The Next Step in Global Collaboration
From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis
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MAD about Mattering is a new project that is a dream come true for me! Last year, my students learned to program apps using MAD-Learn and released two apps onto the app store. Students were highly engaged but also pushed to new levels of knowledge and achievement in Computer Science as they developed their own apps. But we are ready to collaborate.
This year, it is time to level up. So, I’m excited to announce a project I’ve co-created with my friends Angela Maiers from Choose2Matter, and Alefiya Bhatia from Crescerance/MAD-Learn to create the MAD about Mattering global collaborative app development project. (Press release below with hyperlinks to everything. My dear friend and former Flat Classroom administrator Lisa Durff is also involved.)
We are working to unleash student creativity and compassion as they collaborate, innovate, and learn together.
This first project will be smaller. We’ll document and publicly share what we’re doing. In the fall, some of you can join in with us, or create your own based upon the principle’s we’ll be sharing.
So, start small, perfect the process and scale up. This project is based upon the work I’ve done previously on projects like the Flat Classroom Project, Horizon Project, NetGenEd, Digiteen, Digitween, Eracism, a Week in the Life, Physics of the Future, Gamifi-ED and now MAD about Mattering!
Can you imagine kids collaborating and creating apps together? It is going to be so exciting! Please read the press release, visit the website, and watch the video if you want to know more. If you want to join us, apply on the website.
What is happening in the MAD about Mattering Project?
PRESS RELEASE
MAD about Mattering: A Global Collaboration Among Students To Build Apps that Matter To Our World
ATLANTA, GA — MAD-learn by Crescerance, Choose2Matter, and award-winning global collaborative teaching and learning pioneer Vicki Davis announce the new “MAD about Mattering” global collaborative app development project. This new project will take the best of compassion driven innovation, mobile app development, and global collaboration to create a new model of collaborative engineering between students of all ages.
Students will be asked to consider their heartbreak to create an app that makes a difference to the world.
“Following your heartbreak is the single most effective way to help individual and organizations to discover their purpose and find an innovative way to act on it,” says Angela Maiers, author of the best-selling book The Passion Driven Classroom and founder of the Choose2Matter movement.
“Innovation is not an event; it is an invitation to use your genius to better the world. We are not only inviting students; we are imploring them to create something that could make the world a better place” says Maiers.
This project will happen this semester as teachers develop and share best practices for collaborative app development. A toolkit for teachers will be made available at the end of the 2015-2016 school year as an OER (open education resources), allowing other teachers across the world to follow this method of quad engineering.
“So far, many students have collaboratively written, researched, created video, and even built virtual worlds, but now it is time to engineer together,” 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 20 global collaborative projects spanning the globe with thousands of students of all ages participating. “This is truly the next generation of global collaboration and we’re recruiting top classrooms to help perfect this method and share it with the world,” says Davis.
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’ve seen students around the country do amazing things in their classrooms when they are given the ability and access to create technology in a simple fashion”, says Crescerance co-founder, Alefiya Bhatia. “Just imagine the potential of connecting these bright minds that exist in every country and enabling them to work TOGETHER to solve their heartbreaks!”
The MAD about Mattering project will kick off on February 1 and 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.
“We’re eager to create a network where students can not only create amazing apps that help our world, but also get access to mentors, industry experts, and investment to help take their ideas to the next level. We hear about phenomenal entrepreneurs all the time who have received investment from angel investors or VCs, why not a 15 year old?”, asks Alefiya Bhatia, co-founder of Crescerance and creator of the MAD-learn program being used in the project.
To learn more about this project please visit www.madaboutmattering.com or contact madaboutmattering@crescerance.com. You can also follow the movement on social media with the hashtag #appsthatmatter.
Media Contact:
Kathryn Brannen
404-913-2737
madaboutmattering@crescerance.com
#appsthatmatter
The post MAD about Mattering: A New Global Collaborative App Project #steam appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!
from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/new-global-collaborative-app-project-mad-about-mattering/
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