Productivity booster

This was posted on Freakonomics last week but I haven't gotten to it until today. I guess I'm a little slow...maybe that means I should spend more time browsing the Internet at work:

(If you're reading this at work)...you’re probably 9 percent more productive than your co-workers... That’s according to new research out of the University of Melbourne, which found that Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing (WILB) improves productivity by giving internet-centric workers a chance to refocus their minds between tasks. The increase is startling; workers who spend as much as 20 percent of their office time leisure browsing actually get more work done than workers who don’t.

I wonder if that applies to students at school as well...?

Mistermagette on Facebook

Mistermagette is now on Facebook! As part of my ongoing experiments with this here Internet thing, I've decided to play around with a virtual classroom environment on Facebook. "Mistermagette" is set up as a business, which will allow me to (hopefully) use the application to communicate with students without having to share personal profile information.

So check it out...be one of the first to become a "fan". Write on the wall. Start a discussion. Just don't do it at school!

Pandemic

In anatomy class today we read a selection from John Barry's outstanding book The Great Influenza, which chronicled the global flu pandemic of 1918. Thanks to Chelsea, one of my students, for pointing out this game to me, in which you get to play the part of a disease-causing pathogen. The goal of the game is, obviously, to wipe out humanity.

Pretty cool. Just make sure you're not playing it when you should be doing school work. And if you figure out how to infect Madigascar, please let me know.

Blood Typing Game

It's kind of dorky, but it gets the point across:

My Favorite Web Things

1. Google: Love it. Love it. Love it. I had a conversation with another teacher one day, and decided that a) Google was going to take over the world one day, and b) we would both gladly submit to its' rule.

2. iGoogle: If Google is the ice-cream sundae, then iGoogle is the cherry on top. Everytime I start up my browser I'm greated with my favorite search engine, customized weather, current news headlines, e-mail, favorite bookmarks, and a variety of customizable tickers, games, newsfeeds and other widgets. So not only can set back and let the Internet make me lazy, but now I actually don't have to take the time and energy to navigate through different pages and sites.

3. Digg: If you're not "Digging", then you should check it out. It allows you to submit websites, stories, blogs, videos, flickr photos, etc. to a social site where others can view them. By establishing networks of friends and fans, you can see what other people are reading. It's a lot of fun, and a great way to find content that doesn't always make the front pages. (By the way, if you're registered with Digg, feel free to click the "Digg" button on any of my posts to submit them.)

4. Facebook: Okay, I admit that at 30-something I'm not really the target demographic for the king of all social networking sites. But for people my age this site is a great way to re-establish contact with, and keep in touch with, old friends. BTW...I don't accept friend requests from students.

5. Google Reader: Another part of the Google Universe. Google reader allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds from frequently updated websites. What this means, in simple terms, is that when your favorite websites or blogs are updated, the new information is sent directly to your Google Reader page. This makes it possible to keep track of dozens of websites without constantly clicking through a list of bookmarks. And, if you have an iGoogle start page, your Google reader updates can be read directly from there!