AniBoom Shapeshifter is a new site where you can make animations online, email the url, and have it posted on a website, online student journal or blog.  People can comment on the animation, either on the student’s blog/journal or directly on the Shapeshifter website.

Obviously, the making of the animation doesn’t contribute much to English language development.  However, having the student describe what they’ve created and then make comments on the creations made by other students could be a good exercise for English Language Learners. 

I’ve placed it in the Student Animations section of the Examples of Student Work page.

Some of the animations found on this site might be inappropriate for students, just as some of the other cartoons found on Toon Doo (an online comic-strip maker I posted about a couple of days ago) might be off-color.  However, in my experience, students are pretty focused on making their own creation and looking at those made by their friends in class.  They don’t seem to have much interest in exploring other parts of the sites.  Teachers probably want to carefully “monitor the monitors,” just in case.

I learned about this site from the Webware blog, which is an excellent place to learn about new Web 2.0 applications.