If you don’t know what a wiki is, try the wikipedia entry for wiki (English, Japanese).
pbwiki is one of the simplest sites to set up a wiki. It is designed to be as easy to make as a peanut butter sandwich (pb). Now, if you are using Moodle, there is a built-in multilingual wiki. But if you aren’t, this is a great alternative.
YouTube is great for looking at and sharing video. But sometimes, you want more control over your distribution. With a Pro account (about $60 a year) at Vimeo, you can send out an email to people with a URL and a password. They don’t have to sign in to vimeo, or become a member. They can just watch the video online. And the videos can remain private to only those people you send emails to. You can also restrict which places can put up copies of your video (embedded) if you do decide to make the video public. There are also options to download the video as well as stream it. HD, or high definition, is the new standard in online video. Much better than previous versions.
If you use a projector in class, you probably have piles of powerpoint presentations. Why not let your students look at them at their leisure (and you can keep a copy online in case you lose the original). You can make a set of slides from a powerpoint presentation in minutes, upload it to SlideShare and share it publicly or privately.
You can add your voice to the slides if you like. This is a wonderful way to share your information with your students.
There are a lot of spoken word programs out there. People doing interviews, talking about their deepest darkest secrets, or just explaining things that they know. Spoken Word is a brand new (came out of beta today) site dedicated to collecting all these resources together. If you ever needed any authentic audio for your classroom, this is the place to get it. If you have a spoken word podcast or resource, you can get people to come to it. I’m going to add my student podcast Talking Tokyo as soon as I finish here.
Today is Friday, and it’s the 13th. So why not try your luck? StumbleUpon is a great way to explore the web for new and interesting things. Better than browsing, you can explore what other people find interesting. Sign up for an account and start finding people that have similar interests and you can refine what you find. A great way to take a quick break, a mental vacation, and maybe discover something new.