Continuing to share information from Web resources

As I continue through this course, I gain new knowledge or insight each week. This week as we talked bout other fields that can have an influence on early childhood. I took another look at the www.nieer.org site and found that they conduct research in the areas we talked about this week. There is a whole tab section on economics and finance at the same time there is an additional tab on governance and accountability. It's not that I can say I never knew, but I guess I never paid much attention until this week to the other fields that play a role and have an impact on early childhood education. What I like about the NIEER site is that even though it is based here in my home state of New Jersey the information on the site is about all states. While my local state would be my primary focus, it is interesting to take a look at what other states are doing. If a state is working a plan successfully then maybe in some ways we could try it here. The site does include other information pertaining to quality, assessment, access, teachers, state programs as well as more. This site touches on all aspects and topics I believe have an impact on the early childhood field in one way or another. This week for me really tied together how other fields and early childhood work together, or should work together, for the betterment of our children and thus the betterment of our country in the future.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts

My attempts to contact someone in another country for this assignment did not work out. I received no responses back other than one to tell me the address was incorrect. So I chose the podcast option, however I seem to be having difficulties getting in contact with members from the podcasts.

 

On the other hand, I looked into the childhood poverty website as suggested since I am awaiting a response from the podcast. The information gained through this site is amazing. I chose to read about China and the poverty level there. According to the site the overall poverty rate is 4 to 8 percent of the urban population. On the other hand, what I read about the children in China was alarming. I had a misconception that China’s education for children and healthcare was greater than it is. The western and eastern sections of China differ. There are 80 percent of children in Western China, according to www.childhoodpoverty.org, while it is 15 percent higher in Eastern China and the percentage in Western China is lower than the national average by 9 percent. The reason for the differences lies in the cost of education, some can afford it while others cannot. Additionally there are families without health insurance living in China, just as there are here in America. The reason in China I feel is the same as the reason here in the United States, as I am sure is the reason everywhere, health insurance is not affordable.

 

I hope that not only on in international level, but a local and national level here in the United States that we can better educate our children and families to reduce the amount of people living in poverty.

Sharing Web Resources

The website I subscribed to the newsletter for is the National Institute for Early Education Research, www.nieer.org. This website works with state and national policy holders, as well as other organizations to work to achieve effective, high quality preschool programs. I am looking forward to receiving newsletters and browsing the website to gain more information and knowledge of what is happening in early childhood education. With a more in depth up to date knowledge of the research taking place I will become a more effective educator for my students and a more informative colleague for my fellow educators.

Expanding Knowledge and Research

For part one of this assignment, I have emailed a few different people in hopes of establishing a collaboration to learn from educators outside of the United States. However, I have not received contact back, so I may have to pursue the alternative for this course if I do not hear back from anyone.

For part two of this assignment, I subscribed to the national institute of early education research website. This website will give me information on current issues involving early education. As a preschool teacher of four year olds, this website will be insightful to give me information involving new insights into what is taking place before children get to my classroom, while they are in my classroom, and therefore what will happen upon entrance to Kindergarten and public school. Another plus to this website is it is created by Rutgers University here in New Jersey where I live.