As this class comes to an end, I think about the collaborative community that we've built here and all that I have gained from this experience. I think the consequences of this learning community, especially about the international early childhood field has been 1) greater awareness of the unknown 2) expanded vision of early childhood as a whole and 3) passion for learning more about the education of children around the world. This experience has not only made me grow as an educator but has opened my eyes to things I never, ever thought of.
My goal in the near future with respect to international awareness is to learn more about Cuba and their early childhood education practices. That is my country or origin and I hope to visit very soon so it would be great to learn and then go see for myself. I'm really looking forward to it!
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Getting to Know Your International Contacts - Part 3
Okay, so since I haven't received a response from CUBA or PERU although I have really been trying since they are my ethnic countries, I chose option 2....:(
Here's what I learned this week:
1) As per the Global Monitoring Report in UNESCO, there are four important skills for a child to learn: 1) Critical thinking about themselves 2) Learning about other children's culture 3) Skills to be good citizens and 4) Life skills and core values.
2) A quality education helps reduce poverty and enables children to become empowered and gain social cohesion and peace and human development and most importantly, children have a right to learn from birth....."Children's Rights are Human Rights". --UNESCO, 2013.
3) "International Day of the Girl Child" is a program to raise awareness and build stronger action for girls' UNESCO is committing to getting the estimated 32 million girls who should be in primary school to gain access to education. It's a global effort!!! How great is that???
References:
(http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/
Here's what I learned this week:
1) As per the Global Monitoring Report in UNESCO, there are four important skills for a child to learn: 1) Critical thinking about themselves 2) Learning about other children's culture 3) Skills to be good citizens and 4) Life skills and core values.
2) A quality education helps reduce poverty and enables children to become empowered and gain social cohesion and peace and human development and most importantly, children have a right to learn from birth....."Children's Rights are Human Rights". --UNESCO, 2013.
3) "International Day of the Girl Child" is a program to raise awareness and build stronger action for girls' UNESCO is committing to getting the estimated 32 million girls who should be in primary school to gain access to education. It's a global effort!!! How great is that???
References:
(http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/
Friday, June 14, 2013
Sharing Web Resources NAEYC
This week, I decided to go ahead and join NAEYC as a member to receive all it's membership privileges, and boy did I learn something! If you become a member for only $40 as a student, or $66 as an educator, you gain a world of resources at your fingertips. You can join discussion groups with other online members, share resources and join interest forums. In addition, you receive Young Children and/or Teaching Young Children in your home bi monthly. Also, you have members only access to current issues of these magazines and even Tesoros y Colores which is the Spanish version of Teaching Young Children in digital format. With the click the mouse, you also get access to years worth of these magazines with tons of reference articles. These articles are not only good for students conducting research and teachers looking to education themselves further, but they are terrific to print out for parents. Lastly, a great benefit to being a member of NAEYC is that they are even offering 10% off tuition for new Walden University students!!!!!!
Although the newsletter didn't directly relate to this weeks topic of discussion; Awareness, Accessibility and Responsiveness, it did have archived articles under previous issues of Young Children that related. If you are interested in accessing these articles, you must first become a member and then logon and read "Early Childhood Education: Diverse Approaches for a Diverse Nation", July, 2010, Volume 65 or "Supporting Dual Language Learners and their families", March, 2013, Volume 68. Both these articles related to responsiveness in early childhood.
As for equity and excellence in early care and education, I think the website's family link provides an excellent resource for parents. They have a link for parents to search around their location for accredited programs and also include their standards for accreditation. It gives parents a way to look for quality programs, read articles about their child's development and has an area for them to sign up for family newsletters to keep them on top of all the current developments in early childhood education around their area. Not to mention the links on the family site that has discussion forums, blogs, family activities, music and much, much more. This is an excellent resource for everyone. I am surely going to put it on my classroom newsletter under Favorite Websites.
Mainly this week I am happy to announce that I am a member of NAEYC and that the benefits that come along with the membership are going to be an excellent asset to my Master's Degree research, as well as a resource that I will be sharing with my co-workers, students and families. I hope that everyone takes a minute to check out www.naeyc.org and becomes a member if they aren't already so they can gain the same benefits!!!
Although the newsletter didn't directly relate to this weeks topic of discussion; Awareness, Accessibility and Responsiveness, it did have archived articles under previous issues of Young Children that related. If you are interested in accessing these articles, you must first become a member and then logon and read "Early Childhood Education: Diverse Approaches for a Diverse Nation", July, 2010, Volume 65 or "Supporting Dual Language Learners and their families", March, 2013, Volume 68. Both these articles related to responsiveness in early childhood.
As for equity and excellence in early care and education, I think the website's family link provides an excellent resource for parents. They have a link for parents to search around their location for accredited programs and also include their standards for accreditation. It gives parents a way to look for quality programs, read articles about their child's development and has an area for them to sign up for family newsletters to keep them on top of all the current developments in early childhood education around their area. Not to mention the links on the family site that has discussion forums, blogs, family activities, music and much, much more. This is an excellent resource for everyone. I am surely going to put it on my classroom newsletter under Favorite Websites.
Mainly this week I am happy to announce that I am a member of NAEYC and that the benefits that come along with the membership are going to be an excellent asset to my Master's Degree research, as well as a resource that I will be sharing with my co-workers, students and families. I hope that everyone takes a minute to check out www.naeyc.org and becomes a member if they aren't already so they can gain the same benefits!!!
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Getting to Know Your International Contacts- PART 2
In reviewing Harvard University's Global Children Initiative website, I found new insights that I am very excited about.
1) CHILD AND FAMILY MENTAL HEALTH - This project focused on anxiety and anxiety disorders, depression, ADHD, and all kinds of conduct problems in children including adolescent delinquency and violence. I found this to be very important as it should be a top priority to educators and parents all over the world. So much is known about children's development, yet we see time and time again children struggling with these mental issues that affect their entire lives.
2) RELATED RESOURCES SECTION - This section of the website provides non-English videos which are translated into Spanish and Portuguese and they are informative videos about the core concepts in Early Childhood Development which is also a great resource around the globe for people who are visual learners, and especially for those who do not know how to read. I failed to realize how important it is to have videos available to parents who cannot read. How can we expect them to know what's appropriate for their child by just giving them a pamphlet? These videos are full of information and it would be great if they were translated in more languages.
3) "UN BUEN COMIENZO", A Good Start - This was launched in Chile and it's a professional development educational program for teachers to improve the quality of early childhood education and health (including socio-emotional development) in this Country. We know that programs like this are a great success and it's great that it's being implemented in Chile. I hope to see this type of initiative to be taken all over the world, especially in poorer countries where there are so many children lacking health and educational well-being.
I think it's important to understand the issue of health and well-being in all children. If we understand it, we can work toward getting programs started globally that will make a difference in all children's lives. There has been great advancement, however, we have a ways to go. It's taking classes like these that open our eyes to the problems in early childhood education and the resources and hope that there is to create a better tomorrow for ALL children.
References
http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative
1) CHILD AND FAMILY MENTAL HEALTH - This project focused on anxiety and anxiety disorders, depression, ADHD, and all kinds of conduct problems in children including adolescent delinquency and violence. I found this to be very important as it should be a top priority to educators and parents all over the world. So much is known about children's development, yet we see time and time again children struggling with these mental issues that affect their entire lives.
2) RELATED RESOURCES SECTION - This section of the website provides non-English videos which are translated into Spanish and Portuguese and they are informative videos about the core concepts in Early Childhood Development which is also a great resource around the globe for people who are visual learners, and especially for those who do not know how to read. I failed to realize how important it is to have videos available to parents who cannot read. How can we expect them to know what's appropriate for their child by just giving them a pamphlet? These videos are full of information and it would be great if they were translated in more languages.
3) "UN BUEN COMIENZO", A Good Start - This was launched in Chile and it's a professional development educational program for teachers to improve the quality of early childhood education and health (including socio-emotional development) in this Country. We know that programs like this are a great success and it's great that it's being implemented in Chile. I hope to see this type of initiative to be taken all over the world, especially in poorer countries where there are so many children lacking health and educational well-being.
I think it's important to understand the issue of health and well-being in all children. If we understand it, we can work toward getting programs started globally that will make a difference in all children's lives. There has been great advancement, however, we have a ways to go. It's taking classes like these that open our eyes to the problems in early childhood education and the resources and hope that there is to create a better tomorrow for ALL children.
References
http://developingchild.harvard.edu/initiatives/global_initiative
Saturday, June 1, 2013
SHARING WEB RESOURCES: NAEYC
As posted earlier, I chose NAEYC as my website to explore and this week their newsletter published an article about Technology in the Preschool Classroom that coincides with the professional development happening in my district as we are all getting IPADS in September to supplement our students' learning. NAEYC and Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media got together and conducted studies and created a position statement that is in favor of using tablets in the classroom, one really good reason is that children don't have to know how to handle a mouse to navigate touch screens which is great for children with fine motor delays. They believe that "young children need opportunities to develop the early 'technology-handling' skills associated with early digital literacy that are akin to the 'book-handling' skills associated with early literacy development." (NAEYC, 2013). I also learned through this newsletter that there are over 5000,000 apps available in all subjects, with 58% of those apps geared toward preschoolers. What a great tool!
This article made me view the technology in the classroom in a whole new way because I see a lot of children struggling with computer skills and mouse handling, so I'm very happy that research is pushing for tablets in the classroom. I also think it will be a great asset to teachers taking anecdotes for assessments.
The newsletter also contained an article about Obama's historic budget proposal for 2014 which calls for 75 billion dollars over the next 10 years for preschool education. It's called "Preschool for All" which I really hope passes. He is a big supporter of early childhood education and I can't imagine the change that would create for families struggling with child care and the jobs it will create for teachers and the advancement it will create for children in general. GO OBAMA!!!!!
Last, but not least, I learned through the website that they are offering
This article made me view the technology in the classroom in a whole new way because I see a lot of children struggling with computer skills and mouse handling, so I'm very happy that research is pushing for tablets in the classroom. I also think it will be a great asset to teachers taking anecdotes for assessments.
The newsletter also contained an article about Obama's historic budget proposal for 2014 which calls for 75 billion dollars over the next 10 years for preschool education. It's called "Preschool for All" which I really hope passes. He is a big supporter of early childhood education and I can't imagine the change that would create for families struggling with child care and the jobs it will create for teachers and the advancement it will create for children in general. GO OBAMA!!!!!
Last, but not least, I learned through the website that they are offering
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