Would You Like To Know...

...my favorite websites to visit on a regular basis?  Here's another infamous top five list; I did not include checking my email or even visiting facebook, because as much time as I spend 'writing emails, sending emails, deleting emails...I could go on' (a little nod The IT Crowd, only the greatest show of all time) and as much as I enjoy looking at my friends' pictures on facebook, it's not really a favourite place on the web.  Here are my true favourites:

1.  BBC News- This is my all-time favourite news site (no surprise there, I'm sure).  It is packed to the gills with information from all over the entire world (and it obviously does not have a US-centric view, which can get quite annoying), but it also has one of the coolest features in the entire world: the one-minute world update- the latest news in literally one minute.  Whenever I need a break from work, I usually pop on over to BBC News and watch the one-minute clip.  My other favourite bit is the 'In Pictures' section, which contains pictures from the day from around the world.  Granted, it's not as intense as The Big Picture, but it still pretty cool.

2. BBC Pod Casts- At 9:00 am, NPR broadcasts the BBC News Hour; unfortunately, I'm rarely in my car at 9:00 am.  I'm either sitting in my office or at the Refugee Elder Program, and I therefore miss the News Hour pretty much every.single.day.  Enter BBC Pod Casts (cue angels singing).  Check out this website to download the latest News Hour on BBC Radio.  I listen to it while I'm typing on reports, lesson planning, and heck, even while I'm on hold with the SSA (which ironically enough, hold music at the Downtown SSA office= church music.  Hmmm, I'm all for church music, but a government office selects it as their hold music?  My church doesn't even have church music as their hold music).

3.  NPR- Again, I'm not always in my car to listen to the different broadcasts on NPR, but I can pop over to NPR's website and listen to just about whatever show I want.  The site isn't just a bunch of podcasts; they have excellent news coverage with great analysis, including national and world news, art, film, and music, as well as editorials and random other fun tidbits.  Be sure to check out Will Shortz's Sunday Puzzles section!

4. The Big Picture- I've shared this website with you in the past, and it's really one of my favourite places on the web to visit.  The Big Picture is the photo blog of The Boston Globe and gathers images from around the world to convey newsworthy stories.  Each week, the editor publishes a few different collection of photos (generally Monday, Wednesday, and Friday); the photos are always high-quality and include detailed captions.  Most of the time the images are related to popular current news, but sometimes the photos focus on lesser-known news; historical photos are also published as well.

5. FreeRice- The site has been around for a few years now; it was created in 2007 by John Breen, who donated the program to the United Nations in March 2009.  The site is now run by the United Nations Food Programme and has two goals: 'provide education free to everyone' and 'help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free'.  Basically, you choose a subject and are quizzed; for every question you get correct, ten grains of rice are donated to the UN World Food Programme.  Money comes from corporate sponsors and advertisers.  Ten grains may not sound like a lot of rice, but over half a million people have been utilizing the website every day for the past three years.  All that rice certainly does add up!  In Uganda, 66,000 school children were feed for over a week; in Nepal, 108,000 refugees were fed for three days; in Bangladesh, 27,000 refugees were fed for three weeks.  That's just a snippet of the work FreeRice is helping to accomplish.  Click here to see a great video explaining how FreeRice is making a difference.