Earlier this year our elementary ITRT team wrote a grant for a 3D printer and 27 MaKeyMaKeys. We haven’t received our MaKeyMaKeys yet, but luckily Kaechele Elementary, one of my schools has 3 already. I was able to pull small groups of 4th and 5th graders to do a quick introduction to how the MaKeyMaKeys work and what they can be used for. I don’t think it could have gone any better! The kids we so excited about everything we were doing, and they were even experimenting with various aspects of the MaKeyMaKeys. One group I worked with wanted to see if they could hold one ground and touch each other to see if the MaKeyMaKey would still respond. When it did the students were able to accurately explain why it was working using their knowledge in science.
I only had 30 minutes with each group, so of course the students didn’t think that was nearly enough time! We had time to visit a few sites that I put in the Server Shortcuts folder. I put the links there so that students could use them at any time. Since I am only at Kaechele once a week I didn’t want the students to have to rely on me being there to use the MaKeyMaKeys. We are going to set at least one of the MaKeyMakeys up in the library as a makerspace station. At the end of the 30 minute period the students were extremely excited to use it again, they talked about asking their parents for one, and they were all brainstorming ideas on how to use it. Great tools like this are often passed up by teachers because they do not know how to link to what they are studying, but if you give it a chance you can immediately see the value. As a team the elementary ITRTs are developing curriculum connections for K-5 classes, and we would LOVE to come in to do a lesson with the MaKeyMaKeys. It can be whole group, small group, or however we all think it will work best, but you should seriously try one of these out!
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