woodriff.org | what goes around surely must come around

They have put months of research into creating a resource for conscious consumers to steer their funds to ecologically-inclined products, projects and people.

It is truly an amazing resource. Here are just some of the areas they have covered in their exhaustive research:

Baby, Infant, Kid, Child, Mom
Eco Bags & Accessories
Bath, Beauty, Cosmetics, Toiletries
Books, Guides, Green Living Tips
Building, Design, Construction
Business, Companies, Directories
Buy Green: Reviews, Advice & Eco Shops
Carbon Offset, Reduce Carbon Footprint
Cars, Auto, Fuels, Technology
Cleaning, Soap, Laundry, Detergent
Eco Clothing & Shoes
Communities, Organizations, Events
Conservation, Volunteer, Activism, Charities
Ecological & Organic Textiles & Materials
Electronics, Appliances, Gadgets
Ethical Jewelry, Gems & Gemstones
Ethical Wine, Beer, Spirits
Garden, Farm, Allotment, Subsistence
Gifts, Occasions, Weddings, Birthdays
Green Finance Tips, Save Money
Health, Natural Vitamins, Supplements, Water
House, Home, Furniture
Lights, Lighting, Bulbs, Candles
News, Culture, RSS, Videos, Media
Office Supplies, Paper, Stationery
Organic, Food, Vegetables, Produce, Groceries
Outdoors, Sports, Fitness
Eco Pets & Animals
Power, Energy, Solar, Wind, Hydro
Reclaim, Reuse, Salvage
Recycling, Biodegradable, Packaging
School, Education, Teaching, Learning
Tools, Home Improvement, DIY Toys, Games, Art, Crafts, Music
Travel, Vacation, Holiday, Eco Tourism

Be sure to have a look at their extensive eco resource reviews and eco shopping reviews.

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Language, Synth, Opal, Myth, Mushroom and Conscious Shops

Tue, 2010-02-16 11:38 — Chapman

Just wanted to point out some great stores for finding niche products:

Language Shop
Synth Shop
Opal and Myth Shop
Mushroom Shop
Conscious Shop

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Grow Clean Air: TIST Reforestation Project Guarantees Transparency in the Growing Carbon Market

Mon, 2008-06-09 19:11 — Chapman

This just in from Grow Clean Air:

Listen to this snippet on Grow Clean Air.

In this brief (2 min 42 sec) Ben Henneke (Clean Air Action) and Vannesa Henneke (I4EI) explain some of the things that make the TIST Program unique.

Three main points are highlighted:

1) TIST is perhaps the most effective carbon project in the world thanks to its revolutionary model for collecting data and presenting it transparently online.

2) TIST is perhaps the only carbon project in the world where you can actually see results as they happen. It is certainly the most transparent program currently in operation.

3) The Small Groups involved in the TIST Program verifiably receive the benefits (local and monetary) for their work.

Offset your carbon footprint at Grow Clean Air.

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244 reads

Free Language's Newsetter Continues to Grow with the 9th Edition Out

Sat, 2008-06-07 19:05 — Chapman

Things are blowing up over a Free Language! -->

Welcome to the Ninth Edition of The Free Language Letter.

30 new free resources for 14 languages (4 new!) have been added to the site. There are now 343 resources available for 34 languages.

Quick View of What's Inside

New! English Overview Page
New Languages! Hebrew, Irish, Luxembourgish and Norwegian
New resources for Arabic, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Irish, Luxembourgish, Mandarin Chinese, Norwegian, Polish, Russian and Spanish
List of new web feeds including news and podcasts
Online Translation Resources and Mozilla Firefox Addons
Featured Resource: The New BBC Languages
Language Factoid

Read more
248 reads

Carbon Projects in Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda) and India that Support Sustainable Agriculture

Fri, 2008-05-16 17:45 — Chapman

I have been involved with the launch of a Drupal-powered website for a project called Grow Clean Air. This website is the latest incarnation of an effort that has been going on for nearly a decade to simultaneously reduce the global carbon footprint and empower farmers in Africa and India with sustainable agriculture and health practices.

The main things you can do at Grow Clean Air are:

Simultaneously Offset Your Carbon Footprint and Empower Communities in Africa and Asia to Change Their World and Yours
Demand more transparency from the exploding carbon market!
Discover the Facts about the Exploding Carbon Market
Offset your carbon (CO2) footprint by purchasing credits from India and Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda)
Find a List of Recommended Carbon Calculators

I guess they sum it up nicely on the site:

Don't simply offset your emissions when, at no extra cost, you can also visibly...

* be active in supporting sustainable community agriculture for developing countries in Africa and Asia
* contribute to the continued development of one of the most unique forestation projects in the world
* show your family and friends the live, up-to-the-minute results of where your intelligent money is working for them and for you
* empower focused and dedicated Small Groups in developing countries to create a brighter future on a local and global scale
* increase food quality standards for tens of thousands of participants in four countries (India, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda)
* feel good every time you read our latest newsletter or visit our site and discover what you have helped build
* do your part to make sure your children's children's children can breathe clean air

We deliver real results to you and the communities we work with, plain and simple.

The TIST Project, which actually empowers people to grow the trees and share the Best Practices in Small Groups, was started by Clean Air Action and is aided by The Institute for Environmental Innovation.

Grow Clean Air makes these credits available online for the consumer market in an effort to increase the overall positive impact of the TIST Program, allowing people around the world to quickly and easily offset their carbon footprint.

Very cool! If this interests you, find out why Grow Clean Air is a step ahead of the rest!

259 reads

Discounted Spanish Products on eBay from Free Language's New BETA Deal Finder

Thu, 2008-04-03 22:57 — Chapman

Free Language just launched a BETA version of a site to help Spanish learners find all kinds of products for learning the language. Check it out!

Learn Spanish Product Deals, Discounts and Specials

355 reads

Free Language Newsletter Number Eight is Hot off the Press

Tue, 2008-04-01 22:46 — Chapman

Whenever I publish a new edition of the Free Language Letter I re-publish it here for many reasons, mainly to bring attention to the Free Language website, but also to offer subscribers here a quick summary of the content I am researching and producing at Free Language. So here goes...

Welcome to the Eighth Edition of The Free Language Letter.

25 new free resources for 12 languages have been added to the site. There are not as many updates as usual because I have been working behind the scenes on the new overview pages for each language.

Quick View of What's Inside

New! Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese Overview Pages
Now Available: 34 Languages :)
New resources for Catalan, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish
New Social Language Learning Resources
New News Feeds in Catalan, French, German, Italian, Polish and Spanish
Featured Resource: Lingro Public Domain Dictionary and Online Translation Tool (and so much more)
Language Factoid

New! Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese Overview Pages

As I did for the Spanish language before the last newsletter, I have now completed four more language overview sections. Now you will find new homes on Free Language for Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese.

These overview pages are basically a single spot where all the resources for a given language are brought together for users to quickly view and navigate. I like to think they are quite packed with excellent resources for learning the respective languages. :) Some are more filled than others, and the overview pages do include an overview of the language, a list of resources for learning the language, podcasts, news resources, a tag cloud, InternetTV stations, recommended software, an aggregator link and feed and other such useful info.

Now Available: 34 Languages :)

With some of the major changes I have been working on, I have also slipped in a large number of new languages. Since the last newsletter, this includes Bengali, Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Filipino, Greek, Hausa, Hebrew, Hungarian, Latin, Polish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

Before you get too excited, know that I cheated a bit on most of these and they list mainly resources for learning languages socially, and do not yet list specific resources for those languages. Catalan, Polish and Swedish are the exceptions with one specific resource for each plus the social resources. Specific resources for the rest will come as soon as I can manage!

OK, onto the latest resources added for specific languages and other such goodness.

Social Language Learning

Below are the latest additions to the social language learning section.

Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface
Palabea.net Palabea the Speaking World Social Language Exchange Network with Videolectures, Podcasts, Images, Docs
Worldia.net Worldia International Community for Making Friends to Learn and Teach Foreign Languages via Skype

News Feeds

Below are the most recently added news feeds that Free Language syndicates.

CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Catalan and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in French and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European News Magazine in German and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Italian and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Polish and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Spanish and 6 Other Languages

Featured Resource

Lingro is a truly useful site with a decidedly free and open approach to multi-lingual dictionaries and online web translation. It provides users with quick and powerful online translation dictionaries and study tools, vocabulary lists and games. The site is "committed to building the Web's largest collection of open dictionaries."

I was struck by the straight-forward, no nonsense approach to open content. The site content is empowered and protected by the Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 License. In short, this means the multilingual dictionaries can be copied, adapted and distributed with proper attribution. Equally, content editors must allow their additions to continue to be worked with under the same license. Thus, in an open and free way, lingro appeals to the users for help in creating "relevant translations and definitions" for the these language translation dictionaries.

Since I published the original article, several new changes have been in the works at the Lingro headquarters. Here's a list on their blog of some of the major improvements. There is also a great sections for webmasters that explains how to integrate Lingro into your website. Also added is a new feature for showing each user's personalized reading/vocabulary profile.

They are really cranking it out over there and I send lots of good vibes to this crew that is working to improve Public Domain tools for language learning. :)

Continue reading about Lingro.

Language Factoid

Mandarin Chinese is a category of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern and south-western China. When taken as a separate language, as is often done in academic literature, the Mandarin dialects have more speakers than any other language.

Factoid thanks to Wikipedia.

看你下一次!

Chapman
Free Language
http://freelanguage.org

352 reads

Newsletter for Language Learners Seventh Edition Published

Fri, 2008-02-22 17:44 — Chapman

Welcome to the Seventh Edition of The Free Language Letter. Lots has happened since the Sixth Edition.

45 new free resources for 19 languages have been added to the site. See below for language-learning videos, multilingual podcasting, free software downloads, tools, browser extensions, OpenCourseWare, online communities and more.

New! Social Language-Learning Resource Section

Social language learning has become incredibly popular on the web as it has transcended language barriers in previously impossible ways.

For example, right now someone in Russia could be waiting to teach you Russian in exchange for your English skills. Or maybe your native language is Spanish and you want to learn Mandarin Chinese - there's someone out there for that as well! In fact, chances are there are hundreds or even thousands of potential language partners with whom you can achieve your collective language learning goals in a symbiotic fashion...

Visit the Social Foreign Language Learning Resource Section.

Below you will find the most recent additions to the social learning section.

LiveMocha.com Live Mocha Social Language Learning Course and Networking Website
MyHappyPlanet.com My Happy Planet Private Social Language-Learning Community
italki.com Free Skype VoIP and IM Language Partner Community
Dickinson College's Language-Exchanges.org Mixxer Free Skype Language Exchange Community
Lingopass.com Free Global Language Exchange Community
VoxSwap.com VoxSwap Online Instant Message and Voice Social Foreign Language Exchange with Forums and Groups

Spanish Leads the Way

As a new phase of information architecture unfolds at Free Language, Spanish is the first language to have an overview homepage. This is where you'll find a taste of the different Spanish language learning resources on the site in a nutshell.

Visit the Spanish homepage on Free Language.

The other 15 languages currently available on the site will follow shortly.

New Free Resources

Afrikaans

DigitalDialects.com Afrikaans Language-Learning Games and Activities

Arabic

Arabic Language Course for Arabic Learners Familiar with Arabic Script
DigitalDialects.com Arabic Language-Learning Games and Activities
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute Arabic Free Audio Lessons Downloads
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese

Cantonese

FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute Cantonese Free Audio Lessons Downloads

English

English Language Learning and Teaching Article on Wikipedia
LanguageGuide.org English Language Guide with Images and Audio Recordings for Learners
lingro.com lingro Free and Open Multilingual Dictionary, Online Translation, Vocabulary Lists and Games

French

DigitalDialects.com French Language-Learning Games and Activities
BitesizedLanguages.com Bitesized Languages Improve Your French, Spanish or Portuguese Skills with Daily Emails
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese
lingro.com lingro Free and Open Multilingual Dictionary, Online Translation, Vocabulary Lists and Games

German

OneMinuteLanguages.com One Minute Language Lessons for Polish, Irish, German and Russian
lingro.com lingro Free and Open Multilingual Dictionary, Online Translation, Vocabulary Lists and Games

Hindi

ISpeakHindi.com I Speak Hindi Website, Podcasts, Dictionary and Resources

Indonesian

LearningIndonesian.com Podcast is a Fun and Easy Way to Learn Indonesian Online

Irish

OneMinuteLanguages.com One Minute Language Lessons for Polish, Irish, German and Russian

Italian

lingro.com lingro Free and Open Multilingual Dictionary, Online Translation, Vocabulary Lists and Games

Japanese

JaplishPodcast.com Japlish Podcast of Funny Phrases in English and Japanese Languages
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese

Korean

SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese

Mandarin Chinese

A Torrent File for 500 Free Mandarin Chinese Audio Podcast Lessons from ChinesePod.com
nciku.com nciku Free Online Mandarin Chinese Handwriting Recognition, Conversations, Radical Dictionary
A Pinyin.info Article on Most Difficult and Challenging Aspects of Learning Mandarin Chinese
Learn Mandarin Chinese Videos on YouTube AskBenny Channel
Learn Chinese on YouTube with Mandarin Videos from ActiveChinese
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute Mandarin Chinese Free Audio Lessons Downloads
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese
BitesizedLanguages.com Bitesized Languages Improve Your French, Spanish or Portuguese Skills with Daily Emails

Polish

OneMinuteLanguages.com One Minute Language Lessons for Polish, Irish, German and Russian
lingro.com lingro Free and Open Multilingual Dictionary, Online Translation, Vocabulary Lists and Games

Portuguese

BitesizedLanguages.com Bitesized Languages Improve Your French, Spanish or Portuguese Skills with Daily Emails

Russian

DigitalDialects.com Russian Language-Learning Games and Activities
OneMinuteLanguages.com One Minute Language Lessons for Polish, Irish, German and Russian

Spanish

BitesizedLanguages.com Bitesized Languages Improve Your French, Spanish or Portuguese Skills with Daily Emails
Spanish-Podcast.com Voices en Español Conversational Spanish Podcast
Spanish-Podcast.com Voices en Español Bilingual Blog
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese

Swedish

SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese

Vietnamese

SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese

Teach English

Our Teach English Section is growing with two new resources added recently.

English Language Learning and Teaching Article on Wikipedia
LanguageGuide.org English Language Guide with Images and Audio Recordings for Learners

Cool Free Tools and Multilingual Resources

We added some cool tools and multilingual resource links, including Firefox browser extensions for improving your productivity in foreign languages online!

Quick Translation Firefox Extension to Translate Single Words in 17+ Languages
Foreign Language Translation Extensions/Tools/Plugins/Add-Ons for the Firefox Web Browser
Langmaker.com Language Maker Website on Auxiliary and Constructed Languages
Word2Word.com Website
The Alternative Dictionary: Slang, Profanities, Insults and Vulgarisms from all the World

Instructional Foreign Language Videos

ExpertVillage.com Instructional Videos on Learning Foreign Languages
YouTube Video Language Lessons at LanguageTube.org

Multilingual Podcasting Resources

SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese
OneMinuteLanguages.com One Minute Language Lessons for Polish, Irish, German and Russian

Language News

United Nations Declares 2008 the International Year of Languages

To see the news in many different languages, check out our syndicated multilingual news section.

OpenCourseWare, Open University and Distance Language Learning

Download Free Open University Courses from MIT OpenCourseWare Foreign Languages and Literatures Department
About.com Distance Learning Free Online Language Courses
open.ac.uk OpenLearn LearningSpace Open University with Free Courses in Modern Languages

Free Language Education Software

BYKI.com Download Free Language Software for Learning 42 Languages!

Featured Resource

Mango Languages is fantastic! Truly one of the top language-learning resources available online. Indeed, it may well be the most user-friendly, feature-rich, well-organized and free resource for learning languages online.

Mango Languages offers an amazing amount of totally free lessons and courses for learning a growing number of languages. At the time this article is going to press, these include Brazilian Portuguese, English for Polish speakers, English for Spanish speakers, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Pig Latin!, Russian and Spanish.

Current Research

I am researching and drafting articles regarding foreign language study in Second Life. This metaverse approach to teaching and learning has amazing potential. Subscribe to Free Language's RSS feed to be sure you get new articles as they're hot off the press.

Language Factoid

Russian (русский) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages.

Factoid thanks to Wikipedia.

Пока!

Chapman
Free Language
http://freelanguage.org

642 reads

Search

Crazile Music

Grow Clean Air

Syndicate

Hemp Clothing

Eco-Volunteer

Australia and Canada: Environmental Calendars

Ecological News, Advice and Guides

Sustainable Design, Architecture and Construction

Climate Change and Sustainable Living

Carbon Offsets, Green Travel and Sustainable Business

Green Cars and Eco Transpo

Green Business Directories in the US + UK and an Eco Search Engine

Organic Bath and Beauty for Mother and Child

Eco Home Improvement Products, Solar Kits and Lifestyle Goodies

Quick View of What's Inside

Quick View of What's Inside

New! Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese Overview Pages

Now Available: 34 Languages :)

Catalan

English

French

German

Italian

Japanese

Mandarin Chinese

Polish

Portuguese

Russian

Spanish

Swedish

Social Language Learning

News Feeds

Featured Resource

Language Factoid

看你下一次!

New! Social Language-Learning Resource Section

Spanish Leads the Way

New Free Resources

Afrikaans

Arabic

Cantonese

English

French

German

Hindi

Indonesian

Irish

Italian

Japanese

Korean

Mandarin Chinese

Polish

Portuguese

Russian

Spanish

Swedish

Vietnamese

Teach English

Cool Free Tools and Multilingual Resources

Instructional Foreign Language Videos

Multilingual Podcasting Resources

Language News

OpenCourseWare, Open University and Distance Language Learning

Free Language Education Software

Featured Resource

Current Research

Language Factoid

Пока!

Free Language

Free Language Blog

EcoCheckOut.com