Hi Guest,

This past weekend many of our team members celebrated Diwali, the Indian festival of lights which marks the victory of good over evil and light over darkness. As the holiday season is now upon us all, I hope we can find and rekindle the light within ourselves and have it shine bright for our students who need us, now more than ever. Never forget how important you are to them.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of us in the United States who will be celebrating next week! Please be safe and stay well as you celebrate in what will no doubt be a different holiday season during this pandemic. On behalf of our entire MAD-learn family, THANK YOU for allowing us to be a part of your journey.

Alefiya Master

Founder & CEO

What’s New?

Latest MAD-recognition

Since its first annual meeting on 9 November 2009 – the 20th anniversary of the peaceful fall of the Berlin Wall – the Falling Walls Conference and Berlin Science Week have grown into a World Science Summit – with one question at its core: Which are the next walls to fall in science and society? MAD-learn has been named a Falling Walls Finalist for Science Breakthroughs of the Year in Digital Education!

Over the summer, leading academic institutions nominated their Breakthroughs of the Year in 10 fields of science – from life sciences to science engagement initiatives. Here is our finalist video talking about how we are Breaking the Wall of Inclusivity in Computing and democratizing technology creation for ALL students.

MAD-feature for YOU

Each month we will feature a resource that will help you and your students leverage the power of MAD-learn to create dynamic and interactive mobile apps. This month we take a closer look at the Guide to the HCJ Code Sets Library tutorial.

This video tutorial will help students learn how to access the HCJ Code Sets (directly from the screen builder) to build dynamic and interactive screens. It also includes a look at the HCJ Code Set Demos app on MAD-store that provides samples of what the code sets actually look like on an app. Here is a link to this month’s featured resource. hAPPy building!

MAD-spotlight!

MAD-teacher of the Month

Alexis Kleiman is a community-minded champion for youth engagement and leadership. Since graduating from Brock University, she has flourished into her current role at the District School Board ofNiagara’s Education Technology Innovation Hub, ihub, where she has spent the last five years creating meaningful connections between educators, students, and educational technology startup companies.

Her primary passion at ihub is engineering empowering learning experiences for K12 students in the areas of STEAM and entrepreneurship. Through her work at ihub, Alexis contributes to the Advisory Committee for the CONNECT Education Conference – Canada’s largest educational technology conference. She is also a dedicated volunteer, serving as the Vice-Chair of NEXTNiagara, a young professional council through her local Chamber of Commerce and sitting on various committees for the Education Foundation of Niagara and the YWCA of Niagara Region. Alexis’ commitment to community through her professional and volunteer work led her to be a finalist for the 2018 Women in Business Awards.

When asked about her experience with MAD-learn, Alexis said:

“ihub’s partnership with MAD-learn is invaluable! I’ve been fortunate enough to have witnessed MAD-learn’s commitment to inspiring student creativity firsthand since joining ihub but since moving to remote programming as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the superpowers of MAD-learn have been especially evident. At ihub, we’ve been able to leverage MAD-learn to create a new opportunity for our DSBN ihub community through a virtual MAD-learn Club, growing to over 300 students to date! We have been able to leverage MAD-learn’s existing framework for online STEM learning — where students can connect, collaborate, and create while moving through the design thinking process. They’re introduced to a virtual space where they can put on their entrepreneurial thinking cap and be free to create their own possibilities! A space where they practice their communication, planning and presentation skills. Through the App creation process, right from ideation to publishing their app to the MAD-store, students can build on and/or develop skills that prepare them to be creators of technology, not just consumers such as critical thinking, problem solving and computational thinking to name a few. Not to mention, they have so much fun with the platform…and so do we! We are grateful for the engaged team at MAD-learn who is there to support us along the way and is always so responsive to the needs of our students.”

#CSEdWeek: December 7-13, 2020

Computer Science Education Week is December 7-13 this year. Don’t have a plan yet? Book a time with us to make a plan and to get your DIY App Challenge Kit to have your students create amazing mobile apps to help STOP racism, hunger, climate change, animal abuse, and more. We are already supporting teachers across the United States and Canada during #CSEdWeek and would love to work with you too.

Don’t leave without…

…checking your Analytics!

There is some great usage data for you to explore, including general and student-specific data you can access for any given time period. Click on Analytics when you are logged into MAD-learn to review your data today.