At
the opening session of the NAEYC Annual Conference last November, the new
Executive Director Rhian Evans Allvin asked everyone to take out their smart
phones and tweet simultaneously the same early childhood public policy
message. As I looked around the room, it
was obvious that the majority of those in attendance that knew how to tweet, were the professionals that were younger then I was. Rhian Evans Allvin was reaching out to a new
crop of early childhood advocates in the way they communicated regularly. She was also daring the old guard to rise to
the occasion. Now… I have been on Facebook for years, but not Twitter. I realized that if I was going to be an
affective early childhood advocate I must keep-up with the times. I had to join Twitter.
Organizations
such as the National Association for the Education for Young Children (NAEYC),
The Children’s Defense Fund, and Zero to Three use social media to advance their
public policy agendas. They use social
media such as Facebook and Twitter to disseminate positive updates, as well as alerts for early childhood advocates to help support time sensitive
legislation.
As
I have spent the last 2 weeks investigating websites of organizations whose
missions are to support the well-being of children, families and the
professionals that work with them everyday for my course work, I have also
connected to the organizations through social media. I now follow many more organizations through
my Facebook and Twitter accounts. As
soon as I receive an alert or update I can repost it or re-tweet it so not only
my early childhood colleagues can see the information, but also the many people
I connect with outside the field. I
believe this is a way to begin to engage and educate the general public to the
importance of strong foundations for young children. I have also begun to follow my elected
officials via social media. I
am convinced, to be an affective advocate in the 21st Century a
person or organization must use 21st Century technology…. Even if it
is mildly uncomfortable!
I have mixed feelings about social media and how we use it for so much. I do not have a twitter account and have no plan on creating one. I would not even know how to begin to tweet something at that conference and I am only in my 20's. I think as a whole we all put too much emphasis on technology and how the information is sent through the sources. I have a facebook account but would not think to go on there to see information pertaining to anything important. However, I agree that it can be used to keep current with trends if the right sources are putting up correct information. I am going to have to see if my local organizations have facebook accounts to help me stay current. As for twitter, now that's something I don't think I am quite ready to venture out and explore.
ReplyDeleteBetsy,
ReplyDeleteI agree that many of the organizations are connected that advocate for similar rights or policies. These combined groups are more effective in creating policy changes. I also agree that it takes a joint effort to convince policy makers to make policy changes.