After reading the instructions for the first blog assignment, I became very excited because we are given the opportunity to network with other early childhood professionals from other countries as well and become very familiar with websites that focus on the early childhood field. The blog assignment consists of two parts that will be continuously addressed throughout the eight weeks of class.
The first part of the assignment focuses on establishing contact with two other professionals within the early childhood field that are located in other countries. The assignments in weeks to come will require me to communicate with the individuals and basically get to know them on a personal and professional note. I approached the first part of the assignment head on by sending out as many emails that I could to as many people that I could locate from other countries. Before I sent out the email, I kind of had a feeling that some of the emails would come back due to emails being incorrect. I was exactly right in which I received a failure notice for about 10 of the emails that I sent out. The more the emails failed the more people I found to send additional emails. After a couple of days of no response, I almost gave up and wanted to just do the alternative assignment. However, I was contacted by Rhian Evan Allvin, executive director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), in which she informed me that she had received my email and was going to forward it to the appropriate individual. She stated that she knew the perfect person that could help me which was Stephanie Olmore who was head of their International Initiative Department. I was so excited that someone had taken out the time to reply to my message. I look forward to hearing from Ms. Olmore in hopes that she will be able to share with me her views on the early childhood field.
The second part of the blog assignment allows me to become familiar with a resource that can be used by early childhood professionals in which we have to select a early childhood organization's website and research it for the next couple of weeks to determine how the organization supports the early childhood field. After going through the provided list of resources I decided to select the Harlem Children's Zone (www.hcz.org). The reason why I chose this website is because I have often heard stories about the educational opportunities and services that are offered to children in Harlem. I wanted to learn more about the services as well as explore the website to learn as much about the community-based organization.
I am very excited about this assignment and the only advice I can give about this assignment is try to contact as many people as possible. The more people that are contacted the better the chance we may have at contacting someone from another country. I wish everyone the best of luck with the assignment and look forward to reading your posts in the future.
I looked over their web site also, and yes it was a lot of outreach in NY, can't Waite to read your discoveries! How long did you try to reach out to the different organizations?
ReplyDeleteI sent about 20 emails out on Monday and just waited for people to respond.
DeleteHi Shorlone,
ReplyDeleteI hope you have good luck with your attempts at making contacts. I have not had any yet. I took your advice and made more contacts. I think I made need to make more though :) I will have to check out the Harlem Children's Zone as I have not heard of them. Thanks, Shorlone!
BethAnn
Hello Shorlone,
ReplyDeleteIt is great that you stayed with finding a contact to pursue the first part of the assignment. I struggled finding a contact but I see that sticking with and continuing to try is the option I need to try in order to get it done. I look forward in viewing your blog for this class. I admire your Will to get the job done and I know you will do a great job finding out what you need to throughout this class.