Wonderful Web Sites

Going through my RSS feeds today I rediscovered a couple of great web sites and found some new ones.  Check these out!

LoudLit is a site that offers free mps downloads of classic works of literacture, along with a read and listen feature.  The selections are limited since the site relies on donations to pay for production of the recordings.  They offer the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Heart of Darkness, The Scarlet Letter, The Secret Sharer, Tale of Two Cities, and Typee.  They have Great Expectations now available as a read and listen selection, but not for audio donwload.  They also feature several poems and short stories.  Thsi would be a great resource for your students with reading disabilities!

Another great site that I had forgotten about is eHow.  eHow gives written or video directions about how to do almost anything you can imagine.  Want to learn PowerPoint, knitting, cooking, plumbing...?  It's all here.  Most articles and videos are submitted by users, although some feature professionals.  Users can rate the how to guides, so you can see whether others have found the instructions useful.  It's a great resource for students or adults.

Another great resource for adults is one I discovered today.  Called Academic Earth, this site aggregates college and university lectures from across the country.  You can "audit" courses from Harvard, Yale, or many other universities.  Expand your mind in the new year!

Another aggregator that I find very interesting is Popurls (pronounced like popular).  This site aggregates conventional news outlets like the New York Times, but it also aggregates Twitter, Delicious, Digg, Reddit, Flickr, YouTube, Google blogs, and many other sites.  It's a one stop shop for what's happening on the Internet.

Another site that is new to me is a free email provider specifically for kids called Zilladog.  This site provides children a free email account.  The site is filtered, and parents can create the account with a login password that gives them access to their child's email.  It's a great way to let younger children learn about email and how to use it appropriately and responsibly.