This mid-year 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 Two

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 2013 – So Far (Not in any order of preference):

You Made That is a pretty simple New York Times interactive that lets you create an abstract painting and then share the url address of your creation. No registration is required.

ScreenToys lets you combine two famous faces (or other images of your choice) into weird creatures. No registration is required, and you’re given the url address of your creation. English Language Learners can post their link on a class blog and describe it in writing and verbally.

To celebrate Arbor Day, a company called “Knock” (I think it’s an advertising agency) has created a “We Heart Trees” site. Anyone can create a virtual tree, including “accessories” and a vocal expression, and you’re given a unique url to what you’ve made.

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.

Feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at the 1100 other “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Here are This Week’s “Links I Should Have Posted About, But Didn’t”:

I’m adding this video to A Beginning List Of The Best Geography Sites For Learning About Asia & The Middle East:

This is Shanghai from Rob Whitworth on Vimeo.

I’m adding this next interactive to The Best Resources For World Biodiversity Day (& Endangered Species Day):

Nine Things Educators Need to Know About the Brain is from Daily Good. I’m adding it to The Best Resources On “Brain-Based Learning” — Help Me Find More.

Grit: The Other 21st Century Skills is by Jackie Gerstein. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About The Importance Of “Grit.”

If I Were a Black Kid… is by Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic.

‘Soda Mouth’ Can Look A Lot Like ‘Meth Mouth’ is from NPR. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Nutrition & Food Safety.

Beyond the Book: Infographics of Students’ Reading History is from Edutopia. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Creating Infographics.

I’m adding this infographic to The Best Resources About President’s Day:

Abraham Lincoln: The Life of a Legend infographic

Today, I’m lucky enough to interview Carla Arena (you can follow her on Twitter, too) from Brazil. As most readers know, huge protests have been happening there.

What led you to become an English teacher, and where and to whom do you teach?

I became an English teacher due to an irresistible call when I was taking a Teacher Development Course at the Binational Center in Brasilia that I work for nowadays, Casa Thomas Jefferson. At that time, I was taking this teacher course at that time just to keep up with English and because I loved the language. I was a public servant then and had no idea my life would be turned upside down on the day I taught my first English class for beginner adults as part of my course practicum. It was simply love at first sight. Adrenaline rushed through my body, and I realized at that point what I was meant for, what my drive was. From there, I did everything within my reach to become a teacher at Casa Thomas Jefferson, quit my job, became an English teacher and actively engaged in professional development opportunities to be qualified for the teaching position at the renowned English language institute in my hometown. Nowadays, I train teachers, teach a group of teens, teach online.

How and why did the protests begin in Brazil? To many of us outside of the country, they appeared to come out of nowhere.

I’m continuing my mid-year “The Best…” lists ….

You might also be interested in:

The Best Science Sites Of 2012 — Part Two

The Best Science Sites Of 2012 — Part One

The Best Science Sites Of 2011

The Best Science Sites Of 2011 — So Far

The Best Science Websites — 2010

The Best Science & Math Sites — 2009

The Best Science & Math Websites — 2008

The Best Science Websites For Students & Teachers — 2007

Here are my choices for The Best Science Sites Of 2013 — So Far (not in any order of preference):

Wonderground is a game from General Electric where you visit various cities in The United States and are given “missions” to explore them and make discoveries related to science and history. It would be accessible to high Intermediate English Language Learners and others, and it’s very engaging.

Here Is Today is a cool interactive infographic.

I learned about it from Information Aesthetics, who described it like this:

Ranging from one day to one eon, and framing the time periods different kinds of species emerged on Earth, the timeline ribbon acts like a dynamic stacked bar chart that enables easy comparison.
It’s Okay To Be Smart is a new PBS Science Show On YouTube that looks like it may have some potential. It’s hosted by biologist Joe Hanson. He also has a supporting blog for the show.

The Guardian has  published an interactive infographic that lets you see the temperature change over the past one hundred years in most locations in the world. Just type in your city and country and, voila, you see it graphed for your location.

NASA released this video showing temperature changes in the world since 1880 and including 2012 — it’s an updated version of one they’ve released in previous years.

I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About Climate Change.

Feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at the 1100 other “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Of course, this strategy is not limited to community organizing or to the classroom.

Science Daily has just published a fascinating report on the use of this kind of strategy by medical students with dementia patients. Their purpose was to building on the creative assets of patients through having them tell stories based on thought-provoking photographs.

Their strategy, called TimeSlips, seems in many ways similar to TPR Storytelling in second-language classes (at least to my untrained — in both TimeSlips and in TPRS — eye).

I’ve embedded two videos of TimeSlips in action at the end of this post. However, before I end with them I want to point out that I’m blogging about it for more reasons than just the fact it has an interesting connection to teaching a second language (though the fact that dementia is beginning to make itself known in my family also makes it particularly interesting to me).

The TimeSlips website is also perfect for English Language Learners. It has many great images and encourages people to write their own stories about them. In fact, they also provide multiple scaffolded prompts for each image.

I’m adding the post, and their site, to various “The Best…” lists, including:

The Best Ways To Use Photos In Lessons

The Best Online Tools For Using Photos In Lessons

The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An “Authentic Audience”

Here are two videos about TimeSlips:

I wouldn’t say it promotes higher-level thinking but, of course, I would say the same thing about most (if not all) of the sites on The Best Sites That Students Can Use Independently And Let Teachers Check On Progress. They are, however, useful for reinforcement of certain skills at home or at the computer lab for an occasional change of pace.

One thing that Newsela does have going for it is the different levels of complexity it offers for the same article. That increases the odds of it being useful to English Language Learners.

One thing Newsela does not have going for it is that though it’s free for a “trial,” it clearly indicates that it will cost at some point but the only way you can find out the price is if you send them an email. That makes me a bit suspicious, especially since most of the other sites on my previously mentioned “The Best” list are free.

Nevertheless, at least until they start charging, I’ll be adding Newsela to that list.

Here’s yet another mid-year “The Best…” list….

You might also be interested in:

The Best Articles, Videos & Posts On Education Policy In 2012 — Part Two

The Best Articles, Videos & Posts On Education Policy In 2012 — Part One

The Best Articles & Posts On Education Policy In 2011 — Part Two

The Best Articles & Posts On Education Polcy In 2011 — Part One

The Best Articles & Posts On Education Policy — 2010

The “Best” Articles (And Blog Posts) About Education Policy — 2009

The “Best” Articles About Education — 2008

The “Best” Articles About Education — 2007

Here are my choices for The Best Articles & Posts On Education Policy In 2013 — So Far (not listed in order of preference):

Here’s a great video animation created by Scott McLeod where he imagines a conversation between a policy maker and an educator about “teacher accountability.”

I’m adding it to A Collection Of The Best “Laugh While You Cry” Videos.

How Michelle Rhee Misled Education Reform is an extraordinary article in this week’s New Republic magazine. It’s written by Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and author of several exceptional books.

Here’s a short excerpt:

What teachers need and reformers ignore: time to collaborate is an important column by Linda Darling-Hammond that appeared in The Washington Post this week.

I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles About The Importance Of Teacher (& Student) Working Conditions.

Here’s an excerpt:

The PBS News Hour aired an impressive report on project-based learning in a Kentucky school district. I’m embedding the video below, but it might not come through on an RSS Reader:

Watch School District Uses Project Based Learning Over Testing on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

The report refers to an interesting program in that state called “districts of innovation. You can read more about them here and here.

I’m adding this info to The Best Sites For Cooperative Learning Ideas and to The Best Articles Describing Alternatives To High-Stakes Testing.

Teachers Make Handy Scapegoats, But Spiraling Inequality Is Really What Ails Our Education System is an interview with Linda Darling Hammond.

The New Yorker published a great piece titled Seattle’s Low-Stakes Testing Trap. Here’s a quote:

There was a very important column in  New York Times titled The Secret To Fixing Bad Schools. It was written by David L. Kirp from the University of California.

He focused on the positive performance of schools in Union City, New Jersey. Here’s an excerpt:

What makes Union City remarkable is, paradoxically, the absence of pizazz. It hasn’t followed the herd by closing “underperforming” schools or giving the boot to hordes of teachers. No Teach for America recruits toil in its classrooms, and there are no charter schools.

A quarter-century ago, fear of a state takeover catalyzed a transformation. The district’s best educators were asked to design a curriculum based on evidence, not hunch. Learning by doing replaced learning by rote. Kids who came to school speaking only Spanish became truly bilingual, taught how to read and write in their native tongue before tackling English. Parents were enlisted in the cause. Teachers were urged to work together, the superstars mentoring the stragglers and coaches recruited to add expertise. Principals were expected to become educational leaders, not just disciplinarians and paper-shufflers.

Philanthropy: You’re doing it wrong is by Felix Salmon.

It’s a must-read. Here’s how it ends:

Philanthropy has always been self-serving in large part, and that’s never going to end. But there’s no good reason why you should be part of the problem.

New Research Shows Why Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Character Education Are Not Enough is a post I wrote. I don’t think the post itself belongs on this list, but it highlights and connects two pieces that do — one by Mike Rose, and another on a new research study.

David B. Cohen wrote an excellent post about the Common Core debate that arose out of my Education Week Teacher column  on implementing the Common Core in Language Arts.

More Evidence Showing The Dangers Of Using High-Stakes Testing For Teacher Evaluation is another post I wrote. Again, the post itself doesn’t deserve to be on the list, but the research it highlights does…

Feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at the 1100 other “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Here’s an excerpt:

You might be interested in The Best Sites For Learning About World Refugee Day.

Here’s the latest in my mid-year“The Best…” posts….

You might also be interested in:

The Best Videos For Educators In 2012 — Part Two

The Best Videos For Educators In 2012 — Part One

The Best Videos For Educators In 2011

Part Two Of The Best Videos For Educators — 2010

The Ten Best Videos For Educators — 2010

And you might also want to see The Best Funny Videos Showing The Importance Of Being Bilingual — Part One ; The Best Videos Illustrating Qualities Of A Successful Language Learner and The Best Fun Videos About Books & Reading.

You might also want to check out The Best Video Collections For Educators.

Here are my choices for The Best Videos For Educators In 2013 – So Far:

Jason Flom shared this great video on the importance of making mistakes. I’m adding it to The Best Posts, Articles & Videos About Learning From Mistakes & Failures.

This demonstrates both the disadvantages of extrinsic motivation and the importance of helping our students develop creativity. I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles On “Motivating” Students and to The Best Sources Of Advice On Helping Students Strengthen & Develop Their Creativity:

Here’s a cute video that would be a fun introduction to the lesson on self-control in my book, Helping Students Motivate Themselves (and it could be used with any of the other ideas I share in The Best Posts About Helping Students Develop Their Capacity For Self-Control).

A willingness to take risks is an important quality of a language learner, which is why I’m adding this video to The Best Videos Illustrating Qualities Of A Successful Language Learner:

Story, Imagery, & the Art of 21st Century Presentation is a very good video of Garr Reynolds on presentation skills. I’m adding it to The Best Digital (& Non-Digital) Storytelling Resources.

Here’s a great video animation created by Scott McLeod where he imagines a conversation between a policy maker and an educator about “teacher accountability.”

I’m adding it to A Collection Of The Best “Laugh While You Cry” Videos.

Dan Pink has posted a nice and short video demonstrating the importance of asking good questions.

I’m adding it to….The Best Videos Showing The Importance Of Asking Good Questions.

You may have heard about the late David Foster Wallace’s amazing commencement address from several years ago at Kenyon College. A video, using his audio, was unveiled on the Web, and has since been seen millions of times. Here’s the video (you can read the transcript here). Here are previous posts where I’ve also highlighted particularly notable commencement addresses:

This TED Talk video from Rita Pierson on “Every Kid Needs A Champion” is a great one. I had never heard of Rita Pierson before, but she makes great points. I wonder how and why she got connected to Ruby Payne? (see The Best Critiques Of Ruby Payne).

I’m adding the video to The Best Resources On The Importance Of Building Positive Relationships With Students.

This is a great entertaining video, and it got me wondering if it could be a model for some class projects — would it make sense for students to create similar videos demonstrating the historical transitions in, let’s say, the rule of law, or how children were treated (or, as one reader suggested, changing scientific beliefs)? You’d want to be very, very careful (and I’d probably avoid it) with using it to examine racial and gender attitudes, but there may very well be other attitudes that would be worth examining. At the very least, the video will offer a few minutes of enjoyable entertainment:

What a great video to help teach “Perception” to IB Theory Of Knowledge students:

Here’s another short video that would be great to teach “perception” in IB Theory of Knowledge classes. Thanks to Michelle Henry for the tip:

The PBS News Hour aired an impressive report on project-based learning in a Kentucky school district. I’m embedding the video below, but it might not come through on an RSS Reader:

Watch School District Uses Project Based Learning Over Testing on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

The report refers to an interesting program in that state called “districts of innovation. You can read more about them here and here.

I’m adding this info to The Best Sites For Cooperative Learning Ideas and to The Best Articles Describing Alternatives To High-Stakes Testing.

The Anti-Defamation League has launched an “Imagine a World Without Hate” video and action campaign with the posting of this pretty amazing video. It can be used in many ways, including as part of a “what if?” history lesson. That’s why I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Teaching “What If?” History Lessons:

Rick Wormeli shared these two very useful videos of education researcher John Hattie:

I’m adding this excellent video on how African men are stereotyped in Hollywood movies to The Best Geography Sites For Learning About Africa. It’ll be a great way to also get my ESL students to start talking about how they feel their cultures have also been stereotyped.

The wonderful StoryCorps stories on NPR are great pieces to read and listen to on the radio. They also have converted a number of them into short video animations, and many of them (though not the one I’ve embedded below) are closed-captioned.

Here is one of my favorites — with the late, great Studs Terkel:

I’m adding this video to The Best Resources About Wealth & Income Inequality:

The well-regarded documentary The Finland Phenomenon is now online for free and is embedded below. I learned about its availability via a tweet by Pasi Sahlberg, which also included a radio interview. I’m adding it to The Best Resources To Learn About Finland’s Education System.

The Gates Foundation  released a new one of Hans Rosling’s “magic” world data videos (you can see his previous ones I’ve posted here). Check it out:

The eagle in this video certainly illustrates an example of perseverance. I’m adding it to The Best Videos Illustrating Qualities Of A Successful Language Learner:

I’m adding this video to The Best Resources On Helping Our Students Develop A “Growth Mindset”:

NASA released this video showing temperature changes in the world since 1880 and including 2012 — it’s an updated version of one they’ve released in previous years. I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About Climate Change.

What A Great Video To Show The Importance Of Modeling & Support:

Dan Pink was interviewed on CBS, and it really gets at some key elements of motivation and goal-setting. There’s nothing new there for people familiar with his work, but it’s a great piece to show to colleagues and to students. I’ve embedded it below, though am not sure if it will show-up in an RSS Reader:

I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles On “Motivating” Students and to The Best Posts On Students Setting Goals.

Eduardo Briceño is the Co-Founder, with Dr. Carol Dweck, of Mindset Works:

I’m adding it to The Best Resources On Helping Our Students Develop A “Growth Mindset.”

I wouldn’t put this next video in the same class as the other ones on this list, but I think readers might still find it useful. Eye On Education, the publisher of my new books on student motivation, Helping Students Motivate Themselves and Self-Driven Learning, have just posted a short video clip from a webinar I did for them.

In it, I share three strategies that can help students develop intrinsic motivation:

Feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at the 1,100 other “The Best…” lists and consider subscribing to this blog for free.