#ECEtechCHAT: ECE Technology and Field Trips 2/29
Join #ECEtechCHAT on Leap Day (well, leap evening here in the US anyway) 2/29 at 9 PM EST to explore the use of technology before, during and after field trips. Come ready to share tech tips, ideas, and strategies that help you or a teacher you know make the most of field trips with technology.
Transcript from #ECEtechCHAT 2/22/2012: Digial Photography in #EarlyEd
Our chat last week was a robust exchange of ideas, tips, tricks, and tools for digital photography in ECE. The transcript is a treasure trove of great inspiration.
Join us on Twitter every week on Wednesday at 9 PM to explore topics related to technology use in ECE. Just follow #ECEtechCHAT.
#ECEtechChat 2/15/2012, 9 PM: Social Media and Building Your Professional Learning Network
This week, we will explore the role of social media in professional learning networks in early childhood. This week, @Mpowers3, Maggie Powers, will take the helm of the chat to delve into the following questions:
1) How do you know who to add to your PLN?
2) How do you use social media to communicate with your personal/professional learning network (PLN)?
3) How can you make your PLN a supportive, informative, and strong community?
4) What are some ways your digital PLN can be a resource for your face-to-face interactions and work in early childhood?
QUESTION TO THE #ECETECHCHAT COMMUNITY: Do you think we should hold the chats every other week instead of every week? Pros? Cons?
ECEtechChat 2/8/2012: Technology for professional development and engagement
ECEtechCHAT 2.8.2012 at 9 PM EST
TOPIC:
Share your thoughts about using technology for professional development and staff engagement in your school or program!
Questions:
1) Is your school, organization or program planning for and intentionally using technology for professional development?
2) What combinations of tech tools, techniques, and methods work best to provide sound professional development for educators?
3) Can asynchronous elearning, webinars and other synchronous online learning provide a complete experience, or is more needed?
4) What role does social media play in intentional professional development? Is it organic, or do you plan for social media use as an element of PD?
Bring your ideas , links, and questions to the party!
#ECEtechCHAT
9 PM
Wednesdays
#ECEtechCHAT Weekly Topic for 2/1/2012: Parent Engagement and Involvement with #ECEtech
Hello #ECEtechChat Tweeks!
Our topic for 2/1 (at 9 pm) is “How to use technology to engage and involve parents in ECE programs and organizations” It;s a big topic that go in a lot of directions.Here are some guiding questions to consider as you plan for the chat:
1) Parent engagement and involvement are very different.
What role does technology play in connecting with parents? What is the role of social media? What about other tools?
2) How do you use or envision technology being used to engage and involve parents?
3) What do you do to narrow the digital divide for parents/families?
4) Of course: What are the best applications (that means Internet systems as well as apps),devices, and processes for engaging and involving parents?
Transcripts from last week’s chat about mobile devices
Now, we VOTE! Only a few more days! #eddies11
The Edublog Awards are in FULL SWING! But there’s only a limited time to vote, and we need to make sure early childhood educators are well-represented. Last week I posted my list of nominations and Early Childhood Investigations’ nominations (they are slightly different) for the Edublog Awards. Now, the voting is open! From now until December 13, you can vote for a winner in every category one time a day.
We hope you will vote for our nominees and for Early Childhood Investigations (which was listed as Early Childhood Webinars) in the Best Open PD/Unconference/Webinar category.
Let’s represent! Help us ensure that early childhood educators are among the Eddie winners this year, and vote every day!
EdTech for the Younger Ones? Not Without Trained Teachers
As always, you have touched the heart of the matter in this piece. With the responsible and intentional use of technology, educators have the ability to transform classrooms, just as educators in in K-12 and higher education. But, there is a profound disparity that sets early education far behind other sectors of education: As a rule, the vast majority of early childhood programs do not have the professional development, support networks, infrastructure, and equipment upon which other sectors of education are built. It’s not so simple to just specify what teachers need. Jumping into the technology mainstream is far more complex for early educators.
Aside from publicly funded Pre-K programs, early childhood educator qualifications and training vary widely. Administrators and teachers often lack the technology know-how, resources, support networks, and experience of their counterparts in other education sectors. With these issues as a backdrop during a period of rapid proliferation of educational technology development, it is important to acknowledge the lack of funding for educational technology. While I often see grant opportunities for K-12 programs, I rarely see similar offers that include early childhood programs.
Knowing what we know about what teachers and administrators need to be intentional about technology use doesn’t help if there is no money for infrastructure and no state guidelines/expectations for early childhood programs. We need a call to action for public and private funding similar to those offered in the K-12 sector.
Fran Simon, M.Ed.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Is the NAEYC Draft Technology Statement really controversial?
It’s interesting to see how people who are weary of change react when change becomes inevitable. Take, for example, the recent flap over the draft update to the NAEYC Technology Position Statement. Some very respected leaders in early childhood education, including Diane Levin, Meg Merrill, and Susan Linn, have taken exception to the draft, and have issued a “call to action” to the field to respond to the draft. While I also urge everyone to take (hopefully) one last chance to weigh in on the draft, I (with all due respect) take exception to some of the extreme assertions and misinformation they published about the draft.
Now, bear in mind that this Position Statement has been in the works for more than a year, and there was already one comment period. The authors incorporated the comments into the most recent draft. In order to accommodate all the viewpoints, another comment period was offered to members. This (hopefully final) comment period ends May 31.
So is all of this much ado about nothing? I think it is. I believe the arguments set forth by many of the “anti-technology” contingent muddle the waters with inapplicable arguments and inaccurate insinuations. While the detractors of the draft statement sometimes make meaningful points to consider, they are obscured within exaggerations and out of context statements. Don’t get me wrong, I think a little refinement might be in order, but many of the statements completely off-target.
Point, Counterpoint: My perspective on the drama
I’ll address the points in the statement entitled “Do preschoolers need mandatory screen time?” on the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood website:
If we don’t act now, the pressure on early childcare programs to incorporate screen time into their core curriculum will intensify. With preschoolers already spending an average of 32 hours per week with screens outside of classrooms, the last thing they need is mandatory screen time in school or daycare.
1) “Pressure” and “screen time”? Position papers do not pressure or direct association members to do anything. They state positions from a high level. No obligations are stated, implied, or intended in this draft or any other position paper NAEYC has ever issued.
2) If children are already spending time in front of screens at home (which is clearly a class issue) shouldn’t we issue guidance to parents instead of ECE programs? Shouldn’t parents turn off the TV and shut down the computers to spend quality time with their children? Isn’t it more likely that professionals will make constructive use of interactive technology than parents who don’t know a lot about child development? Do we not trust the programs who are members of NAEYC to use technology judiciously?
3) The data, including the statement “32 hours” of “screen time” used out of context. Numbers are bandied about recklessly. Is this data about children birth to 8? Is the data reflective of TV/Video use or interactive technology, or what? All screens are not made equal. It’s irresponsible to generalize data and use it when it does not apply. That is a tactic for extremists. Extremism is bad for early childhood education.
4) Remember, the concept of Developmentally Appropriate Practice was developed by NAEYC. Clearly NAEYC does not advocate sitting groups of children down for instruction on computers or for anything else.
Prescribes that screen technologies should be included in all early childhood settings, regardless of the age of the children served or type of program. Even play-based and outdoor preschools will be expected to incorporate screens.
Provides no objective criteria or guidance to educators about whether or when to incorporate screens into their classrooms.
Does not address the growing problem of screen-based commercialism in preschools.
4) The draft does not prescribe anything. It does not “mandate” “screen time”. It is clear that NAEYC does not and cannot “mandate” anything. It is a voluntary membership organization that offers high level position statements. How can you make the leap from a position paper from a membership organization to “…expected to…” do anything?
5) In general, position statements are not standards. They simply outline an organization’s position from a very high level. They:
- do not include in-depth summaries of research, but do include citations upon which the statement was built.
- do not include a lot of direct guidance. They outline the position of the organization, which sets the stage for books, articles, policies, and procedures that will offer more guidance.
- cannot encompass detailed discussions of every possible negative result, but should offer high level guidance about the possible consequences and problems, as this draft does. Commercialism in media are not a part of a statement intended to discuss the use of interactive technology in the classroom. The authors of this draft were careful to carve out a specific path to discuss interactive technologies in the classroom to set the position statement apart from discussions about violent and otherwise harmful media and commercialism.
I’m issuing my own call to action: Let’s all agree that we are doing our best to help early childhood educators learn more about how to use interactive technology with intention and responsibility. Let’s take extremism out of the equation, use information in context, and think strategically about how to make progress. While I also urge everyone to send comments, I also urge you to use reason and offer ideas within the context of a position statement. If you need to write a book that builds upon or contradicts NAEYC’s position statement, have at it.
————————————————————————————-
Explore the real issues: How to evaluate interactive technology
Free webinar
Join Warren Buckleitner in a webinar that moves beyond this debate on June 1, 2011 at 2 PM EDT. One of the many webinars in the Early Childhood Investigations Webinar Series.
ECE Tech: Beyond Debate-How To Evaluate Children’s Interactive Technology Tools and Media
————————————————————————————-
Foolhardy Friday: You can’t cross the aisle with people who won’t extend their hands
Maybe I am just in a bad mood today. Have you ever noticed that you can’t shake hands with people who won’t give you their hands? You can reach out, but if the other person rebuffs your reach, your had is left helplessly and awkwardly flailing mid-air while you blush and stammer and the intended recipient tells you why your handshake is meaningless. OK. I’m being coy. Here’s what I really mean to say…
No matter what field you are in, and no matter how open-minded you are, you won’t be able to get some people to even listen to your ideas if they don’t want to consider another point of view. That’s the difference between ignorance and stupidity. Stupidity is innocent. If you don’t know something, you just don’t know. But ignorance means you are smart enough to understand it, but you choose to close your mind to the possibilities. Not shaking hands is ignorant.
“Duh! I Shoulda Thought of That!” LinkedIn Version
Last week I was fortunate to have the opportunity to drive through a whirlwind tour of my favorite social media system, LinkedIn, with enthusiastic members of the Maryland Chapter of PRSA. We were having so much fun, (or at least I was having so much fun) covering some of the “Power Tools” I use to light up LinkedIn, that we lost track of time, and never got back to the slides in the formal part of the presentation. Here are just a few of the bonus tips I intended to cover. (Can be found in the presentation itself on my site.)
“Duh! I Shoulda Thought of That Tips”
1) You must have a keyword-rich, interesting and remarkable profile.
2) Use your vanity URL.
3) Ummm… This is SOCIAL media! That means you sorta need to be open to connecting with people. (Hello?) make your profile PUBLIC and accessible! Check and update your settings!
4) Increase your connections. Make it a goal to add more each week.
5) Join 50 Groups, set up notifications so they come to your email, and READ and comment on them.
6) Create your Company Profile, add your products and services, post jobs, and ask employees to use the official company name so they show up as employees.
7) LinkedIn allows you to add links on your profile to your website, blog, and other sites. Use them, and name the links appropriately.
8) Update your status at least several times a week. If it makes it easier, link your Twitter account to LinkedIn or use Sharaholic, HootSuite,Sesmic Desktop, or Tweetdeck to post on LinkedIn and Twitter at the same time. Time saver!
9) Make friends with social media “Power Tools” like Sharaholic, HootSuite,Sesmic Desktop, or Tweetdeck (and others) to make power-posting possible.
10) You have a smartphone… Use it! Put the LinkedIn app on your iPhone, BB, or Android and use downtime (standing in lines is my fav) to post.
11) Get to know the Learning Center on LinkedIn and subscribe to the LinkedIn Blog.
12) Follow LinkedIn on Twitter.
13) The final “DUH!” Tip: Publicize your personal and company LI presences on your site, on print materials, on other social media sites, and on your forehead, if all else fails!
Want more? There are two more slides of tips in the bonus material in the presentation:
That was fun! More next week?
7 Reality Tips: The Care and Feeding of Websites
“We just launched this website 16 months ago! What do you mean you have to do more development?” says the CFO/CEO/President/Business owner to the marketing geek. I hear it all the time. It’s a common misconception that investing a lot into a website means you will only have to add new content in the future. You may think once you develop the site you won’t ever have to think about the website again. Wrong. Read on!
It’s true that if the design of your pages is robust and flexible, and you have an awesome content management system, you will have to make fewer major revisions to your site. And, the more you money and time you invest in designing a flexible design up front, the fewer changes you will need to make over the lifespan of your site. However, the bottom line is that websites are a bit like homes…They need regular maintenance. After all, your lifestyle changes, appliances and fixtures break, and advances in household products come out every day. Your home has to accommodate those inevitable changes. Your website also needs to adjust to reflect the changes in your business, rapid technology changes, and minor hiccups along the way. For example, the introduction of social plugins from Facebook have sent businesses back to their website developers to adjust their websites to accommodate feeds and like buttons. Adjusting pages to accommodate those changes required rethinking many websites. Regardless of external technology changes, business goals and priorities often change, and your website has to reflect those changes.
The fact is the average lifespan of a website is only three to (and this is pushing it) five years. If your website is more than 3 years old, and you’ve done nothing to it over those three years, chances are you need to start thinking about a major overhaul.
7 key recommendations about website development and maintenance:
- Invest as much as you can into your website design on the front end so you can:
- Build in a great content management system.
- Automate as many related marketing processes as possible.
- Build in a very flexible design that allows you to adjust along the way.
- Pick developers who you like, trust, and can work with over the course of the lifespan of your site. (Your developers will be your new BFFs, so you better respect them.)
- You will need to budget for website maintenance, enhancements, and tweaks every year over the lifespan of your site.
- You will need to revise or overhaul your site in 3-5 years.
- Think through your goals, target audience(s), and aesthetics. Be prepared to tell your developers as much about your needs as possible.
- It takes a small village to build a boffo site:
- Print designers and web designers are not interchangeable.
- Developers are not the same as web designers.
- These folks may know a bit about SEO, but are not search engine optimization experts.
- None of these aforementioned peeps are marketing experts.
A good development firm will be able to bring these skills to the table, but if your budget is limited and you can’t work with a firm with all the expertise you need, make sure the people you hire consider these factors in your website. Be sure to assign one person from your company or organization the role of project manager of the site development and someone (perhaps the same person) as the content manager who regularly updates the site. If you have a small company, or you are a one person shop, that person might be you. Plan to either carve out a significant amount of time to oversee the development, and a bit of time every week or two to maintain the site, unless you plan to outsource those activities.
7. Don’t forget that you will have to keep the content fresh and up to date, so if you don’t have a big team, you may have to either pay someone, or find time in your schedule. Websites that are not maintained are a poor reflection on your company.
Does Social Media Open Doors or Distract Early Childhood Educators?
I’ve always marveled at early educators’ ability to focus so intently on the children, families, and staff in their programs. To me, it’s a huge blessing. It’s also a curse. We are so mission-focused that we often don’t have the time or inclination to step back, look at the bigger picture, and decide how our work fits in to the overall scheme of where we’re going. Don’t get me wrong, I know from firsthand experience that operating programs that offer high-quality early learning experiences takes 100% of our energy, focus and passion. By the end of the day, there’s often little energy left over for much else. But, is our laser focus on our programs a help or a hindrance? And, does engagement through social media distract us or help us do more?
Laser Focus: Help or Hindrance?
Think about a laser for a moment: It shines a very intense light on a small area. Lasers do a great job shining through a swath, but leave other areas untouched. Are we so focused on our missions to make a difference for the children in our care that we fail to make important conceptual, political, and professional connections that can have more impact? I know when I operated programs, I often thought, “leave the political and networking stuff up to other people. I have my hands full, and I am doing important work.” Once I left the my programs for other related early education jobs, I saw that I missed incredible opportunities that would have benefited the children in my program and the direction of the field in general.
Why is it taking so long for us to engage?
Why am I writing about this now? I’m lamenting the void of engagement and sources of timely, relevant information in early care and education. I’m frustrated by how long it is taking for program practitioners to look up from guiding our lasers to see that there is a country and a world in which we operate, and it’s full of opportunities and insight. I’m also surprised to see how slow our community leaders are to add blogs and other social media as strategies to engage their members, supporters, and advocates.
But, I know I am preaching to the choir. Given that you are reading this post, you probably read other blogs, and engage on social media sites. YOU are probably NOT one of the hundreds of thousands of early childhood practitioners who are don’t purposely set aside time to learn more, network, advocate, or exchange ideas related to their work. (And, I ask you, what are you doing to encourage your colleagues to test social media?)
There is a dearth of social media interactivity and engagement in our field. Stop to think about the size of our field. It’s hard for me to fathom (and harder to find the real data) about how many early childhood educators there are in the US. (Statisticians, if you can wrap your head around this one, give me a shout!) I do know that there are only a handful of commonly read reliable and credible blogs and journals in our field to serve (conservatively) hundreds of thousands of educators. And, having been actively searching for early educators on social networking sites and listservs for many years now, I can estimate that less than 1% of us are engaging online. Contrast those (admittedly rough) stats with those related to business, and you can see how technically and engagement-challenged we are as a field.
We need to connect to learn from and partner with others in our field. That is not a new concept. We all connect through community or committee meeting every once in a while. We take a workshop or go to a conference a couple of times a year. We already read Young Children, Child Care Information Exchange, or one of the few journals for early childhood education. Awesome! Those IRL (techno-speak for “in real life”) experiences and activities are absolutely vital. Adding social media to those activities widens the circle of influence by allowing you to connect with others exponentially. The folks at CommonCraft illustrate the point so well. If you haven’t seen this yet, take a look at Social Networking in Plain English. Do you see how using social networking before or after meetings and conferences can extend the benefits well beyond the walls? This is just one example of the power the Internet has to help us influence and educate one another.
So, is social media a distraction for early childhood educators or an accelerant?
I assert that we need more to do more. We need more blogs. We need more interconnectedness. What do you think? There’s a lively conversation about just this issue going on in the Internet4ECE group on LinkedIn. Of course, you need to be a member of LinkedIn and a member of the group to read it. (Oh, am I secretly trying to illustrate engagement on the Internet? I would never be so sneaky.)
Resources:
I have a nice list of ECE blogs on slide 22 of my presentation from NAEYC’s Professional Development Institute: Supercharge Your ECE Program With Web 2.0. There’s a lot of additional information about social media in our field in that presentation, and you will find other resources on the Social Media for ECE on my website.
I’m dying to convince you. I’m dying for you to convince others, Check out some of my other presentations, resources, and the Social Media in ECE Directory I am compiling*, and share them if you find them helpful. Let me help you convince others that social media is a professional development, advocacy, and outreach accelerant, and an isolation-buster, bar none.
*If you would like to be included in the Social Media for ECE Directory, register! It only takes a couple of minutes!
Leave no customer behind (via Thinking out loud ~ Pensando en voz alta)
A great post supporting best practice in customer service and highlighting my piece on Facebook’s failure to provide customer service by Cynthia Goldbarg.
Facebook Fail: Nonexistent Customer Service
Poor Facebook. The company has its hands full. With relentless Congressional pressure to stop abusing our trust and peddling our privacy, the “leadership” at Facebook probably doesn’t have time to think about providing customer service to paying customers. The Facebook kids are so busy planning to build a totally social universe where it is at the center, they can’t be bothered to provide even passable customer service to those of us who pay for ads. As a matter of fact, Facebook expects us (the peeps with the money to spend on advertising) to adapt the their vision of customer service, which is totally online and delivered with an attitude. The message I’ve gotten any time I’ve tried to get customer service from Facebook is: “we may get to your problem when we can, and if you are worthy, otherwise, read our rules and responsibilities. You are on your own.”
I could fill you in on my tales of woe trying to rectify an overcharge with Facebook, but I won’t bore you with the details. Just rest assured that this social media consultant wants to pay for what she purchased, not overcharges, and she followed every step of the process as outlined by Facebook…MORE THAN 30 TIMES, and still can’t get resolution. Big, bad, bully FB disabled my account, and basically the company is now completely ignoring my requests to restore my access. I wonder if it is coincidence that I have Tweeted and posted on LinkedIn about Facebook arrogance and inconsistent product development prior to ever requesting customer service. Or maybe my account has not been restored because I had the audacity to try to get someone at Facebook’s attention in the light of day on Twitter.
Oddly, it never occurred to me that the account might have been deactivated because I have made negative comments until I read “Facebook we have a problem,” by Robert Scoble, a blog post that highlights the trials and tribulations vocal users have experienced with Facebook. It’s fascinating to read the comments by readers who have been abused by Facebook, but the most compelling reading of all are the responses from Facebook leadership, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself. The arrogance and lack of interest in basic tenants of customer service seep through in every syllable of the responses. Even though Scoble maintains a close relationship with the “in” posse at Facebook, in a follow-up post he agrees that the kids at Facebook have a lot to learn about business, trust, customer service, and long-range strategy planning. Check it out at “Our trust relationship with Facebook: complicated.”
But, I digress. The real issue is Facebook’s hypocrisy about playing by the rules of engagement in social media, the arrogance they display with their insistence that customer service can only be offered through email and online forms, and the lessons they will eventually be forced to learn about customer service. Right now, Facebook is on top, and somehow paying customers are suffering through the customer service void because Facebook offers very effective targeted advertising, and everybody who has something to sell wants the service. But there’s going to be a bottom. There will come a time when the people with the money choose to spend it elsewhere where they have at least minimal customer service.
So the big question is how long can Facebook continue to ignore paying customers, fail to provide customer service, and use the service like a playground on which the company defies all the rules (from development to privacy to customer service) and bullies everyone who wants to play?
Social Media Resources for Newbies- There’s nothing to fear! (I promise!)
Are you little intimidated by all the weird terms and concepts you’ve heard so much about? Don’t worry, social media is in its infancy, and we are all learning… some of us have a bit more experience, but we were all newbies once. Relax! Here is a smattering of great resources that will help you understand the basics.
The FIRST STOP:
(Do not pass GO… Start here!) CommonCraft Videos
The absolute easiest, most user-friendly, and basic source of information might just be found at CommonCraft. The folks at CommonCraft develop and deliver outstanding videos intended to make the most complex concepts simple and interesting. They sell their …In Plain English series of videos to trainers and large corporations, but they make them available for non-commercial use on owner Lee Lefever’s CommonCraft channel on YouTube. (Wait, I might be losing you with channels on YouTube. We’ll get there, but for now, just click on the links!)
Here are a few of my favorite ComonCraft Videos!
Social Networking in Plain English
Blogs in Plain English
Twitter in Plain English
RSS in Plain English (If you want to keep up with lots of blogs, you MUST see this video!)
There are many more on the CommonCraft channel on YouTube
A quick Glossary, courtesy of Socialbrite
Best overall resources
Mashable’s Social Media Guide
The overarching guide to social media that is updated several times a day:
Mashable’s Social Media Guide
Hubspot’s Internet Marketing Blog
Hubspot sells Internet Marketing software, so they want you to visit their blog, but in general, the information offered in this blog is very good! Highly recommended!
HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog
Articles and Webinars
From Joanne Fritz’ excellent Non-Profit Guide on About.com (a great resource for all things nonprofit, not just Social Media): 12 Tips for Nonprofits on Getting Started with Social Media
You’ll find a lot of Social Media articles in the Social Networking section of Network for Good’s Learning Center, Fundraising123
NTEN Artcles – Articles from the Nonprofit Technology Network
NTEN Webinars– Affordable webinars from NTEN
Blogs
This is a hodgepodge of blogs that focus on Social Media and its application for marketing and fundraising. Some are written for nonprofit organizations, but offer excellent reading for small businesses as well.
John Haydon’ Blog
Heather Mansfield’s Blog
Kivi Leroux Miller’s Nonprofit Marketing Guide
Allison Fine’s Blog
Beth Kanter’s Blog
Organizations that offer articles and training on Social Media for Nonprofit Organizations (but offer great resource even if your business is not nonprofit)
Association of Nonprofit Professionals
The Nonprofit Marketing Guide: High-Impact, Low-Cost Ways to Build Support for Your Good Cause by Kivi Leroux Miller
I’m On Linkedin– Now What? by Jason Alba
Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, Revised Edition by Andy Sernovitz
Guides and Whitepapers
Beyond the Hype: A Social Media Guide for Nonprofits and Advocates
from Texans Care For Children
Reference
If you are ever stuck, you can look up words, terms or phrases through Google:
Enter keyword: define: (the word or “phrase” you want to look find)
For more specific information, fast, I recommend Webopedia.
And, of course, the ever popular Wikipedia is helpful, but can be overwhelming.
Hey, Smartipants: Add your recommended resources here!
There is an overwhelming amount of information about social media! This is hardly a complete list! I’d love to add your favorites to this entry, so leave a comment to make this resource richer! (Yes, I know, a wiki would work better, but that’s a subject for another day!)
ECE Advocacy- Blown Away by 3-D Vision: Three Lessons from PAES, 2010
“Blown away.” That’s a pretty intense declaration. But, in fact, when it comes to my perceptions of the advocacy landscape for early childhood, I feel as though I have just put on high-def, 3-D glasses. I can see more clearly than ever. After my experience as a participant at the Partnership for Economic Success National Economic Forum on Early Childhood Investment, I feel as though for the past 25+ years in the field I have been been working with a unidimensional picture. Many of the misconceptions I had about business support for early learning initiatives have evaporated. I’m invigorated by what I’ve learned.
The Forum was replete with complex information, facts, and data presented by some of the most influential business leaders, politicians, and early learning experts in the country. The primary goal of the Forum is to offer the early learning sector the tools and information we need to develop coalitions “of business leaders advocating for increased investments in early childhood.” The sessions provided participants with the stories they need to tell, the data they need to show, and the tactics they need to use to build a movement and collation with the support of local and national businesses.
Of course, at the very foundation of the event was the fundamental message we all know and espouse: The first five years of life are the most crucial years for child development. What happens during these years impacts cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development like no other time in a child’s life. We know this. We live it. We tell the story day after day. But, the Forum shed new light (at least for me) on more compelling ways to tell the story so business leaders will join our movement and become our programmatic partners.
Because I spend most of my time thinking about engagement and communication, I see this as a communication issue. Have we been effectively spinning our stories? Are we bringing the right messages and the right people to the table with us? How can we impart our sense of urgency to legislators and to the public?
Three big takeaways from PAES:
1) There’s significant support in the business community for early learning. This was a huge surprise to me. Business leaders see early learning as a workforce issue. They know the work we do is paramount to developing good workers 15 to 20 years forward. They consider investments in early childhood “front-loading” costs because the investment results in higher returns down the line. Smart business leaders know that paying for high-quality early learning programs results in more well-rounded, prepared workers. They also embrace the research that high-quality programs result in lower rates of incarceration, which saves money “downline.”
There’s nothing to fear from approaching businesses for public and legislative support or programmatic partnerships. The business leaders who presented at PAES were aware of the urgency for support for early learning. Using the powerful detailed and comprehensive communication tools provided by the Partnership, advocates can and should start building support now. In their toolkit, the partnership has put together everything except the moxie you need to start talking with business leaders in your community. You supply the moxie.
2) Strengthen your advocacy position by keeping business leaders by your side. We all know our congressional leaders have heard our stories and our appeals for legislation before. We’re very good at crafting stories about the impact our programs have on the lives of families and children, and we know enough to bring parents and/or children with us to provide personal testimonials about the impact our programs have on their lives. But, congressional leaders must put the budget and the economy at the forefront of every appeal for legislation and funding. If we have any hope of breaking through to connect with legislators, we have to use the “3-D version” of the story and bring reinforcements with us. Armed with great tools like those provided by the Partnership, and a business representative from your community, you can offer a more crystallized and well-rounded story that speaks volumes.
3) We must put aside our differences to come together with a common voice and look for incremental “wins.” Differences? In the early care and learning community? Really? Yes. We’ve heard them all play out when it comes to funding at the local AND national level. We debate: Quality vs. Care for All, Pre-K vs. Child Care vs. Head Start (and on and on.) The patchwork of programs and state implementation has created a natural breeding ground for controversy. It’s natural that we all argue as we clamor for the hard-to-come-by dollars and legislation. It’s time to set those differences aside, and come together with a common voice to show the economic value and impact of high-quality early childhood programs.
There is a narrow window of time in the US right now. The national spotlight is starting to shine on our sector. We need to speak with one voice on a local, state, and national level and set our sights on smaller, more incremental expectations.
Things to do right now:
- Go to the PAES website.
- As per the directions of Rob Dugger, the PAES Advisory Board Chair, “scour the site,” and download the materials in the Communications Toolkit section.
- Integrate them into your advocacy and communications arsenal.
- Share them with your colleagues.
- Join the email list.
- Plan to attend the monthly Invest in Kids Working Group meetings.
- Read the PAES plan and decide where you and your organization fit.
- Read and commit to the Telluride Standards, which are the PAES roadmap for building a national movement for investing in children.
Leave a comment for me! Let me know what you think, especially if you attended the conference.
Oh, and by the way, subscribe to the RSS feed or to get updates to this blog by email. (Link on the right>)
140+: In the Moment 