“They may forget what you said but they will not forget how you made them feel”

~Carl W. Buechner  

The quote above is a great reminder of the impact teachers make in the lives of students and why it is important to celebrate and recognize hard working teachers who have made it their goal to leave positive imprints in the lives of their students. 

Manager of Innovation and Academic Engagement at District School Board of Niagara – Educational Research and Innovation Centre, Anamaria Dragoi is one of such #superstar teachers whose impact should not go unnoticed. Currently serving her fifth year in this position, Anamaria has helped harness the creativity of students and brought out the best in them. 

As a person who holds a system level position, she has the opportunity to work with students and teachers across the board in approximately 100 schools. We were very excited to learn more about how she uses MAD-learn with students across the district. With all that’s happening globally due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Anamaria decided to maximize the use of MAD-learn as a virtual tool. She started by introducing MAD-learn to students via STEM focused virtual camps and is currently working with 100 grade 3 to 5 students. She expects this number to double by the end of the Summer Learning program.

According to Anamaria, using MAD-learn as a tool which introduces students to design thinking, entrepreneurial thinking and coding is a great experience. She is proud to say that her students have developed their communication, planning, collaboration, creativity and presentation skills through mobile app development.

We applaud the efforts of Annamaria and her team at iHUB in exposing her students to online technologies and opening up a window of opportunities to connect them with the world!