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My now static collection (about 900!) of
fun, interesting, and inspirational quotes. They are arranged in no
particular order; that's work for another day. These form part of the
"intro" that I use in workshops before starting in the morning
and (often) after lunch. (New quotes go into these materials.) Link is to a Word® file so you can easily use
them for bulletin notices and activities. |
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| Here's a link to one of my favorite sources for quotes. | |||
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Formerly ThinkArete.Com contains a wonderful selection of inspirational quotes hand-picked by the site's founder. |
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Interesting,
little known, unusual, strange facts. Again, many of these are in the
"intro".
Thanks to Seth for sending me so many of
these. Others come from Trivia
Time. |
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Many of you have asked for a list of the music used during a workshop. Here's the current version. All have been downloaded from iTunes - not to give then a plug. There's just about 3 hours of good listening here.While I've added a few of my own selections, the original (and, by far, the largest portion of the selections) comes from a Slow Playlist collection developed by Rhett Laubach. Here's the click here to go to his information on how to access both the Slow and Fast Playlists at iTunes. You might also enjoy his blog related to powerful public speaking and keeping PowerPoint from becoming powerpointless. |
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Shahi is a visual dictionary that combines Wiktionary content with Flickr images, and more! |
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| If you love words, check alphadictionary. Among other things - take the Yankee or Rebel quiz; learn about folk etymologies; check over 300 on-line foreign language dictionaries; search 1065 Online English Dictionaries at Once | |||
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Life's
lessons, truisms, and twists. This list includes Murphy's Laws of
Technology. |
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These
must be endless! This group addresses science and experiments - but
many relate to life! This page is large and loads slowly. If you want just
the text, click here. |
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Paul
B. Salmon, former executive director of the American Association of School
Administrators, gives school administrators 23 laws - not the only things
one needs to be a successful school administrator, but, Salmon says, they
can't hurt you. |
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| How good is good enough? Great for after lunch activity for early returnees. | |||
| The article “Who’s got the monkey” by William Oncken is one of the two best selling articles Harvard Business Review articles ever. It has been reprised by Steven Covey below. Even if you have read it before, it is well worth re-reading every now and then. | |||
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Discuss and Decide or Refer and Report | ||
| From Warren Benis' book, On Becoming a Leader (Addison-Wesley, 1994) | |||
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Wouldn't it be great if someone created an online game
that builds student vocabulary in a way that has kids clamoring to
play? And wouldn't it be great if we could solve the problem of world
hunger? Free Rice combines these two
worthy (if disparate) goals. Each word defined correctly builds your
tally of grains of rice donated to poor communities, and the game is
designed to scale the difficulty of the words up or down depending on
your responses. This features allows students of almost any age or
ability to enjoy it. |
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| Write clearly. But, for fun, you can create new and interesting jargon. | |||
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Steven Covey's 2x2 matrix asking us to question the
importance and urgency of each task. Covey suggests that virtually all
of our work be in the "Important but not Urgent" quadrant. We all know
that we'll take care of the "Important and Urgent" tasks and that there's no
time for the "Not Important and Not Urgent" group.
(.gif file) |
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Another 2x2 matrix asking if people are willing and able for
the task. Our response to each of the four types of people must be
different.
(.gif file) |
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Often writers struggle for the right verb. These lists can trigger new thoughts. | ||
| A technical writer now makes her living as Grammar Girl, a character created for a grammar-infused podcast that is growing in popularity. Learn the difference between lay and lie; how not to split infinitives, and other mysteries of grammar. | |||
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In the modern world we fire off emails, texts, and instant messages with astonishing speed, and often astonishingly bad grammar. Inspired by the successful book Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, this fun game consists of 20 questions that will test your punctuation skills. |
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Use the on line version to update your
knowledge about proper usage. There's also a a download version for $25 and
a Deluxe version which includes spelling slammer for $49. |
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With AltaVista Babel Fish, your users can translate passages of text or entire Web pages among nine languages, or they can quickly translate your page into their language of choice. Available in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese, the service is free! |
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| Common advise from knowledgeable horse trainers includes the adage, "If the horse you're riding dies, get off!" Simple enough, yet in the education business we don't always follow that advice. | |||
| Gladiola Montana looks at change through the eyes of a cowgirl. | |||
| With appreciation to the unknown soul who gathered this ageless wisdom. | |||
| Help staff members relax, enjoy life, and keep using stress management skills. Thanks to Judi and Karen for sharing this one with me at different times. | |||
| This often used analogy teaches us about leadership and group processes. | |||
| From the California Assembly Select Committee on Low Performing Schools (1999). | |||
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So the story goes, The Washington Post published
these winning new words for 2005 from a contest sponsored by Mensa.
They're fun, however, there's no reference to the "contest" on either
sponsoring organization's website nor does either organization take
public credit for the contest or the winners. These are often the "adult
entertainment" after lunch. |
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| For those who have asked, here's the link to the complete list of the "All-Time Best of the worst country song titles." I do not vouch for their authenticity. | |||
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Test your personality, intelligence, stress level, and
several other personal characteristics! |
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They
say that "All life's wisdom can be found in anagrams. Anagrams
never lie." The truths they tell may not bring enlightenment, but
they can be surpassingly accurate. Rearrange all the letters in
"Clint Eastwood," for example, and get "Old West
Action." Input any word, name, or phrase to get a list of its
anagrams. |
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Most
people know about claustrophobia, agoraphobia, and xenophobia. But do you
know what people fear when they suffer from ephebiphobia,
logizomechanophobia, or homichlophobia? Teenagers, computers, and fog.
Learn about hundreds of phobias at this site. |
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Many
of you have heard me extol the virtues of a name tag in the form of a neck
wallet without know where to purchase them. Here's the scoop! While
many promotional companies sell them in a variety of colors and shapes,
the only place to purchase just a few are currently Office Max and
Office Depot - black only. |
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This site lives up to its name with useful tips on how to
clean pretty much anything you could possibly own or get dirty. All your
cleaning needs will be met with instructions on how to polish everything
from mold on your boat to Christmas Tree sap. |
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These optical puzzles from MindWare ("brainy toys for kids of all ages") provide right brains with fantastic colors and dazzling energy. Left brains just want to "figure it out." There are 9 (3 sets of 3) Illusion , 9 animal kingdom, 9 world squzzles. You'll find them in the "puzzles" section. Interesting, you get no results when you search on "squzzle." | ||
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Described as "an Internet Kid World guide to being a great
iKidWorld Web Wizard," this link is to interesting and "cool stuff"
on the Internet. How2Kids helps kids
learn how to do
things from other kids. Both sites have great additional links for students, parents,
and teachers! |
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This site salutes "the improvement of the
species by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it,
thereby ensuring that the next generation is one idiot smarter. Of
necessity, this award is (generally) bestowed posthumously." |
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The art and science of traveling very light. |
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Eating Well is a nutritious website
created by The George Mateljan Foundation, a non-profit organization "free
of commercial influence" that aims to educate the public about the benefits
of eating healthy and to provide support for those who are interested in
improving their diet. You'll find a wealth of nutritional information, which
is divided into three main sections entitled "Eating Healthy", "Cooking
Healthy", and "Feeling Great". Browse to find great recipes, info on topics
such as Organic Food, Seasonal Eating, and Essential Nutrients, as well as
free food-related features like the "Food Advisor", a list of 130 "World's
Healthiest Foods", daily recipes, and a weekly bulletin. |
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| If you aren't familiar with The Oriental
Trading Company, you can buy a gross of almost anything for $19.95 or less.
Select timely and clever objects to add to meeting notices, to spice up
thank you notes, and to serve as prizes.
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| Way too many great cookie recipes! | |||
| As if the cookies weren't enough...... | |||
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Through extensive research, Search
Institute has identified the 40 building blocks of healthy development
that help young people grow up healthy, caring, and responsible. The
asset definitions shown in this chart are based on research on
adolescents (6th to 12th grades).
Here's the
link to their research.
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| Questia is
the world's largest online educational library providing secondary schools
with valuable resources 24/7. Teachers and student have unlimited
simultaneous use to all of the materials from school, home, or vacation.
Cost is based on school enrollment. Speak to a representative at
888-950-2580. |
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| It's tough enough to keep up with everyday
news. Imagine being a surgeon, engineer or mathematician trying to keep
track of advances in your field. And as a consumer, you want your surgeon
or attorney to know everything, right now. At Info Retrieve, professionals
get help digesting their ever-expanding fields of knowledge.
Billed as the "definitive research portal," the site finds and delivers published materials in a wide range of categories, from the arts to physics. The one-stop journal shopping site is a vast and diverse virtual library, gathering both electronic info sources. The site also offers an alert service with tables of contents of journals the user selects and stores in a profile, and pay-per-view content for in-depth searches. |
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Explanations of just how lots of stuff works - automobiles,
science, health, communications, travel.
HowStuffWorks has won the 2007 Webby
Award and People's Voice Award in the Best Copy/Writing and Education
categories, for a total of four awards. |
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Then, there's eHow - how to do just about everything with
articles and videos from experts as well as user-contributed ones. |
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And, University of Virginia physics professor Louis A. Bloomfield uses his site to answer questions from students and other curious Web surfers about the inner workings of the physical world (with a particular emphasis on electronics and machinery). A good place to start browsing is the "Select Topic" menu in the left-hand navigation bar, which lets you jump quickly to subjects that interest you. |
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This cool website
which students, parents and teachers will want to bookmark. Created by
Barbican Education, the site provides educators with fresh ideas and
great resources to help inspire creative writing in their students.
Simply choose from one of the four sections of the site, including "The
Elements," "Changing Voices," "The Human Body," and "The Odyssey". Once
inside, you can watch slideshows of inspiring, topical images, listen to
poetry, and find classroom activities that will galvanize the collective
imagination of your students. |
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| Anyone
studying literature needs this site bookmarked. Reference, verse, fiction,
and nonfiction all available and searchable. |
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Part of Bartleby, this one is so mission
critical you just might want to keep a hard copy on your shelf. This classic
reference book is a must-have for any student and conscientious writer.
Intended for use in which the practice of composition is combined with the
study of literature, it gives in brief space the principal requirements of
plain English style and concentrates attention on the rules of usage and
principles of composition most commonly violated. |
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| So many books, so little time. Those who have
already multi-tasked themselves out of their book group may find a solution
at Book-A-Minute, where readers can digest an entire season of Oprah picks
on your lunch break.
As the name suggests, the site condenses books of all kinds into a script-like format anyone can read in under a minute. The oft-dreaded text Beowulf, for example, becomes five quick lines that pretty much capture the main plot points, if not the poetry, of the original. Books are grouped by Science Fiction/Fantasy, Bedtime, and Classics and occasionally readers are allowed to vote - very quickly - for their favorites. |
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| Try this companion site.
With these ultra-condensed versions of your favorite films, you can
experience whole movies in just one minute! |
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Students, writers, and poetry lovers will be pleased to
discover this cool site. Part of the PoetryFoundation.Org website, The
Poetry Tool allows users to easily search through a vast database of poetry,
articles, audio, and other information. Browse through the site's
significant archive of poems, poets, audio/visuals, articles, and other
literary materials. Visitors looking for a specific piece can find it easily
by searching by "Category", "Occasion", "Title", or "First Line". Parents
and kids will enjoy the Poetry Tool's special "Children's" section, which
contains a list of age-relevant poetry for young readers. |
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Amateur chefs, aspiring gourmets, and loving
parents will all appreciate the Recipe Source website. The site is the new
home of the Searchable Online Archive of Recipes (SOAR), which allows you to
search through literally thousands of delicious recipes by Keyword, Region
(for Ethnic Cuisines), or Type of Dish. Foodies will happily find ethnic
recipes from everywhere from Armenia to Wales, as well as tasty tips on
preparing desserts, healthy meals, Holiday foods, appetizers and much more. |
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The human body is one of Nature's truly incredible achievements, a complex creation of interconnected systems that we all call home. InnerBody.Com presents Human Body Online, a virtual tour of human anatomy that explores its many different systems of the body. Take a closer look at the diverse, biological architecture of the human body by simply clicking on the icons. You will find virtually interactive, educational guides to the "Skeletal", "Digestive", "Muscular", "Lymphatic", "Nervous", "Cardiovascular", and "Reproductive" systems of the body. | ||
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Luxembourg is the richest country in the world
and Finland is the cleanest- and has the most cell phones. Here is a
one-stop site for fast answers to basic questions about any country in the
world, with continental and world rankings in dozens of categories. Tons of interesting facts are assembled here for use by trivia fans, research paper writers, journalists or people who need to square a bet. Search by categories like economic, social, technological or environmental, or by continent. A nifty World Almanac lets you choose a country and a fact, like population or climate, for an instant answer. |
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This powerful website displays a
variety of World Statistics in real-time, helping people to bridge the gap
between abstract global concepts and important, objective data. The
Worldometers site let's you watch the world turn with your very own eyes,
with immediate stats relating to crucial issues such as "The Environment",
"Food", "Health", "Water", and "Energy". Visitors will watch in awe as the
Worldometer tracks a list of statistics, some frightening and some amusing,
such as the current Earth population, the rate of forest loss, the number of
bicycles produced annually, the amount of money Americans spend on perfume,
and many other mind-blowing figure. |
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Whether you are fascinated by Geography, International
Politics, or General Trivia, this website is sure to be worthy of a
bookmark. NationMaster.Com is a virtual treasure trove of information, a
central data source with extensive facts on the many different nations of
the world. Combining a wealth of data from the UN, the CIA World Factbook,
and OECD, Nation Master allows users to use statistics, as well as generate
graphs and maps to compare the resources of different countries. Learn about
individual nations, compare stats on everything from "soft drink
consumption" to "endangered species population", and check out the "Flags"
section to the many unique colors and symbols of the world's nations. |
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| With gas prices hitting a record high of four dollars per gallon in some places, we all need to be environmentally and financially conscious at the pump. Gas Buddy compiles current data from 180 "price information" websites, making it a useful tool for finding the cheapest gas in your neighborhood or city. | |||
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This site can be a bit frustrating because it provides library catalogs and bibliographic information for books and resources held in worldwide libraries, but it's also a front end to the Library's special exhibits. The exhibits are beautiful, but distractions if they're not on topic. A new search engine that's in beta now and turns up voice recordings, still images, and other multimedia as well as text should make searching through the catalog easier. | ||
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Listening to "books on tape" is a relatively modern
practice, a practical alternative to reading that is used by the
visually impaired, regular road trippers, and many other people.
Librivox.Org is an ambitious project that, with the help of many
volunteers, aims to convert every single book in the United States
public domain into free, downloadable audio files. This non-profit, open
source website takes podcasting to a whole new level, with its bold goal
of the "acoustical liberation of books in the public domain". The
virtual library is filled with thousands of "audiobooks" that have been
diligently recorded one chapter at a time by volunteer readers.
Download an audio book of interest, browse the latest news on the
project, or volunteer your free time and become an official Librivox
reader. |
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| Think of
RefDesk as a giant portal to every reference guide you'd ever need.
Dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases. The Farmer's Almanac, daily newspapers
from around the world, the CIA Factbook, the Merck Manual, and that's just a
few. RefDesk is as close to a resource of resources that you'll find. |
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| Enter a date and get a "time capsule," a listing of the top news headlines, songs, toys and books, plus sample prices (like stamps at 2 cents each in 1921) and a list of celebrities born on that day. A cool birthday gift, the list can also be customized by adding your own headlines, songs, etc. to those of history. | |||
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Anyone who has ever conducted research online should make their way through
the stacks to the Library Spot, a "vertical portal" that helps users
sidestep information overload to access the best library and reference
materials on the web today.
Internet info-seekers will find this award-winning site an invaluable resource for online research. More than just a vast collection of URLs, each site featured is selected for exceptional quality, content and usefulness by an editorial team. The result is a guide to a vast diversity of material: historical, grammatical, statistical, even image libraries, plus links to other library sites and a Reading Room for newspapers, journals and magazines. |
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In
addition to news about the latest words and phrases to gain dictionary
status, the site has word quizzes, puzzles and crosswords; a jargon buster
to help average Joes understand what's so bad about errors like dangling
participles; a searchable database of FAQs on such topics as word origins,
spelling and dictionaries; articles and interviews about English usage;
and a chance to ask the Oxford experts anything to do with the English
language. |
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People
spend a lot of time exercising and eating well these days in an effort to
stay fit, but what can do we do to keep our minds in great shape? This cool
article by the Online Education Database (OEDb) offers 77 tips on how tone
your noggin into a "faster, deeper, and better" learning machine. "Hacking
Knowledge" breaks down these valuable and tips into more specific categories
such as "Health", "Verbal and Auditory", "Recall", "Perspective and Focus",
"Self-Motivation" and more. Browse through the OEDb article and pick up
some great techniques on how to train your brain to improve aspects of your
personal, professional, academic, and even spiritual life. |
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Trivia buffs and random knowledge seekers will love this fact-filled website. Part of CoolQuiz.Com, the site delivers a daily dose of random information, bizarre facts, riddles, quotes and other tidbits that will keep you busy for hours. Browse through the many fun features on the Cool Quiz website, which is updated everyday with brand new useless info. Highlights include "Bad Predictions", which glimpses back at erroneous historical prognostications, as well as the section entitled "That Explains It!" where visitors can find answers to some of life's most cryptic questions. |
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Whether you are a first-time visitor, or a long time fan of
the wonderfully original blog Neatorama.Com, you will love their "only"
section. 'Neatorama Only' features the best, worst, smallest, largest,
first, oldest, and coolest of pretty much every subject this quirky blog has
ever showcased. Browse the section and find truly memorable posts, including
photos and write-ups on "The Worst Molasses-related Disaster", "The Top Ten
Coolest BBQ Grills", "The Oldest Photography", and the adorable "Top 15
Amazingly Fattest Cats". |
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"If you could teach the world just one thing about
science and why?" is the question asked in this interesting article. The article
contains the responses to the compelling question as given by eleven
Nobel Laureates and hundreds of renowned scientists from all around the
world. Read the inspired responses from esteemed scientists such as
Richard Dawkins, Paul Davies, Susan Haack and others. |
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| Many of you have asked for a playlist of the music used in workshops. While I've added a few of my own selections, the original (and, by far, the largest portion of the selections) comes from a Slow Playlist collection developed by Rhett Laubach. Here's the click here to go to his information on how to access both the Slow and Fast Playlists at iTunes. You might also enjoy his blog related to powerful public speaking and keeping PowerPoint from becoming powerpointless. | |||
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| Copyright 1998-2007 Louise Wright Robertson |
Site last modified & updated January 10, 2010 |
