To contact early childhood professionals around the world, I first went to the NAEYC website and explored The Global Alliance of NAEYC (The National Association for the Education of Young children, 2014). At the very bottom of the webpage, I noticed information about the World Forum Foundation and decided to explore their website. I recognize this organization because they often advertise their conferences on the Child Care Exchange Website (Child Care Exchange, 2014), which I use regularly for articles regarding early childhood and school age care.

I then went to the World Forum Foundation website (World Forum Foundation, 2014) and noticed at the bottom of their webpage a “join the conversation” link. I went to that part of the webpage, completed the “join now” button and then went to the member search part of the page and began searching for members based on their positions including consultant, director / owner and college instructor, all positions that I am somewhat familiar with. I contacted about six people through WoFoNet messaging (where professionals from around the world join and share a brief description of themselves) with a friendly message asking if they would be willing to share communications with me to help me learn about early childhood education in different parts of the world.

After waiting a few days (and very nervously I must admit), two people responded and very graciously agreed to have conversation with me through email! Yay! Patrick is from Harare, Zimbabwe and Betsy is from Haarlem, Netherlands. I am really looking forward to their perspectives.

The early childhood organization that I have chosen to study in depth is Zero to Three (Zero to Three, 2014). I am have visited this website many times over the past few years and enjoy the research presented regarding the very earliest years of development. I would like to utilize the resources on this website to fine-tune my knowledge of children ages birth through three years old, since much of my professional experience is with preschool through school age.

Child Care Exchange (2014). Retrieved from http://www.childcareexchange.com/.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (2014). Global Alliance for the Education of Young Children. Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/resources/partnership/globalalliance.

World Forum Foundation (2014). Retrieved from http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wofonet/.

Zero to Three (2014). Retrieved from http://zerotothree.org/.