Exchange Community Voices

Dear Reader,

I’ve been pondering the challenges and opportunities of being in community in a digital world. Our heartfelt desire with Exchange Community Voices is that together we are creating something meaningful to all of us who have a connection in some way to the important work of early care and education. We’d love to know that checking for the most recent articles becomes a helpful routine as you start your week. That’s the opportunity.

The challenge is finding articles relevant for the director of a large for-profit child care center, a college professor, a home child care provider, a Head Start educator, a coordinator in a community advocacy agency, and an assistant director in a nature-based program—just a few examples of the many roles that make up the diversity of our field. Or perhaps that’s also the opportunity.

READ THE ARTICLE >>

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a constant presence in all our lives. Even children are becoming adept at using many AI driven technologies. Asking Alexa to play a certain song or asking Siri to call someone are fast becoming second nature to our youngest learners. They are slowly becoming dependent on these tools to accomplish tasks without any cognitive or physical exertion. Gone are the days when we diligently studied the road atlas before planning a road trip or memorized the phone numbers of loved ones. Now most of us rely on many navigation tools for directions and smartphones for storing phone numbers. If we want to find out what the weather is going to be like, we tend to rely on Alexa or weather apps instead of using the typically viewed websites. These are examples of how AI tools are explicitly integrating into our lives. Implicitly, the AI tools take into account our past driving habits and suggest potential destinations we might be interested in driving to when we turn the navigation tool on or suggest YouTube feeds to watch or songs to listen to. This also includes the type of advertisements that pop up in our social media feeds. These suggestions are based on the pattern of our past choices. Though unnerving, this is the reality we are living in and the sophisticated digital environment in which our children are growing up.

READ THE ARTICLE >>

Created by Dr. Diana Suskind, Stonework Play meets children exactly where they are. It invites them into presence, creativity, collaboration, and self-kindness—using nothing more than stones and time.

In 2011, Diana traveled to Nepal as an Early Childhood School HEMS (Health, Education, Maintenance, and Support) consultant. Upon arrival, she discovered that supplies were scarce and that the curriculum consisted of children repeating what a teacher said and engaging in rote learning. She realized that children strongly needed a way to express themselves, so she aimed to develop an engaging curriculum that would spark their curiosity.

READ THE ARTICLE >>