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Imaginine a classroom, before the bell rings, students walking in for 50 minutes of instruction, and a video playing, with no audio besides some appropriately spacey music, illustrating The Known Universe. How compelling can you be?

Another must see Mastery Connect is both an online standards tracking tool (parts of it are free) and a free iPhone/iPod/iPad app. Because the app is truly free, I'll start with it. The Mastery Connect app is a handy way to keep the Common Core standards accessible while you teach. The app sorts the common core standards by grade level, subject and strand. This is REALLY nice for quickly locating and referencing standards. Mastery Connect the website is the real gem. The site is brilliantly designed, easy to navigate, aesthetically pleasing and best of all, it works the way you think it should. With the Mastery Connect Master Tracker, teachers can assess core standards, monitor student performance and report student progress to parents and administrators. Master Tracker makes formative assessment that is standards based manageable to keep track of. Rearrange standards in the Master Tracker based on the order that you teach them in. View only the standards you are currently assessing, and view the entire standard as a pop-up. Within Mastery Connect, teachers can create and share common assessments. Similar in feel to other social networks, Mastery Connect lets you connect with other educators to share assessments, interact and offer each other support. It is easy to expand your PLN into the space, just find teachers with similar interests and goals and start sharing! And now for my VERY favorite part- bubble sheet scoring. Mastery Connect uses GradeCam technology to make assessment about as quick as it could be. Just hold up bubble sheets to your webcam or a document cam and it is instantly scored and entered into the Master Tracker associated with the student it belongs to and the standard it is addressing. Seriously cool. I am not a big fan of multiple choice testing (mostly because I think it is a lazy way to find out what a student knows and doesn't give a true picture of what a student knows or can do) but I think I have figured out ho

Sketchup from Google is a widely used 3D modelling program. Originally designed to design buildings in Google Earth, it can be used to model anything. There is a vast library of pre-made components to download. So many possible uses in the classroom. Make sure you are using it too!

Free photographs and drawings for teachers and students to use in their classrooms.

AccuTeach could be a nice place to find other educators with whom you can share lesson ideas and materials. As the video above points out, the blog and calendar option is useful for keeping parents informed of their students' assignments.

Connect with Steve Hargadon and an ever-growing number of educators on Learn Central, the social network for professional development that is ready when you are. Join free webinars and discussions in real time or participate with members asynchronously. Host a group of up to three participants for free. Develop networks with colleagues across town or around the world. Lifelong learning is just a few clicks away!

This could be a great video to show at the beginning of your new school year to set the tone for class conversations. Julian Treasure's RASA framework for listening is one that could easily be used as the model in your classroom. In fact, I think that I'm going to introduce it to my new students in a few weeks.