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MAD-news for April: NEW MAD-store Mobile App (and other news…)

Hi Guest,

Happy Tax Day (said no one, ever;-) Hopefully you have your taxes taken care of, and are ready for a great week! I just returned from a trip to San Diego last week for the ASU GSV Summit where we were invited to present our work. While there were major educational issues on the table, like equity and access, the importance of social and emotional learning, system interoperability, and investment in education companies in the US and globally, my big pitch to attendees was for us to collectively work together to ensure that making it to a 5-year milestone as an EdTech start up is no longer an uncommon occurrence. We can’t let innovation die as quickly as it forms. We have to have more companies like ours with strong, quality programs for students, with innovative ideas for building a better learning experience, grow and succeed long term to ensure student impact, long term. We have to be #bettertogether.

If you haven’t already, check out Pillars #1, #2, and #3 of our 5 Years of MAD-learn blog series here.

Alefiya Master

Founder & CEO

New App Template: HCJ Builder!

MAD-learn introduces a completely new kind of experience for students that will allow them to build even more robust mobile apps—the HCJ Builder. HCJ stands for HTML, CSS, and Javascript – each one of these coding languages has specific responsibilities that combine to “make magic happen” in mobile apps.

  • HTML(Hyper Text Markup Language) provides the basic structure of sites, which is enhanced and modified by other technologies like CSS and JavaScript.
  • CSS(Cascading Style Sheet) is used to control presentation, formatting, and layout.
  • JavaScript is used to control the behavior of different elements.

This new screen template brings three common coding languages together to make apps more interactive, visually impressive and even animated. Teachers and students will find that endless possibilities exist for making more interactive and engaging mobile apps with this new template.

Some things students will be able to create with this new template include: more visually engaging and interactive screens through multi-colored and textured text fields, animations, rimed quizzes and simple games, and much more. It will be released this week so log in to check it out and let us know what you think!

Welcome to the MAD-family!

We want to thank all of the schools that have either renewed their partnerships with MAD-learn or are just joining our MAD-family. We are so happy to know we will be continuing our work to help students at:

  • Bell County High School (KY)
  • Berea College (KY)

We look forward to working with all of our schools throughout the year!

“MAD-flash” App Building Sessions

Our VP of Sales, Kimberley Bynoe loves working with the students of any age, in any environment, in-person or virtually. She is fascinated by how easily they grasp the concept of app building and the importance of design thinking. “They take to it like fish to water, I tease that they are much easier to work with than adults,” she says. Over the last six weeks, Kimberley has worked with students between 50 minutes – 90 minutes, and each student has left the session with an app on their phones, app-related vocabulary, and the knowledge that they can change the world with their ingenuity.

For example, at Arabia Mountain High Academy of Engineering Medicine and Environmental Studies, 10-12 grade computer science students during their block schedule were able to build apps about themselves. Kimberley said, “The time went by so fast! Some students had their favorite sports team as their splash screen without any instruction – it was amazing.  One young MAD-scout declared: ‘Ms. Kimberley my app is going to be the most fly’”. Kimberley did almost the same thing through a video session with 2nd – 5th graders and their parents during a PTA night at Oodenawi Public School – Halton District School Board Canada. It was a 50-minute session, and they made apps about their pets.  She loved all the smiles when they saw their apps on their parent’s phones in less than an hour!

We have many examples of how students are super engaged when learning about app development.  If you are interested in a visit to your classroom apply now. We love working with kids at all stages of the design thinking process!

MAD-teacher of the Month

One of our favorite Long Island superstar teachers is Victoria McNaughton. Ms. McNaughton is a Computer Game Design/CTB Teacher at Wilson Tech, which is part of the career and technical division of Western Suffolk BOCES. We had an opportunity to visit her classes and talk with some of her students about their experiences as app builders. They shared their successes and made suggestions without trepidation–traits they obviously have picked up from their mentor.

Victoria is a serious educator who wants nothing less than the best for her students and expects the same from them. Victoria has her students building a variety of apps and says: “MAD-learn helps creative teachers broaden their students’ horizons with real world application. MAD-learn has been a wonderful tool in my classroom as it helps students blend problem-solving, organizational, business and team-building skills.” She continues, “My students host an App Showcase event for the school, at which they demonstrate their apps and they have also built an app for their school store.” We salute our MAD-teacher of the month, as well as her serious-minded and talented charges!

… downloading the NEW MAD-store Mobile App!!

We know you have been waiting for it, and it’s finally here! The brand new MAD-store mobile app is live and ready for you to download on your iOS or Android phones and tablets. Get it now and check out the new bookmarks, search, categories, app ratings, and more.

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