Tools+to+try+and+use!

=BookMyne= http://www.sailsinc.org/mobile.asp A huge part of Common Core is having students read and comprehend texts of increasing complexity. Coupled with this is the CC's expectation that students provide evidence to support answers, opinions, statements, etc. Together these two ideas--increasing complexity and providing supporting evidence--are intended to turn out students capable of higher-level thinking. What students need to accomplish this access to long-form reading materials. BookMyne helps students engage and take ownership for their learning. This app notifies students when materials are ready, instant searches for libraries, materials, and more. Because we are in the SAILS Library Network, BookMyne is compatible with our library.

=Twitter= http://www.twitter.com Twitter is very useful as you implement a flipped classroom. Possibilities are endless. For example with twitter students have a back channel forum to discuss your lectures outside of class time, share resources and ideas, clarify lecture points for each other and otherwise collaborate. As facilitator, you can monitor student twitter exchanges or participate fully. It works with smartphones, tablets, laptops, and hard-wired computers. Yes, it's free!

=Dropbox= [] Ever begin lesson planning at home only to discover the one file you need is on the computer at school? A free Dropbox account allows you to keep all your files, photos, whatever in the 'cloud'--accessible anytime, anywhere! Students can use Dropbox to store works in progress and gather examples of best work, before the curation process begins on Wikispaces. In short, everybody needs a Dropbox!

=Wikispaces= www.wikispaces.com Students can gather examples of their work and access drafts of essays with flashdrives or cloud storage services like Dropbox. When they are ready to select and put it together for public viewing (curation) in an online portfolio, Wikispaces is the place to go.

=VoiceThread= [] VoiceThread allows the user to collect and share audio in one place. Faculty can use it to prepare the home piece of flipped class--the lecture. Students can use it to reply to your prompts in voice as well as create projects.

=Audacity= http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Audacity captures audio for podcasting your presentations for flipped class student-viewing at home. Free and easy to use. Lots of software does this, but Audacity is rapidly distinguishing itself as an industry standard--much like Microsoft Word for word processing.