In their second year of collaboration, MAD-learn by Crescerance and Vicki Davis of Westwood Schools in Camilla, GA announce the global expansion of their “MAD about Mattering” collaboration, teaming the #edtech product of Crescerance and the award-winning teaching and learning pioneer together again. This project brings together the best of compassion-driven innovation, mobile application development, and classroom collaboration on a global scale, all with the goal of fostering STEM & STEAM engineering among students of all ages.
Based on ideas from the students, this year’s topic is “what makes your heart beat?”. This year’s focus is to encourage students to learn about issues in their community, analyze those concerns and empower them to create solutions via developing a mobile application. Students will be challenged to collaborate as they address what makes their heart beat. After their research, these students from 5 countries will collaborate to create a mobile app that could make a difference to them and the world.
This year’s MAD about Mattering project (MAD stands for Mobile App Development) kicked off in February with a live video chat of 18 teachers from around the world, where they discussed and finalized the plans for their students. The project runs from February through May and was keynoted by renowned international keynote speaker Kevin Honeycutt. Participating students are being led by these amazing, courageous, and trail-blazing teachers as well as their supporting schools. You can follow along with many of them via Twitter or at @MADLearn or #appsthatmatter.
1. Junior Bernadin – The Ron Clark Academy, Atlanta, GA, USA
2. Tamra Billings – Shelby County Schools, Maxine Smith STEAM Academy, TN, USA
3. Jeaniffer Cubangbang – Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands Public Schools, Marianas High School, Mariana Islands
4. Tom Davidson – Seaforth Public School, Australia
5. Vicki Davis – Westwood Schools, Camilla, GA, USA
6. Kimberly Herron – Inman School District, Inman Elementary School, KS, USA
7. Leigh Kidd – Henry County Schools, Locust Grove Middle School, GA, USA
8. Christina King – Seaforth Public School, Australia
9. April Lindsey – District School Board of Niagara, Fort Erie Secondary School, Canada
10. Erika Lovasi – District School Board of Niagara, Orchard Park School, Canada
11. Dawn Madden – Hall County Schools, Flowery Branch High School, GA, USA
12. Jamie Nicholls – District School Board of Niagara, Edith Cavell PS, Canada
13. Laura Pena – Atlanta Public Schools, Coretta Scott King Young Women’s Leadership Academy, GA, USA
14. LaSheena Simpson – Gwinnett County Schools, Meadowcreek High School, GA, USA
15. Daryl Stone – Henry County Schools, Eagles Landing Middle School, GA, USA
16. Nancy Soria – Aldine Independent School District, Grantham Academy, TX, USA
17. Pintu Thaker – Gwinnett County Schools, Meadowcreek High School, GA, USA
18. Robert Young – Colegio Lumen, Paraguay
“Last year, students from five classrooms in the United States collaborated and far exceeded our expectations. This year, the project moves internationally as students from elementary to high school remove their classroom walls and join together to invent the future,” says Vicki Davis, author of the award winning Cool Cat Teacher Blog and an original founder of the Flat Classroom Project, winner of the ISTE 2006 Online Learning Award. She has founded more than 30 global collaborative projects spanning the globe with thousands of students of all ages participating.
“Of the more than thirty global projects that I have done, this is the most far-reaching and challenging one today. We’re duplicating what happens via fiber optics between Silicon Valley, China and India every day but taking it between the classrooms of the world. These students will be uniquely prepared to collaborate because many of them will have experienced global collaboration before they even have their driver’s license. And that’s how I see it, MAD about Mattering is a driver’s license for the modern age of making, inventing, and collaboration. In many ways, the Makerspace has gone online.” Vicki Davis was one of the earliest adopters to implement the MAD-learn program in her classroom, and quickly realized that it was an ideal tool for global collaboration.
“We were so inspired by what we saw 5 schools accomplish in last year’s cohort, that we couldn’t wait to bring more students into the project this year” says Crescerance President and co-founder, Alefiya Bhatia. “Our hope is to enable thousands of students each year to become connected, globally aware, and to generate the mutual love and respect that our world so desperately needs today. If you can do that while also teaching students essential career skills like app development, design, quality assurance, marketing, communications, virtual collaboration, project management, and so much more more, why not?”
The MAD about Mattering project will culminate with an online MAD-shark tank competition the first week of May as students pitch their apps to potential investors and vie to launch their apps to the world. To be a considered for a “shark spot” please contact the MAD-learnteam through their website.
Uncut was the winner of last year’s MAD about Mattering collaborative and is now a live app on iTunes and Google Play (search “Uncut App” by Crescerance to download and view the app). Students from 3 different schools collaborated with each other virtually and asynchronously to build this app together.
To learn more about this project or participate in the next cohort, please visit https://www.madaboutmattering.com or contact madaboutmattering(at)crescerance(dot)com. You can also follow the movement on social media with the hashtag #appsthatmatter.
Global Problems. Student-created solutions.
MAD about Mattering.