additions:

MAKE CHOCOLATES DANCE: You can choreograph a dance for a piece of chocolate, choose the accompanying music, and write a message using this piece of viral marketing. The link can be posted a student/teacher blog or website.

SAY THANKS TO SOMEONE: Thanks For Being There is a simple and accessible web application from State Farm that lets you thank someone for “being there” for you. It’s easy to use, and students can post the url of their creation on a student blog or website.

MAKE DOGS SING: With the holiday season coming-up, you can send a Critter Carol — dogs singing a Christmas song, with a message you write included. Students can create on, and then post the url of their card on a website or blog.

CREATE A WEBSITE: Just Paste It and Axess are very, very simple ways to create websites. They’re ideal for teachers or students who are not very tech savvy, and just want a place to add links or, for example, if students have an assignment where they might need to collect images and then describe them. Axess has an advantage over Just Paste It because it appears that you can return to edit Axess but can’t do that for Just Paste It. No registration is required for either one.

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Just Paste It and Axess are very, very simple ways to create websites.

They’re ideal for teachers or students who are not very tech savvy, and just want a place to add links or, for example, if students have an assignment where they might need to collect images and then describe them.

Axess has an advantage over Just Paste It because it appears that you can return to edit Axess but can’t do that for Just Paste It.

No registration is required for either one.

I’m adding both to The Best Ways For Students Or Teachers To Create A Website.

Thanks For Being There is a simple and accessible web application from State Farm that lets you thank someone for “being there” for you.

It’s easy to use, and students can post the url of their creation on a student blog or website.

I’ve written about Wordle, a free web application for making “word clouds,” in the past — most recently when I shared a word cloud of my book.

Jamie Keddie has just shared a very easy “trick” that lets you create a Wordle of phrases (and not just individual words), which can come in handy. Check it out at his post ” A Really Useful WordleTrick.”

The Echo Enduring blog just posted a list of eleven sources of copyright or royalty-free images.

I’m adding a few of them to The Best Online Sources For Images:

Stockvault

Dreamstime

Stock.xchng

Twick it is designed to be sort of a version of Wikipedia. The difference is that every entry has to be 140 characters or less.

In the future, once there are many entries, it might be a great source of information for English Language Learners. Now, however, it’s an excellent opportunity for students to identify topics, develop their own 140 character answer or description about the topic, and then post it to the site.

I’m adding it to The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An “Authentic Audience.”

Runpolls is a new site for making online…polls, and it looks extremely simple to use. And it’s free.

One feature I particularly like is the ability to easily add url address to polls. Teachers or students can quickly make polls where people can vote on their favorite online games, for example. Many survey sites don’t have this option.

I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Creating Online Polls & Surveys.

Practicowl is a new site that lets teachers easily create tests (fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice) for students who are “enrolled” in the class to take. Teachers can then see the test results.

It seems fairly easy-to-use, though I haven’t spent a whole lot of time checking it out.

If you do, let me know what you think.

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 — 2009.

Here are the newest additions:

CREATE A GAME OF HANGMAN: With the Flash Hangman Challenge, you can easily write a phrase, email it to a friend, and it will automatically be turned into a Hangman game that can also be posted on a teacher/student website or blog. No registration is required. I’m also adding it to The Best Sites For Making Crossword Puzzles & Hangman Games.

TALK LIKE AN ELF: K-Mart has just created a “Talk Like An Elf” application. Go to the site, click on Elfspeak, and then record your message or use the text-to-speech option. Your message, which has a pitch that they must figure an elf might sound like, can then be emailed to a friend and the url can be posted on a student/teacher website or blog. You can also embed it, or send it directly to Facebook. It’s a brand new app, and, when I used it a few times, it was a bit temperamental. But I’m sure they’re working the bugs out as I write this.

DESIGN A WEIRD FLOWER: The musical group Black Eyed Peas has created a site called Planting My Ideas. You can use music, images, and words to create your own flower, which would then be posted in the site’s gallery. You can also post the link on a student or teacher’s website/blog, and have students write about it as a language development activity. It’s supposed to inspire creativity.  It’s interesting, fun, and a bit weird.

MAKE A BOOK: With Picture Book Maker, you can easily create a…picture book (including text). It can be saved online or printed out. It’s super-easy to use, plus no registration is required. The url of your creation can be posted on a student/teacher blog or website.

It’s a short list this time, but the next one I’m sure will be filled with a ton of Christmas-related activities.

Screencasts are audio-narrated “tours” of what you see on your computer screen (they don’t have to narrated, but it works much better if they are). Screencasts that I have seen are primarily used to show how to use various computer applications. They are wonderful teaching tools, especially for technological dummies like myself.

They can also be used as good speaking opportunities for English Language Learners.

I’ve written a lot about how I use online video games with ELL’s. One thing I’d like to do is have students play video games using “walkthroughs” (instructions and hints about how best to “win”) and create instructional screencast ”walkthroughs” that would teach other students how to play the game.

Of course, students could also just leave a stationary picture on the screen and talk about it.

In order to make it on this list, the application needed to be accessible to ELL’s and not require any downloading of software, since downloads are problematic for many schools.

Here are my picks for The Best Tools For Making Screencasts:

As regular readers know, my favorite is Screentoaster. It couldn’t be more simple to use, and they’ve recently added both the ability to record audio and add subtitles. All you do after you log-in is click on a button, open up the window on your screen that you want to record, and it starts recording your screen.  After that’s been recorded, you can provide audio or subtitles.  And it’s free. I’ve also placed it on The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English.

DemoGirl also has a screencast on how to use that application, but it might not include its newest features.

Screencast-O-Matic is also nice, but a bit more complicated than Screentoaster.

Two newer apps that look good are Screenr and Screenjelly.

The great site Teacher Training videos has a screencast on how to use Screenjelly.

And, though I’m limiting this list to apps that require no software download, I do feel I have to at least mention Jing, which is a very popular free tool available by download. Teacher Training Videos also has a screencast explaining how to use Jing.

If you think I’m missing any tools, or if you have other ideas on how they can be used effectively with students, feel free to leave a comment.

You might also be interested in the other nearly 350 “The Best…” lists.

And you might want to consider subscribing to this blog for free, too.

Middlespot was the number two application in The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners — 2008, but since the number-one ranked site went out of business, I can safely say it’s my choice as the best search engine for ESL/EFL learners. It was also included in The Best Social Bookmarking Applications For English Language Learners & Other Students.

They just announced improvements in their site (you can see a video about them here), and I’ve got to say I’m quite impressed.

It’s so easy to save the pages, images, etc. that you’re looking for; you can easily write tags for each of them, and the best feature is that you can email or embed your work — all without registration. I’ve written in those “The Best…” lists, particularly the one on social bookmarking, on how useful an application like this can be in generating higher-order thinking among students. You might want to check out those ideas, and check out Middlespot.

All Our Stock has a bunch royalty-free images, and looks pretty good to me.

I’m adding it to The Best Online Sources For Images.

Thanks to the Make Use of blog for the tip.

The musical group Black Eyed Peas has created a site called Planting My Ideas. You can use music, images, and words to create your own flower, which would then be posted in the site’s gallery. You can also post the link on a student or teacher’s website/blog, and have students write about it as a language development activity. It’s supposed to inspire creativity.

It’s interesting, fun, and a bit weird.

I’ve been thinking of having students try to set-up and participate in an online debate that would involve both their classmates and others. It might be a good writing opportunity to prepare them for a persuasive essay, and a way to generate some high-interest reading possibilities as they prepare their positions.

I’ve been exploring what possible sites might be out there students can use. I’m narrowing them down but, since I haven’t actually had them do this activity yet, I can’t say positively which one is best. But I thought I’d share the conclusions I’ve reached after my initial experiments, and invite readers to share their experiences with these sites and others.

So, given that caveat, here are my choices for The Best Sites For Students To Create & Participate In Online Debates:

I like Create Debate a lot. One of its key advantages is that it appears to allow the creator of the debate to moderate the discussion. I’m imagining that a student can create the debate and that I then add it to the site under my name and within the initial prompt indicate which student started it. Then, they and others can contribute, but I can check regularly and delete any inappropriate comments made by others.

Heads Up seems to be an ideal site, and is specifically designed for students and teachers to use. However, it’s designed for use in the United Kingdom. I haven’t contacted them yet (but will soon) to see if non-UK schools can participate.

Opposing Views highlights key questions (political, scientific, etc). It then, in a fairly succinct “bullet” format, has an “expert” share pro and con arguments. Users of the site can also leave their own comments.  The language and lay-out of the site is fairly accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.  After reading the arguments, users can easily leave their own comments on the issue.

Two other sites – Riled Up and For And Against — appear to have some potential, but moderation of discussions on both sites seems very limited so I’d be concerned about using it in class.

Procon is not a site to participate in debates but, instead, offers what seems to be very well-researched pro and con positions on multiple controversial issues. It could serve as a good model for students to use as they craft their own positions.

Debategraph is in a category all its own. It looks like a cool way to visualize arguments, but I can’t quite figure it out.

Additional suggestions and feedback are 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.

A couple of days ago, I posted again about all of Tom Barrett’s great “Interesting Ways…” series.

Yesterday, he began several new ones, and put those in one place. They include ones on using the Wallwisher web application, the iPod Touch, and the Wii in the classroom. There are several others, and I’d encourage you to contribute to them.

I’ve added that new link to The Best Places To Learn Web 2.0 Basics.

With Picture Book Maker, you can easily create a…picture book (including text). It can be saved online or printed out. It’s super-easy to use, plus no registration is required. The url of your creation can be posted on a student/teacher blog or website.

Thanks to Angela Maiers for the tip.

Tom Barrett has developed a great series of “Interesting Ways” presentations giving practical examples of how teachers can use many Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. I’ve posted about them several times in the past, and have included them in The Best Places To Learn Web 2.0 Basics.

Tom has also just posted them all in one place at his blog, and they’re well worth a look.

Rrriple is another tool to create private groups on the web. At first glance, it looks pretty nice.

I’ve added it to Not “The Best,” But “A List” Of Social Network Sites.

Linklist lets you make lists of links with no registration required.

You can decide on your topic, write a short description, and then develop an ordered or non-ordered list. After you’re done, you’re given an embed code and url address for it.

What’s really neat about it, though, is that once you paste a url address into your list, the name of the link actually shows up as an active link. For example, as I was creating a list of my favorite books, all I did was search for them on Amazon, paste the url addresses of each book on the list, and the link that showed up was the name and author of the book. This kind of ease makes it very easy for students to use.

Linklist would really be great, though, if and when they add the ability to write additional descriptions next to each list item. Then it could be used more effectively for higher-order thinking skills like categorization. You can see The Best Social Bookmarking Applications For English Language Learners & Other Students for how and why I think this ability is so important.

Thanks to the Make Use of Blog for the tip.

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 — 2009.

Here are the newest additions:

SING “LOLLIPOP, LOLLIPOP”: One way to easily teach some vocabulary and practice speaking skills is by having students contribute singing a chorus of the great song “Lollipop, Lollipop” to the world’s biggest online choir.

DESIGN YOUR OWN CONSTELLATION: Create a constellation and post it on a student/teacher blog or website.

WRITE A STORY ABOUT A DOG: At The Dog’s Best Friend Gallery at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, you can pick a piece of dog-related artwork, write a story about it, and then post its url address on a student/teacher website or blog.

SEND A TATER TAUNT: In another weird example of viral marketing, you can use a text-to-speech feature to send your personally designed football “taunt.” I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that you have students use it for that purpose, but they could have some fun coming up with some kind of sports-related message that could be posted on their blog.

BE A STAR IN A HALF-TIME SHOW: Keeping with a bit of a football theme, you can search Flickr for a picture of anybody and make them a star in a college football half-time show, then post its link on a blog or website and write about it.

CREATE A MULTIMEDIA SHOW: Oamos is sure one wild search engine! You can use it to create a multimedia show, and then embed it.

COMPOSE A SONG: INudge lets you quickly compose your own song, which can be played on an embeddable widget.  No registration is required.

WRITE ABOUT A SPECIAL MEMORY: Away We Go is a movie (it actually sounds pretty interesting). But the reason it’s included here is the neat online tool they have on their website. You type in any address or location you want that has some kind of special memory for you, and your brought to it. Then, you have an option to pick one of quite a few different musical tracks that might remind you of that significant moment, your write about it, and then the song and what you have written appears on the map. No registration is required.

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You might also want to explore nearly 300 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.