Thursday, September 8, 2011

Assignment: Establishing Professional Contacts & Expanding Resources

To find professional contacts outside the US, I contacted a couple of the bloggers that I follow. My first contact is Kierna from Northern Ireland. She has been a nursery teacher for over ten years and has been involved with Comenius projects which has allowed her to visit schools in Poland, Italy, Norway, Sweden and France. She writes a blog called Learning for Life. Much of her blog focuses on the importance of exploring nature and outdoor play.
My second contacts are Sherry and Donna who have taught together in Melbourne Australia for many years. They have a blog/website called Irresistible Ideas for play based learning. they share many inspiring and creative ideas for classrooms and write about their visits to other area preschools. I have received E-mails from them both and now I’m trying to figure out what to ask them first. Does anyone have ideas for what kinds of questions to ask?

The website I chose for part two of the blog assignment is Early Childhood Australia. I looked at a few of the other resources and this one seemed the most interesting to me. I chose this website because it has a variety of links and information to explore. I also subscribed to their newsletters.

I’d like to thank my two contacts for being willing to help. I appreciate them taking the time out of their busy days to answer my questions. I’m looking forward to learning new information from my contacts and through the website.