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.

With the unveiling today of Google’s “Peanut Gallery” (which I’ll discuss in a moment), I thought it would make sense to create a new “The Best…” list sharing a few tools that let you create subtitles for silent movies. Well, not only silent movies. There are some tools that let you come up with subtitles for shows in various other languages, and language teachers can have students enjoy coming up with subtitles for them in the language they are speaking. These kinds of tasks are fun language-learning activities, and I’ve used them a lot with English Language Learners.

Here are a few:

First, of course, is Google’s Peanut Gallery which 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. You can read more about it at Richard Byrne’s blog and at TIME (thanks to
Ron Genech for the tip). One negative, however, is that it only works in the Chrome Browser.

Many ESL Teachers are familiar with Bombay TV, Futebol TV and Classik TV, which let you create subtitles for various clips (you can guess what kind of clips by each of their names).

The Artistifier used to let you do this kind of thing with any YouTube video, but it seems to be having some technical difficulties these days. I don’t know if this is a long-term or short-term problem.

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. Here’s one about standardized testing that you can find on my A Collection Of The Best “Laugh While You Cry” Videos — Contribute More!:

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

It could be used for engaging language practice. 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.

I’d love to hear of other similar tools out there.