Thinking about Trust

As part of the work we do in the Learning Department, we often collaborate to develop workshop sessions for our teaching colleagues. We are currently planning a session for in-school coaches.  One of the issues our coaches have raised is trust: How to get it? How to maintain it? What to do when it's broken?

To that end, I have been re-reading some literature off my shelf.  Even the 'business' type books seem to agree: The most important thing to building trust is a clearly articulated vision that is kept at the fore of all the work--at EVERY level. Added to this is a leader who truly LIVES the vision.

Learning

There are just too many things to learn! Am trying to read several professional books at once-no mean feat! The first one is Happiness and Education by Nel Noddings. I love the idea of a curriculum of care! Am also looking at Number Talks by Sherry Parrish. She has great ideas to share about how to help students develop number sense through daily mental mathematics. Add to that is Kieran Egan's Getting It Wrong from the Beginning. Egan suggests that the foundational philosophies, which have shaped education as we know it are fundamentally flawed. Finally, just got a book by Ronald D. Wolk entitled, Wasting Minds: Why Our Education System is Failing and What We Can Do About it.  Don't know where these books will take me...I just need to make more time to sit and read them!!

Pop-Up Books--Cool Tool!

While evaluating some PD sites today, I came across ZooBurst (www.zooburst.com) on Heidi Hayes Jacobs'  Curriculum 21 site (www.curriculum21.com).  This tool allows students to create pop-up books using the clipart on the site, or by uploading their own photos.  I had a little play, and VOILÀ...had the first page completed in very short order.
I went for the FREE version, which, of course, has very limited capabilities.  The Premium version has lots of bells and whistles--like the capability to add voice, sounds, and to create a profile for each student. 

Here it is: To view use this password: crane50

You can rotate the book to get a different view.  Click on the speech bubbles to see what I haeve to say about each picture.  Kind of cool, no?  I'm thinking this might be a really good tool for ELLs or FSL.  Hope I will be able to use this with 'real' kids soon!