Hello there! Iām Andrea – born and raised in Toronto. I live in the innovative city of Dubai. I started out teaching Design Technology in a small city in the United Arab Emirates. I moved to Dubai 2 years ago when I had my baby and have been a resident in this country for almost 6 years. I intend to go back to work in September 2021. My educational background includes a political science degree, an interactive media design diploma, and now the MET program at UBC! I completed one course so far in MET and have enrolled in 2 courses – ETEC 523 and 510. I have a two-year-old girl and my husband is a physics teacher. We plan to explore the world for a long time doing what we love. When not teaching, I love to travel, read, play video games, and design stuff.
While studying in the MET program I hope to learn how to improve and create a curriculum in design technology and create makers spaces that encourage creation and innovation. This lack of a fully developed curriculum to incite drive and creativity is a problem that many teachers and I have encountered. I taught many design courses over 4 years – my area of specialty is graphic, user experience design, and web content management. In this course, I would like to learn more about the mobile space in education and how to improve the user experience design of these applications since it seems to be moving from desktop devices to mobile ones.
Eventually, I would like to be part of an educational tech company to improve these applications. Before I pursue that, I would like to explore in the classroom the options that mobile learning offers and use them as productive tools of learning.
I am excited to learn from your exciting educational and professional experiences in education technology and design.
Yogyakarta temple in Indonesia 
2020 New Years Festival In Japan 
Where I live. 
Students improving the user experience design in Instagram
Hi Andrea, cool stuff. I think we have some similarities around Design Thinking and making. I’ve been pondering transferring from the classroom to an ed tech company as well.
We do have many similarities. I know you are focused in VR. If you like I can send you some cool videos that I have taken at VR parks here in Dubai. Regarding the transfer, I am thinking of doing the ed tech company or consulting. But I do need more experience in the classroom to advise anyone on anything. š
Hello Andrea, I love the images of Dubai! The poster sized keyboard on the wall is intriguing, too š I am interested in designing mobile education at the elementary level. I look forward to learning from your experiences over the course of this semester!
Thank you. I really like it here so I thought to share. The giant sized keyboard is to help subconsciously cement the placement of the keys in their heads. š Designing mobile education on a mobile device would be soo awesome. I looove designing apps. Maybe we can collaborate on a project. š