Babbel - learning languages

The friendsabroad social networking website introduced language learners to native speakers of other languages enabling them to support each other's language learning and build up relationships.

This site as now been taken over by Babbel another language learning site. Babbel a multimedia learning resource. In addition to the learning packages, Babbel facilitates interactions with native speakers or learning partners which enables members to practice and develop their linguistic skills. Languages supported are English, Spanish, French, German and Italian.

This is worth trying if you want to learn a language or if you teach languages.

Intute Virtual Training Suite

Aimed at both students and lecturers, these Intute Virtual Training Suite provide free teach yourself tutorials offering information about internet resources for different subject areas. Some of these include:

* Geography
* Digital Photography
* Learning Languages
* Modern Languages
* Anthropology
* Business
* Education
* Hospitality and Catering
* Leisure, Sport and Recreation
* Social Research Methods
* Social Statistics
* Travel and Tourism
* Health and Social Care
* Health and Well-being

Instant Anatomy

Instant Anatomy is a specialised website aimed originally at medical students and created by Robert Whitaker, a retired surgeon and lecturer at Cambridge University. Based on his own notes, this insightful website provides detailed diagrams, tips, mnemonics, lectures, podcasts, questions and answers about human anatomy. This site will be useful to anyone teaching or learning medical, biological and anatomical subject areas or those with an interest in anatomy.

Compulsive Traveller

If you want to access videos about travel, the Compulsive Traveller website is worth investigating. This site provides videos from around the world and provides an outlet for the videos taken by self confessed compulsive travellers with an option for users to add new ones. The videos can be found under themes such as people, places, great chefs of the world and funny videos and the site provides additional information about the featured destinations.

This site might be useful for projects about countries or tourism or in preperation for student residential visits, planning a holiday or just for interest.

Free Images

Finding appropriate images and photographs for teaching resources or for personal use can be quite time consuming. Windows on our world provides over 5,000 royalty free online images with a geographical theme. The site receives support from the Royal Geographical Society. The images are divided into a subject categories or can be found using the search tool. The site also welcomes comtributions of new images from readers.

Email College - Short courses

Ever felt you really wanted to learn more about a topic but do not have the time to go to a class? Email college might have the answer for you. This site offers free courses: from advertising to listening skills, from mystery shopping to childrens story writing, from how to complain to starting an ebay business. In short there are so many courses here you are almost certain to find one that interests you! The courses are done by email and last an average of 8 days. There might even be a course that you think is worth recommending to your students.

The site also provides a wide range of additional resources for when you want an instant answer to your problem rather than a mini course. These include publications and web links covering running or starting a business, information skills, work skills, self development, finding a job, or making an extra income.

Show World - visual maps

Show®World was launched in May 2008 by Mapping Worlds. The website provides a new way to look at the world by resizing countries on a map according to different data sets. For example, if you select the data for rural populations North America shrinks and India, China and Bangladesh grow. If you select data for Soybean crops USA, Brazil and Argentina grow and other countries shrink. Although the map is visual, running the mouse over countries shows the country name and data relating to it. The site allows users to download and share the datasets, maps and animations.

This may be an interesting starting point for discussions or even a fun way to learn more about the world.